Ask HN: My game was just featured in the Windows 8 app store, what do I do next?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5314484

by aschearer • 13 years ago

78 45 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm a longtime lurker of these forums and after reading your stories for years I took the plunge and started a company to focus on making indie games. It's just me working my tail off and trying to create something original and fun. So far I’ve shipped two games and have a third one on the way.

The reality is I'm an engineer at heart and terrible at marketing. Just when I was starting to give up hope on my first game Adlib (http://spottedzebrasoftware.com/app/adlib) I found it was going to be featured in the Windows 8 app store! Now that it's happening I want to try to do everything I can to make hay while the sun is shining. I truly believe in this game and know from a previous version that its fans love it.

From those of you who have been down this road can you give me some tips on how I can best take advantage of this event? In particular, what advice do you have in order to reach new customers?

Thanks and looking forward to your feedback, Alex

meaty2• 13 years ago

You might be lucky enough to break even if you charge for your app. Don't expect miracles from the win 8 app store.

Avalaxy9• 13 years ago

He is looking for advice, not for trolls.

My advice: make sure you have compelling logos (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh84629...), screenshots and a short description. Also have a trial of the app.

meaty2• 13 years ago

This is advice. We sold 9 apps at £2.49 each.

aschearer10• 13 years ago

Hi meaty, I take your point. So far my experiences have lead me to believe that going freemium is the way to go for the Windows 8 Store, so I hear what you're saying. That being said, I made Adlib for-pay (with a trial) because it was simplest and I wanted to KISS. For my next project I will be going freemium.

Avalaxy9• 13 years ago

Just to share the other side of the coin: a dutch guy I know built a sudoku game for Windows 8. It's a free app and has only 1 ad. He makes more than €100/day with it. Not bad imho :)

wilfra• 13 years ago

I'd spend some time learning how to hack the press and try to get some free publicity.

This is a good place to start:

http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/80121/How-To-Get-Media-...

You want to give them a pre-packaged story and from a quick look around your site, you appear to have one (ex-MSFT guy who moved to Amsterdam, built an awesome game and it's now featured in the app store - that's a story).

You might consider reaching out to the Microsoft PR department. They want as much good publicity for the app store as they can get - so they might be willing to put some PR muscle behind you and your game.

My background is in marketing (and I lived in Amsterdam for a year haha) feel free to shoot me an email if you run out of ideas. Good luck!

aschearer10• 13 years ago

Thanks for the advice, Wilfra. I'm still reading through the link but I'm sure it will prove helpful. Figuring out how to pitch the correct story is a good point. I think one problem I suffer from is sharing my story and recognizing it might be of interest to others. I mean I live my life everyday, hardly newsworthy!

Will definitely try to reach out to Microsoft too, great idea.

useful• 13 years ago

I like the concept. Combining tetris and word finding is a neat gameplay mechanic.

aschearer10• 13 years ago

Thanks useful. If I may say, I think it's a really unique and fun word game!

n9com• 13 years ago

Featuring doesn't really have a big impact - take it from someone who has had two apps featured on the w8 store.

drucken• 13 years ago

That's a nice concept! Do you do languages other than English? Or is there some API non-English developers or linguists can add new languages or specific knowledge domains?

aschearer10• 13 years ago

Thanks drucken! Right now the game is only available in English. For my next game (think Adlib with multiplayer) I plan to support others. Localizing the app is a challenge of course, and finding dictionaries is also a problem, but the most difficult part will be dealing with the occurrence of words in a given language. Given the game finds and collects the words automatically another language could throw off the balance.

I really like the idea of crowdsourcing some of the localization via an API or even a simple WIKI. Just one more thing to add to the never ending list...

far33d• 13 years ago

If you want to make money in games and reach a large audience you absolutely, positively need to be on iOS, then Android before you are on Win8. According to your bio, you used to work @ MSFT so I understand the choice of platform but you want to keep making games, right?

I would take a close look at your retention rates and find where people are dropping out of the game and use that information to make the best iOS version possible.

It looks like a great game and will translate well to touch interfaces. Do it.

aschearer10• 13 years ago

Thanks for the feedback far33d. It's always been my plan to reach other platforms. However since I am a one-person company with no marketing budget I aimed for Windows 8 to start as I thought it would be a relatively less crowded marketplace where I might benefit from publicity associated with its launch.

Right now I am wrapping up a third game (think multiplayer Adlib) also for Windows 8, but once that project is complete I will have to re-evaluate what platform to target. To date the stated advantages of Windows 8 have not worked in my favor. I'm still inclined to target emerging platforms (Occulus Rift, OUYA, etc.) but it's something I am quite torn on. Still this is helpful food for thought.

Avalaxy9• 13 years ago

iOS and Android may be the bigger platforms for now, but probably not for long. Windows is huge, around 90% of the PCs and laptops around the world runs it. I think there will be over a billion devices running Windows 8/RT in a few years.

Developing for Windows 8 now is really smart: there are only 43.000 apps at the moment, meaning that there is very little competition. If you start building a Windows 8 now, you are a huge leap ahead of the competition.

aschearer10• 13 years ago

Avalaxy you basically summed up my thoughts behind choosing Windows 8 to start. Of course I get strange looks whenever I tell other developers what I'm doing. If you are interested you can read my full thoughts complete with some numbers: http://spottedzebrasoftware.com/blog/ignore-windows-8-at-you...

hdivider2• 13 years ago

"there are only 43.000 apps at the moment, meaning that there is very little competition"

The numbers get even more interesting when you move into some specific subcategories: according to my version (UK) of the Windows Store, there are currently ~230 action games, ~550 arcade games, ~180 card games, ~80 shooter games and ~60 simulation games on it.

I doubt the numbers for the US and other versions of the store are very different, since basically nobody will restrict themselves to only the UK market if the game is already in English.

Now, I don't know any statistics on how strongly users depend on using subcategories to find games, but I know that's what I'd do if I wanted to find an interesting game.

outside1234• 13 years ago

iOS and Android are bigger right now but:

1. Its very hard to get any mindshare among 300k apps so it makes sense to launch on the platform in my mind where you can get the most traction, which seems like Window 8 right now (if f(eyeballs / apps) is a good model for this). 2. Windows is bigger than them both. I know that isn't a popular fact on HN but its pretty clear that like it or not the market is going to shift to Windows 8 slowly but surely.

JohnTHaller• 13 years ago

Most of my developer friends have switched from iOS first to Android first due to its wider market share. This is for lower-priced apps and free-to-play apps as you get a wider audience on Android. For premium apps, they develop for iOS first as iOS users have a bit more disposable income on average.

csense• 13 years ago

As a developer I avoid iOS because they are incredibly unfriendly.

For example, you have to pay lots of money for the SDK and app submission, they have incredibly restrictive terms on what is acceptable, and they have a reputation for randomly yanking apps with no explanation other than "you violated our policies" (and no refund of the application fee).

There's no recourse because non-jailbroken phones can't download from anywhere but the official app store.

ios users may be a good-sized market full of big spenders, but I personally find them unattractive due to the outright hostility of Apple toward developers.

ig1• 13 years ago

A lot of money ? - access to the iOS SDK and App Store is a $100 which is a trivial amount given that an average iOS contractors can bill $100/hour.

twerquie• 13 years ago

It costs roughly the same amount ($50 for an individual, $100 for a company) to purchase a developer license that can submit apps to the Windows 8 Store. Furthermore, the Windows Store also has restrictive terms on what is acceptable, and does not issue refunds for developer accounts when your apps don't make the cut.

You cannot install Windows 8 metro / modern UI apps from anywhere but the Windows Store without unlocking the device with a developer account.

orangethirty• 13 years ago

How much are you charging for it?

Avalaxy9• 13 years ago

His app costs €1,19 / $1.50

joelhaasnoot• 13 years ago

This is a good question that remains unanswered on your website till I click through to actually buy it. Pleases list prices!

aschearer10• 13 years ago

That's a fair point, because prices vary per platform I chose not to list them on the site directly. I would like to say I will A/B test to find the optimal setup, but the reality is I get very little traffic to my site... so barring data what does your intuition tell you? Show different prices for each platform or hide prices?

alexanderRohde• 13 years ago

I feel this particular post (as a lot of HN) follows a pattern of the "humblebrag." Are people whose games are featured in windows 8 store really the ones who need advice, or is this just basically a way to post an HN that says "My Game was featured, here's a link" with some facade relevance?

Other example titles of shameless self promotion guised as useful information migth be "What not do with your first million" or "What life is REALLY like once your startup makes it" or anything else which trades a worthless anecdote for attention.

hluska• 13 years ago

I'd argue that anyone with the technical ability to get a game featured, yet without the experience to capitalize on that exposure needs a whole lot of advice. And frankly, I'm glad that HN is here because this 'worthless anecdote' taught me:

- there are only 43,000 apps in the Windows 8 store. Of those, only ~ 3,600 are games. Despite these numbers, one particular developer only sold nine apps for a total of about twenty pounds.

- how not to advocate for a platform. Or, how to genuinely annoy people while trying to persuade them to do what you want.

lifeisstillgood2• 13 years ago

I like the idea that windows app store is the only virgin territory left and you can get in early and win. Unfortunately I suspect this is not true. Even if win8 takes off, how long before AngryBirds-win8 appears?

I would recommend avoiding the serial-games, single sales model if at all possible and try and get a recurring revenue stream and frequent releases 1. Games are hard, and the 800lb gorillas harder still

aschearer10• 13 years ago

In fact, Angry Birds is already on the Windows 8 Store! You're correct insofar as Microsoft has worked hard to get some of the major titles onto the platform. I also appreciate your advice to move off of what you call the "serial-games" model. Ultimately I would like to reach a point with my game(s) where I can offer it as a service to my players, but first I have to find a market fit...

sycren• 13 years ago

Interesting games, what did you make them with?

aschearer10• 13 years ago

I made the games using MonoGame and XNA. Overall it was a very pleasant experience and let me make the games available for Windows 7 (and older) as well basically for free.

You can hear me blab about some of my process on Channel 9: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/From-XNA-game-to-Windows-8

You can download the source code for a project running on Windows 7 & 8 from GitHub: https://github.com/aschearer/LudumDare24

Ask HN: My game was just featured in the Windows 8 app store, what do I do next?

Related Stories