With over 52,000 games available in the iOS App Store, and thousands of games also available for Android, gone are the days of smartphone gaming when simply building a game and getting App Store approval was enough to drive success. Now mobile game developers need to focus on identifying ways to increase the discovery of their mobile games to be successful. Follow these five steps, and you’ll increase your likelihood of developing a blockbuster game:
1) Create a Quality Game
Although every game developer starts out with the mission of creating a game that doesn’t suck, the reality is that most mobile games have minimal play value. How do you increase the probability of developing a quality game that consumers want to play?
One way you can lower your risk of creating a low quality game is to focus on proven game mechanics, but with a new environment. For example, Brian Robbins of Riptide Games first launched the iLookGood app in July, 2010. Based on the success of the iLookGood app, they released iLookFunny, iAmZombie, iLookGangsta, iArrPirate, iPrincess and iLookChristmas in the next five months.
Another way you lessen your risk is to be the first to bring a proven game concept from another platform to mobile. For example Veiled Games decided to launch the new freemium game Daybreak Heroes, which was partially inspired by the web game Kingdom of Loathing although metamorphosed during development.
