Category Archives: gdc

Semi Secret and Backflip Studios Talk App Store Success at GDC

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Semi Secret and Backflip Studios Talk App Store Success at GDC is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

a-million-dollars

As you probably already know, GDC or the Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco is an annual conference at which game developer get together to share development, tools, tips and technologies. This year, independent development companies Semi Secret and Backflip Studios were quick to share just how successful their dive into the App Store has been. Between the two of them, they have 8 paid applications on the store.

Yesterday, co-founder of Semi Secret, Eric Johnson revealed to Pocket Biz that the company had sold 115,000 copies of their popular side-scroller adventure Canabalt. Whats interesting though is these download statistics he said were based upon Canabalt selling at the $2.99 price point over 5 months. He was also quick to estimate the ball-park piracy rate of Canabalt, which he put at 20 percent over those 5 months.

Similarly, Backflip Studio revealed it had generated $2.5 Million in around nine and a half months of being on the store. The company stated these figure were based on enjoying a staggering 22 Million downloads overall, revealing 17 Million of those came from just one of their App Store titles – Paper Toss. On a side note Backflip also announced mobile advertising is making them a substantial $1 Million in just six months and $379,000 in December last year, alone.


Namco Unveil Unite SDK .. iPhone-to-iPhone Gaming is so 2009.

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Namco Unveil Unite SDK .. iPhone-to-iPhone Gaming is so 2009. is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

namco logoOne for the game developers now. Since the iPhone’s launch and the App Store’s debut, we’ve seen a slurry of companies take it upon themselves to create a “social” medium or space in which gamers of all ages and skill levels can communicate and interact with each other on a device to device basis. But so far, supposedly due to the limitations of the iPhone SDK, this has been restricted to three methods of gameplay for us here gamers; iPhone to iPhone. iPhone to iPod touch or iPod touch to iPod touch.

Namco, most famous for its worldwide Pac-Man franchise, have announced at GDC yesterday that they have been working on a new, different method. Unite is a cross-platform gaming technology that will allow users to play against gamers using different types of devices and machines and challenge each other in the same game. Acting very much like a social network, Unites aim is to unite gamers the world over, no matter which device they choose to play on.

“For example, an iPhone gamer could play a game against a PC player in Pool Pro Online 3. Unite will have a single login across all platforms supported by the platform. Gamers have a profile fronted by an avatar and a score, boosted by the accumulation of achievements in Unite-powered games.And having a central web site (and soon, an iPhone app) where you can manage your account should also make it an attractive alternative to developers looking for a social solution for their games.”


The big news here is that unlike the current social platforms like ngmoco:)’s Plus+, Open Feint and Crystal, Namco’s Unite platform will apparently allow gamers to chat live with each other during gameplay. So, as well as bringing along the ability to play non-iPhone gamers the world over, this new SDK should also bring some functional aspects of a platform like Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE, for example, to the iPhone.

As with Open Feint, Namco says they’ll soon have a “central” iPhone application on the store, which you can keep track of all your Unite platform achievements on the the go! Currently there is little more information known about Unite, but we’ll be following this closely and keeping you up to date with news and announcements which come out of this new SDK – I’m sure you’ll agree, this is pretty exciting stuff!

Source: IGN UK


GDC: Refenes’ & Saltsman’s Baffling $350 App Store Success

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GDC: Refenes’ & Saltsman’s Baffling $350 App Store Success is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

zits_and_giggles“I absolutely fucking hate the iPhone App Store,” declared indie developer Tommy Refenes during his segment of the Indie Game Makers Rant at Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week.

Refenes, known for his work on Goo! and the upcoming Super Meat Boy, has philosophical objections to Apple’s mobile digital distribution platform. “The majority of people who do anything for the App Store work on it and then kind of get screwed over,” he said.

The App Store “is the Tiger handheld game of this generation,” Refenes explained. Just like low-quality LCD-based handheld games, the true successes of the App Store seem to be translations of established franchises and brand names that present severely downgraded versions of their original experiences. He pointed to less-playable iPhone versions of Assassin’s Creed, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Man 2, and Street Fighter IV as examples.

After all, as Playfish co-founder Kristian Segerstrale observed during GDC, seven of the eight best-selling App Store games last year were mobile versions of existing major game franchises.

“It’s just a way to sell a brand,” Refenes said. “That’s what the Tiger handheld games were, and that’s what I think the App Store is.”

But Refenes’ rant wasn’t limited to a debatable analogy. He came equipped with a personal experience that further confirmed his impression of the App Store as a place where traditional correlations of quality have little meaning.

“About five months I started an experiment, and the experiment was basically to prove the App Store is kind of shit for most things,” he said.

Along with fellow prolific indie developer Adam Saltsman (Canabalt, Wurdle), Refenes developed a “joke game” for iPhone titled Zits & Giggles, consisting mainly of popping virtual pimples.

Like so many other iPhone games, Zits & Giggles launched at $0.99. Sales were never remarkable, and they eventually tapered off entirely. But rather than pursue a traditional marketing strategy like offering the game for free for a limited time, Refenes did just the opposite: he raised the price to $15, exorbitant by iPhone standards.

Shockingly, “the day I put it up to $15, three people bought it,” Refenes said.

“So,” he continued, “I said, ‘I’m going to put it up to $50.’ Four people bought it.”

After observing that fortuitous trend, Refenes decided to test its resilience by boosting the game’s selling price every time at least one copy was sold.

“I stopped paying attention to it for a while,” he recalled, then “I checked it on Valentine’s Day, and 14 people bought it at $299.”

The game has now reached a price tag of $350.

Based only on Refenes’ sales figures for a limited number of the game’s many price tiers, Zits & Giggles generated at least $4,431 at the $15, $50, and $299 price points alone. It currently holds an App Store customer rating of two and a half stars out of five, with only two written reviews, one of which reads in its entirety, “It’s hilarious.” (Its official description still claims it costs “a FRIGGIN DOLLAR.”)

“My conclusion to all of this,” Refenes said, “is that the people who you’re selling to on the App Store are not necessarily gamers.”

[This news item was written by Chris Remo and originally appeared at FingerGaming sister site Gamasutra.]


GDC: Backflip’s Farrior On iPhone Ad Sales, Free Versions

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GDC: Backflip’s Farrior On iPhone Ad Sales, Free Versions is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

farriorJulian Farrior, CEO of Backflip Studios, shared some of the company’s ups and downs after one year on the app store. He pushed the idea that free apps are an excellent way to drive revenue, but you can also employ some interesting tactics if you can predict the market.

One of Backflip’s apps is Paper Toss, a very popular ad-supported free game with about 400,000 impressions per month. So in the pre-holiday period they put a lot more third party ads in the game, compared to house ads which compel users to pay for Backflip’s non-free apps.

Then, during the holiday period when everyone’s in a buying frenzy, they switched it up, placing more house ads. The results were quite interesting. In the pre-holiday period they wound up making over $400,000 in that month on ads, and just under $90,000 as a result of their house ads. In the holiday period, they made over $250,000 that month in sales of their other apps, and about $140,000 in ads.

Lite versions are also popular among iPhone apps, and Farrior felt two ways about it – one of their games was greatly supported by a free Lite version, while the other was totally cannibalized.

Ragdoll Blaster was the title for which the Lite version helped – they had the good fortune to get featured by Apple, which gave them a lift of about 2,000 units per day. Releasing a Lite version afterward gave them another 2,000/day unit lift on top of that.

The game Harbor Havoc 3D though, did not benefit from a Lite version. “We thought we were pretty good at this game at this point,” said Farrior, “and launched Harbor Havoc 3D, and it didn’t really do anything.”

They launched the game, a twist on Flight Control, into a saturated market. “We thought we were building a better Flight Control, because it was a deeper game,” he said, “but I’m not sure you need a deeper Flight Control, in retrospect.” Farrior had pushed for press coverage too soon, because the app was rejected multiple times, which delayed the launch making his press effort wasted.

When they released a Lite version, it furthered the disaster. “With this version, it literally cut out sales in half,” he lamented. The game had four levels, which they considered four individual games. “When we gave away one of those, there’s just no reason to buy the game. All of that said, we’re going to repackage it as a free app.”

[This news item was written by Brandon Sheffield and originally appeared at FingerGaming sister site Gamasutra.]


GDC: Surviving High School And Why iPhone Games ‘Need’ Microtransactions

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GDC: Surviving High School And Why iPhone Games ‘Need’ Microtransactions is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

survivingMicrotransactions are still considered an emerging business model in the West, but EA Mobile’s Oliver Miao argued that in a couple years, microtransactions could be a necessity for the most successful iPhone games.

“Make microtransactions core to your game,” Miao said at GDC this week. “Going forward, I think most games are going to need to have them.”

Miao is speaking from his own personal experience. Miao and Centerscore’s mobile game, Surviving High School was a hit in 2007, which led EA to acquire the studio in 2008 from Vivendi following the Vivendi/Activision merger. By January 2009, EA wanted to bring Surviving High School to the iPhone’s App Store.

But the process of bringing the game to the iPhone was fraught with difficulties. EA wanted Miao’s team to create the game as fast as possible in order to beat the oncoming rush of competition on the platform. At the time, the App Store dominated by 99 cent-games, with a few bigger brands coming up the ranks.

“There was this fear that as all these larger brands started coming in, it’d be harder for a smaller game like Surviving High School would succeed,” said Miao.

The game-changer for Miao was when in March 2009, Apple said it was bringing microtransactions to the App Store. Exactly how the team would incorporate the model – while appeasing EA Mobile execs – would prove to be a challenge.

For one, the App Store only allows for 99 cent microtransactions. If EA sold Surviving High School for 99 cents or $1.99 as originally planned, it’d be difficult to justify a “microtransaction” that costs as much or almost as much as the game itself.

Eventually, the development team thought of offering free episodes of Surviving High School, then charge for exclusive content. “We were rejected” by EA execs, said Miao. His bosses thought that the dev team wanted to give away too much content for free.

On the other hand, EA execs wanted to sell each episode for 99 cents each – they were completely at odds. “We thought by giving this content away, we could sell so many units of our game, it will more than make up for it.”

But after that rejection, Miao thought that the dev team found a compromise with a TV-like model. The studio would release free weekly episodes of Surviving High School, but each episode would only be free for one week. If people wanted to download past episodes, they’d have to pay.

“We thought, this should be a really good compromise solution,” he said. “But again, we were rejected. … This is my opinion – EA Mobile makes mistakes too,” Miao said, tongue-in-cheek.

By May 2009, EA execs were planning to make a trip to visit the team’s studio – never a good sign, said Miao. The execs were not happy with the game’s progress, and gave the studio a few days to come up with a new design. “So our studio was in a panic,” Miao said. “People think that big companies don’t care about quality, but obviously [these] execs did.”

The Surviving High School team re-pitched the game in 2009 with another tweak. This time, EA would release episodes for free initially, and call it a “promotion.” Meanwhile, the publisher would look at the game’s progress over the first two months – if the TV model worked, then they’d continue with it. If not, then they’d sell episodes under a traditional model.

EA execs accepted the new pitch. The game eventually launched in November 2009, but it debuted at the bottom of the charts, and stayed there on the first day. But it gradually did move upward, and made it as high as number 16 on the top-grossing apps rankings. Since then, it’s been seeing peaks and valleys, driven by new microtransaction content.

“It’s pretty rare to see games that have been out on the marketplace for a while to have these up and down movements,” Miao said. “But if you have microtransactions built in, you can control the place on the charts.”

And just this week, the company released a “megapack” that added new content to the game, most of which was developed in response to fan feedback and reviews. In a day, the game went from 68 to 30 on the top-grossing ranks.

A final bit of advice from Miao: “Don’t go head to head with EA.” Going up against the mega-corporation is extremely difficult. “Instead find your own green pastures” on the iPhone.

[This news item was written by Kris Graft and originally appeared at FingerGaming sister site Gamasutra.]


GDC: Trial And Error With Touch Pets‘ Monetization

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GDC: Trial And Error With Touch Pets‘ Monetization is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

touchpets_shotiPhone developer ngmoco released the virtual pet game Touch Pets Dogs onto the App Store in November 2009 as a “freemium” download. But it wasn’t always planned that way.

When the studio was working on the game in early 2009, ngmoco producer Matthew Roberts said they felt the game should be sold for $19.99, in the same price range as games sold on Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.

By mid-2009, ngmoco thought it’d be wiser to release the game in the $4.99 to $9.99 range, just based on the pricing trends happening on the App Store at the time. Touch Pets would be a great deal, the studio thought, because it had visuals, gameplay, and depth on par with handheld console-based counterparts.

However the App Store, being the dynamic and unpredictable creature that it can be, made it clear that even a $4.99 game would have an extremely difficult time doing well on a chart-driven storefront that is dominated by 99 cent to $3 games.

Ultimately, Touch Pets became a “freemium” game, or one that is free to download, but requires players to pay in order to enjoy premium features.

‭“‬We were fundamentally trying to get to the answer to the question,‭ ‘‬How do we sell the game‭?’” Roberts said. “‬If you look at the top‭ ‬100‭ ‬apps,‭ ‬that [average] price is generally low.‭ ‬It’s hard to charge more than‭ ‬$3‭ ‬or‭ ‬$4.‭”

‭He said that ngmoco’s strategy quickly shifted from generating revenue at a single point of sale to “[building] the largest audience possible,” then monetizing those players. “‬We just wanted to get it in front of as many people as possible,” Roberts said. ngmoco now offers six different SKUs of Touch Pets, ranging from free all the way up to $40, a scheme that gives players a choice to spend no money, or a relatively large chunk of money.

The games industry is still trying to figure out the free-to-play business model, and ngmoco is no different. In Touch Pets, players give their pets dog food in order to give them energy to play. When they’re out of food, they fall asleep. Want more playtime? Buy more food on the App Store.

But this didn’t take with many players, who left harsh reviews on the game. They felt slighted by the pricing scheme, not to mention that initially when the dog would fall asleep from lack of food, some players thought the pet died.

The studio eventually increased the food replenishment rate, and added the option to directly purchase virtual goods, an option that “tends to be a better value proposition for some customers,” he said. “Understand your monetization strategy,‭ ‬don’t overload mechanics to monetize your game,” Roberts warned.

Finding a balance between mechanics and monetization is key to commercial success. ‭“‬Giving away stuff can increase exposure,‭ ‬but can hurt monetization,” Roberts said. From there, an App Store game has a better chance of reaching the 50, where success can really “snowball.”

[This news item was written by Kris Graft and originally appeared at FingerGaming sister site Gamasutra.]


GDC 2010 Announces iPhone Games Summit Line-Up

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GDC 2010 Announces iPhone Games Summit Line-Up is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

iphoneGDC 2010 organizers have revealed the initial iPhone Games Summit line-up for the March 9-10 event, including tech and biz talks from the creators of Canabalt, Touch Pets Dogs and more.

The notable new summit, taking place on the first two days of Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco next March, will bring together top game developers from around the world to explore ideas, share best practices, and discuss the future of Apple’s handheld platform.

The two-day program will highlight the best of iPhone development, with an entire day discussing the nuts and bolts of technical and design techniques. The second day will focus on the business and marketing strategies behind successful iPhone game companies.

Some of the heavyweight Summit advisors for the event from the world of iPhone games include Electronic Arts’ mobile VP Travis Boatman, Snappy Touch founder Noel Llopis (Flower Garden), and Ngmoco VP Alan Yu.

With other major lectures to be announced soon, a number of significant talks have been revealed on the Summit homepage. These include:

- Falling to Your Death: The Canabalt Postmortem
Eric Johnson, co-founder of Semi Secret Software, talks about making and marketing Canabalt, the hit followup to word puzzler Wurdle. Beginning with its humble Flash roots, the presentation will cover “OpenGL optimizations, shockingly high price points, guerrilla Twitter marketing, reverse-engineering the App Store, and strangely low piracy rates.”

- Nuts & Bolts of Internet Multiplayer iPhone Game Testing
Galcon franchise creator Phil Hassey has created successful multiplayer modes for his acclaimed iPhone games, and is part of the iPhone Games Summit this year, giving a technical talk on how “using test driven development, you can develop a solid code base that will both pass the App approval process and work when the masses arrive.”

- One Year in the App Store: A Case Study of Backflip Studios
Julian Farrior, CEO of independent developer Backflip Studios, will discuss the company’s 13,000,000 downloads and over $2,000,000 in sales of Ragdoll Blaster and Paper Toss on the iPhone Store, focusing on “marketing wins/flops, distribution opportunities, sales catalysts and key takeaways”, with special attention given to presenting real-life numbers across sales, in-app purchases and advertising.

- New Dogs, New Tricks: Breeding Social Networking and Virtual Pets
In this just-confirmed talk from Andrew Stern of Stumptown Game Machine, the creator of Ngmoco’s microtransaction-powered Touch Pets Dogs “discusses how the game’s design had to grow and adapt as the iPhone game market filled with limitless low- and no-cost gaming and entertainment options. Notably covered are “lessons learned about player behavior in the wild that further evolved the game’s design, marketing and monetization.”

More information on the iPhone Games Summit, which can be attended via All-Access or Summit-specific GDC 2010 passes, is available on its official webpage, with a number of additional talks due to be confirmed in the near future.