I do not think so. It's a live stream. At 17PM PST, I've always thought it's the worst time for everyone.
If @TreySmith could just move it a couple of hours earlier I think everyone will be thankful But I guess its too late now. We will have to drink a couple of Red Bull's for this one.
So excited. I got home with 30 minutes to spare before the webinar! See you all there Hopefully it's acceptable to be there to listen and not have any questions of my own.
Great event. Great info. My new game, poised to be released but now taking a brief hiatus as I make adjustments recommended, was featured #1: SHAPEQUEST (or is it MATCHQUEST)! Thanks to @TreySmith and the team for the great feedback
Ha, did not know that was yours, Andy. Great game. Lots of potential Can tell you put some work in that one.
I missed the event, woke up an hour late (early in the morning for me!) is there going to be a replay?
Although I do appreciate these kind of events a lot and can understand that in the end it's all about making money I'd love to see a more critical way of looking at the market. Having a game published by a publisher is awesome, nonetheless, we all have seen that even with one (or most) of them, success keeps being a question of luck and mostly depends on the Apple feature in the US. I can't say it in other words than: this sucks big time! and at the very least, this is misleading for newbies like me. I learned this by myself and the hard way and we probably all can agree on this one if you have published some own games and wanted to earn money for a living: we can't build a business on top of luck. So making and polishing a great game is one thing but the game industry seems not to have any room for independent games which do not count with a big marketing budget. So going after a publisher might be a better option than going alone but it simply might not be an option at all to build a business on it. We can look at most games published recently by all known publishers (exept Ketchapp and Fortafy) and my guess is that 95% (or more) failed completely. With failed I mean that downloads do not break the 50k mark. Even worse they don't even get more than a few thousand and having a revenue of approximately $0.04-$0.1 per install this doesn't get you anywhere. For me, the game industry has been the most difficult of all industries I have moved in. And after two years working in it I can say that the publisher road is only an option if you can get a deal with one of the big ones. There are some really interesting new proposals marketing wise from the smaller ones but it seems that they are still not at the height of the impact Fortafy and Ketchapp achieve with their own tactics. But saying that getting a publisher deal is the holy grail is from my point of view not correct. I'd love to hear some more opinions on this matter. And thanks again for doing this kind of events. Cheers!
I loved the event. I think it should be a regular thing for BB License holders. But I have to say, it's a bit disheartening when you hear getting a Publisher is primarily the only way you can create a business though. I feel like I've literally just created the best game I have ever made, and one publisher didn't even watch my video, install the TestFlight or response to my email
The replay is here http://www.publisherweekly.co/replay/ @Christoph Define a business first, please. In some countries one person can earn $500 monthly and it would be enough to start thinking about making business in longer perspective, in other earning $5K wouldn't be enough to be a sole trader (unless you are under 20 yo).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business But basically I'm talking about building something (alone or in a team) that makes you enough of a earning to keep going and grow at the same time. Something sustainable that allows you to plan and react towards the immediate and long-term future. Something that lets you invest in better and bigger products, stronger marketing and more sales. That's at least why I'm doing games in comparison to doing it just like a Hobby. And no, with $500 you would have a hard time to look at it as a professional activity in most parts of the world I know of. Not even in third world countries, maybe in the poorest of them you could but then you probably have a hard time to pay even the license and the Internet connection, not talking about a good computer to do all the work. In the US you wouldn't be able to pay your rent and if you are working in a team even $5k would be difficult to get you anywhere. I know money is relative but in the end we are here to earn more than just a quick buck. That's at least how I see it.
My opinion is based on internet dig and real life talks with guys from mobile game industry based in Europe. I think it would be possible to set up a small team of 2-3 people using BB2 and covering all sectors from design through 'programming' and monetizing/marketing but the most important thing is constancy in developing good games and publishing them with good publishers. One good title, either trending or successful is not enough. Successful title for indies starts from $3K/month but the 'life' of such a title is short, 2-4 trending weeks and it goes down to few hundreds a month but can be constant for a year or more. You need to develop at least 1 successful title each month. It is possible but you need to create few titles each month and finalize at least one of it each month. With a portfolio of 10 or more such a titles you would be able to expand the business slowly. But it is a full-time hard work and time with no guarantee of any profits. I'm not talking about hit games, it's a different story and I wouldn't build a business plan based on it. It should be a goal. Other case is a 'farm' of common or cloned games. I mean an army of similar games, not exact clones, what is an issue for me. With dozens of titles with income of $100-300 a month (or more) it could be a really good 'passive income'. But it will not last forever, you will still need to develop new titles what is possible with larger team with lower salary/shares expectations that's why it's so popular in Far East or Asian countries where life costs are much more cheaper than in Europe or States. These are just my thoughts, I'm not even sure if I'm right because I've never created a successful title yet but working on it. I hope I'm wrong and the situation is better My only concern is that as an indie dev you are still 'under' politics of Stores which can change anytime. So you are not fully independent in terms of selling your product. I will not be surprised if AppStore will start to charge $1000 instead of $100 just to remove all that crap devs It was good to build a warehouse full of titles but even if capacity of that warehouse is unlimited I would rather choose - as a customer - smaller store with good quality products instead of digging through hundreds of junk. Maybe they will build Stores Pro for hi-end products but I think it will change sooner or later by making indies life harder so focus should be on: how to become an AAA title developer as soon as possible