As I mentioned in the first blog post, my first game was not successful, but it was more experimental to figure out the process of game being created and uploaded to the Google Play store. After a while, the idea arose to create a game with drones. This time I paid more attention to details. I created 4 different maps from scratch with Blender. This time it looked like the game would be a success story. The game took about 4 months to develop. After some investigation, I realized to make at least some money from my game, I need to create limited resource. I came up with the idea that flying with a drone would require batteries, one division - one flight. Batteries charge in 30 minutes or player watches ads to get batteries instanly. This method also did not work, because players are basically annoyed by ads, and if there is a limited resource they cannot fly – players just simply unintall the game. In summary, such a model is not very appropriate, as the playing time should not be limited. It is a better way to offer players some additional resources by watching ads, in my case as an example would be different drone. True is that the quality of the initial Drone Lander version was pretty poor and it had to be significantly improved over the years in terms of UI, graphics, and gameplay. For the clarity, I provide a few illustrations of what the original and improved versions looked like. It is important to mention that time required for game improvements paid off and were well worth the time compared to my first game. Now lets take a look at Google Play key indicators. One of most important key indicators is conversion rate. Drone Lander conversion rate is at about 14%, at the lower end of the median, with the upper limit at 25%. Good conversion rate is about 20% near the upper median limit. The conversion rate mostly depends on the icon, rating and reviews; less dependent on screenshots and description. If your game conversion rate is less than 10% I would recommend to improve the icon, screenshots and description. If the rating of the game is low then you should improve the game itself. Another particularly important indicator is user loss, if it is high then it means there is a problem with the game and game needs to be improved.
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It all started in 2016, a friend of mine showed Unity and then I was amazed at how easy is to create a game, so I started creating my first game. For the first game, it seemed like I was going to create “anything”, and everyone will play it, but that kind of thinking was a mistake - I only realized after a while that there were tons of much better and more interesting games on the market, but I had to start with something. The game was created spontaneously, but the essentials at the start of development are usually the same: player (camera), environment (scene), enemy, and goal. In this game, balls run towards player and player blast them by tapping touchscreen. If player touches the ball game over occurs, otherwise player goes to the next level. Game is primitive, but for start it was OK. It is important to mention that all game models I have been creating from scratch with Blender. Blender is free and has many good features. If you struggle with modelling, there is always an option to buy models or just find some free in Unity store. When the game is ready next step is uploading to Google Play. Basic skills with GIMP are enough for uploading. It requires multiple screenshots, icon and description. If the game is arcade genre and its goal is to score as many points as possible then it would be more interesting to create a leader board. All of these elements are particularly important and therefore require special attention. The icons must be clear and distinctive because the user first sees the icon. For description, it’s important to find as many relevant keywords as possible, which can simply be found in similar games on Google Play or using Google Ads Keyword Planner. Screenshots should also be clear and show the most important episodes and features of the game.
Uploading a game to Google Play can be frustrating as there won’t be many installations at the beginning. A good saying is how anyone can play your game if no one have even seen it. The Google Play store is very crowded, so another important element is marketing. A free way to attract players is to write directly to the developers of small Youtube channels and ask them to share the game or do a gameplay video. Another way is to buy Google Ads, but it's paid. In other articles, I plan to describe in more detail the specific results as far as I was able to earn and share some game statistics. So in summary, creating the first game requires Unity, Blender, GIMP, and some basic programming knowledge. Starting from scratch you can learn from Youtube, which is full of different levels of educational material. If you like games and think you can create then do it! Don't expect very much at first, but over time, if you work hard and create a fun and quality game, you will succeed. It took a lot of time over the years to optimize the first game, but it wasn’t worth the time, so my advice is - if you failed with the game and players are not playing it as you expected then don’t waste time and move on. |
AuthorSysreb Games - Indie developer sharing experience on Unity game development. ArchivesCategories |