Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Concept
My goal for this process is to get an mobile application into the market place. I am aiming for 10,000 downloads with an average user rating of 3stars or above. I'm a .net consultant by day so whilst I am keen to hit the code I'm more interested in experiencing the publishing marketing and support aspects of taking this kind of product to market. I've also read lots of contradictory articles proclaiming there is no money in app development and other articles swear that there is. I will be looking at the various options to monetise the app and I will find out for myself if there is money to be made. Either way I'm pretty sure the days of the iFart millionaires are long gone.
So to achieve my goals I have 2 main requirements:
If you have read any articles on app usage or are into apps yourself you will know that most of the buzz is around games. They account for more that 50% of app usage. Game play seems to be causal with most gaming sessions lasting only a few minutes and the most popular games have some kind of novelty factor.
So I'm developing a game. I'm not planning on revolutionising the mobile gaming industry here, not with my first release at least, so I'm going to follow the Kiss Principle and keep it simple.
My initial thoughts turned to the infamous bubble wrap app. You get a screen of bubble wrap, you press a bubble and get a satisfying pop sound. Its a nice simple concept, uses graphics, sound and the touch interface. It has simple gameplay logic and high novelty factor but has been done to death and not exactly original, right?
So I'm going to take that simple concept and add a twist. Instead of static bubbles I'm going to move them around a bit. Instead of bubbles I'm going to use bugs. I have ideas for scoring and gameplay and surprises but I'm keeping the nice simple touch interaction and novelty graphics and sounds.
So to achieve my goals I have 2 main requirements:
- To get 10,000 downloads It must be something that users want to have on their phones.
- It needs to be something I can develop fairly quickly as I'm interested in the bigger process.
If you have read any articles on app usage or are into apps yourself you will know that most of the buzz is around games. They account for more that 50% of app usage. Game play seems to be causal with most gaming sessions lasting only a few minutes and the most popular games have some kind of novelty factor.
So I'm developing a game. I'm not planning on revolutionising the mobile gaming industry here, not with my first release at least, so I'm going to follow the Kiss Principle and keep it simple.
My initial thoughts turned to the infamous bubble wrap app. You get a screen of bubble wrap, you press a bubble and get a satisfying pop sound. Its a nice simple concept, uses graphics, sound and the touch interface. It has simple gameplay logic and high novelty factor but has been done to death and not exactly original, right?
So I'm going to take that simple concept and add a twist. Instead of static bubbles I'm going to move them around a bit. Instead of bubbles I'm going to use bugs. I have ideas for scoring and gameplay and surprises but I'm keeping the nice simple touch interaction and novelty graphics and sounds.
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Yes, I agree, the days of fart apps are over. I don't know, but nowadays it's doubt it's so easy to get a successful app on iOS since there's already an app for everything.
ReplyDeleteOn Android there's maybe still some potential especially in the gaming market. there's also new chances for developers all the time, i.e. if there are new platforms (Honeycomb tablets), markets (Amazon), stuff like the NVIDIA development kit, etc.
I think your right about tablets. There's not much buzz about android tablets in the developer community and I've not seen much in the market either. Definitely some opportunities there as more devices come to market.
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