In the uber-competitive landscape of mobile gaming, indies' only chance for success is to innovate on game design aspects rapidly where the big guys can't move as fast. In this article we take a deep dive into each innovation.
In today’s capitalist world, indies have it hard. Not only do they have to battle low budgets when creating games, they also have to combat large game studios willing to throw sick amounts of advertising money and have their products played by millions with very little effort. Indies can’t do that because they simply can’t afford it – they have to be creative and find other ways and methods to reach a wider audience. After the initial success is achieved, indies can become that big player that can afford a huge marketing budget. Until then, they have to think “guerrilla”. This lack of resources has an upside - it forces innovation. Below are six aspects of developing a mobile game which, in my opinion, are good premise for innovating to create unique games:
1. New gestures and interaction models
This goes without saying – creating a good and innovative game is, without a doubt, the best way to become successful. Looking at games such as Fruit Ninja we can understand why this is so – when it was first released, the mechanic of slashing things with your finger across the screen was fairly new. It turned out to be a complete hit, and even spawned an entire genre called “finger slashers.” Studios should always think about creating new ways for user interaction. Some cool things we’ve seen across the games we’ve reviewed on the SOOMLA blog are:
Tap'n'hold to play, release to pause.
Device vibrations upon in-game explosions and gunfire. Also known as haptic feedback or force feedback, it is usually reserved for console controllers, but it doesn’t have to be. AdColony’s video ads integrate haptic feedback for specific ads which increases ad conversion and user delight from their ads - Kudos AdColony!
Using device’s sensors. For example, using a smartphone’s gyroscope for user interaction has proven entertaining. The NFC (near-field communication) device can also be used. Bumping two devices can be used to initiate a multiplayer session or to share files or resources.
Audio and video input. Your smartphone and tablet have a microphone and a camera, so why not put it to good use? This becomes particularly strong in social games, where you can broadcast and share your recordings. It’s also useful in family games a la “Heads Up” where you can record each other and show the playback later.
There’s a good reason why big game studios don’t experiment with these types of innovations. They have already found a working model and have no need to look for a new one – they will milk the existing one for all it’s worth. Looking at games like Clash of Clans, Boom Beach or HayDay, we can stay assured that the next instalment from Supercell won’t differ much from the last one.
This is because top grossing publishers have moved past the start-up phase. A start-up, according to Steve Blank, is an organisation focused on finding a repeatable and scalable business model. Top grossing publishers already have that and that gives indies a lot of maneuver room.
2. Leverage collaborative platforms to scale at budget
Don’t be afraid of collaborative platforms when building your monetization strategy. Consider platforms that allow forms of sharing, direct deals and barter, such as Chartboost or Tapdaq. Charboost offers a direct-deals marketplace and Tapdaq offers install trading with other games in the network. SOOMLA has also launch the Grow data network that allows devs to have real-time insights when potential payers install their game, while sharing such insights with other developers in the network.
When you’re an indie studio, you have the freedom of using various tools to drive installs and user acquisition. Of course, big players won’t share this data with you because they believe it’s of extreme importance to them. Top grossing publishers are obsessed with keeping a closed garden around their user base and exert all possible marketing tactics to keep these users within their portfolio. In the latest turmoil of Facebook’s data policy changes, the app store giants’ revolt demonstrated how sensitive they are to trading user-level and in-game data. For an independent developer, this can be an opportunity.
Be careful when implementing mainstream in-game advertising forms, as they’re usually full of ads by big publishers with large budgets. That way, by trying to monetize your game, you can in fact end up losing your user base. This is commonly known as the advertising dilemma for mobile games.
3. Multiplayer is King
Multiplayer is what makes good games great. The mode was not invented or popularized by big game studios, that was done by indies. Looking at the likes of OMGPop’s extremely popular “Draw Something” (acquired by Zynga in 2012 for $200MM), Dirtybit’s Fun Run trilogy or Minecraft, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that multiplayer games are among the most popular indie titles. For that reason, here are a couple of multiplayer aspects you might want to consider when trying to be creative:
Ghost Sessions. Multiplayer is great, but what happens when there aren’t enough players on the server to make it interesting? And that is bound to happen when you first release a game. Guy Books, VP Products @ Nextpeer calls this the “3AM problem.” You’re up until late and you’re looking for a worthy rival, but it’s 3AM in the morning and no players are around to compete with you. Ghost sessions answer this problem by emulating real users to support games with a small user base until they gradually grow.
Smart matchmaking. When playing a competitive ladder-type game, the worst thing that can happen to a player is to be matched with someone of high superiority in terms of skill. Unless you implement smart matchmaking, which will pair people of similar skill, this can be a major deterrent to players. Baking multiplayer in a game can usually be complemented by social network features inside your game and has proven to increase user retention over time.
You should also consider two types of multiplayer, one vs strangers and one vs friends. While the first one will increase the game’s virality, the multiplayer vs friends can be more challenging for on-time matchmaking and scheduling.
Offline mode. Not everyone has high-speed internet wherever they move, but that shouldn’t stop them from playing your game. You should allow users to play even when they’re offline.
Multiplayer is a driving force in lifetime value, says the App Annie E3 gaming report for 2015. Among the top mobile games, multiplayer games accounted for 60 per cent of consumer spending. This report has also been elected to appear in SOOMLA’s top games reports e-book.
4. Optimize the game’s concept for SEO
Most of you will label me as a sell-out for saying this, but bear with me here. You’re competing with much, much bigger fish for some, or should I say ANY space in the gaming industry, and you must use everything at your disposal. Before you even start conceiving the game design, do some keyword research. I’m not saying you should completely abandon your childhood fantasies about the perfect game, but you could adjust them in accordance to keywords that are not all that saturated on the App Stores.
It doesn’t matter much if your game’s mechanics resemble a FPS, a platformer or a match-3 game. What really matters are the keywords that will drive your position to the 1st search results page. So if your game’s theme is about zebras in the jungle, and the competition is too strong on those terms, consider designing your game about dogs on city streets. This is just an example, but my point is that a game with a strong position on the search engine results page is more valuable than one you’re passionate about, but it’s on page 15 of Google. Finding uncharted territories of keyword search on the App Store and Google Play should be one of the first steps when planning a game.
This is probably one of the oldest tricks in online marketing, and keyword research should be a standard preliminary exercise for indie developers. There are a lot of tools out there that can help you search for keywords, including App Annie’s Keyword Rank and Search Man’s keyword search. Other ASO techniques you can try include:
Optimize your website to rank for your app-related keywords.
Include app call to actions on your website.
Update app screenshots often in the app stores.
Encourage users to rate your game with in-game rewards.
A/B test multiple icons and descriptions for your game listing.
5. Strategic Localization
Just because you speak English, and your favourite movies, books and music are all in English, doesn’t mean everyone speaks English. As a matter of fact, English is only the third most spoken language in the world, behind Chinese Mandarin and Spanish. According to Wikipedia 14.4% of the world’s population speaks Mandarin, 6.15% speaks Spanish and 4.70% speak English. It’s also interesting to note that half of the world's population speaks the top 13 languages.
Language should not be the only defining factor when going local, the size of the market matters, as well. The market revenue being generated from paid apps, IAPs and advertising revshare are the high level metrics you should observe for determining your localization strategy. I can advise independent developers to go for countries that are:
Emerging markets with lots of smartphone users.
Non prohibitive in terms of advertising and user data collection.
Don’t require software infrastructure changes such as migrating service providers and servers.
Use standard marketplaces by default with mobile devices (App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, Amazon App Store etc.)
Relatively easy to find localization partners and contractors to work with.
Taking these parameters into consideration, we will see that, your best bets are Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. This can also be backed by numbers about the top 10 localization languages that maximize revenue, from App Annie and Newzoo. There are quite a few services that can help you localize your game and quite a few titles that have localized successfully. There’s also a GDC talk about Expeditions: Conquistador from Logic Artists, which is a very interesting piece definitely worth giving a look.
I have to talk a bit more about the Chinese market. It is being looked at as probably the best destination to release an app, especially after Apple said, on multiple occasions, that China is their number one priority. But Apple is the world’s biggest company, and you’re not. App penetration to China can be insanely difficult without a Shanghai/Beijing office, as well as a deep understanding of the gaming ecosystem in the land of the rising sun. Unless you have some advantage, like a partner in the country, you should avoid China. You’ll break your teeth trying to crack your way behind the great firewall.
6. Remakes and Retro
There’s a good chance you are a small development studio, not funded, and can only afford a couple of artists for your game. Don’t try to make the next Clash of Clans, because you’ll spend all your resources that way and still won’t be happy with the end product. Instead, you can be creative with what you have, and create nostalgic callbacks to the days when we owned IBM 386s, Ataris and Commodores. By adopting 8-pixel art, coarse polygons, memorable storyboards and old-school gameplay mechanics, indies can create highly entertaining games without committing insane artwork budgets.
Just take a look at the likes of Flappy Bird or Crossy Road. Both have climbed to the top charts, and have earned their makers millions of green ones. What makes things even more interesting is that games like these create an entire genre, or subgenre around them. Given the low production costs of these games, developers quickly leverage others’ fame to replicate the success.
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