For this iDevBlogADay post, I have decided to go non-technical and share my thought about how I see it would be possible to survive as az indie developer in the current markets. My goal with this post is also to start a conversation with the rest of you, I am curious about what you think about the topics I will cover today.
Most of you probably know that according to all kind of statistics, a single-digit percentage of iOS devs is on the receiving end of most of the income generated on the App Store. I do believe this deceives many people because nowadays anyone and their granny can crank out $99, register to the developer program, upload some crApp to the store and count themselves a developer, thus making the stats look worse and worse every day. I do think that those who seriously care about the quality of their products is a small subset of the total number of devs. So the picture does not seem so gloomy, but there’s one more thing: it really seems to me that either you cut through the noise and get stuck in the top part of your respective app categories for enough time to generate a decent turnover with your app, or you fail to reach the critical number of users you need to climb the ladder and you fall straight down after the release, out of the top 500 and splatter on the rock-hard reality of 1-5 daily sales. I do not see any middle ground between a flat-out failure and a success story unfortunately. So how to survive in such an environment? Or in other words, how to keep cranking out products with a reasonable chance to be a success?
Before we dwell on that, let’s define the term ‘surviving’ in my case: Bitongo currently is a 2-man operation and the company’s burn rate is very reasonable. We happen to live in a country where accommodation is laughably inexpensive compared to major US cities or Western Europe, rest of the living expenses are reasonable as well, beer starts from $2-3 in many popular pubs, reliable 20+ Mbps connections start from around $20 a month.. So is it enough for survival to just get our profits in balance with our daily expenditure needs? I do not believe so. I am in it for the long-haul and that requires more. There are additional factors we need to think about:
- To get people talking about you and your product, they have to know you. Networking costs, like participating in conferences, game shows, etc., can be huge!
- Keeping up with all the latest HW and even SW tools in the market comes at a price
- You need to G R O W. I do believe survival depends on this. If your company is not able to grow, it is not going to survive long. You will be simply overwhelmed after some time.
A growing company means more and more people, so whatever your yearly burn rate currently is, you should be thinking at least 3x the amount to be able to hire someone when the moment comes. So let’s say for the example’s sake our yearly burn rate for 2 people is $80k, we would need to earn $240k annually to be able to survive according to my definition.
So we need about $250k / annum for 2 people, let’s build something that has a chance for success! In my opinion the success of an app will be decided by 3 things:
- how well-known you are
- the app’s potential userbase
- user retention rate
I have touched the topic of building your network. It does not only include costly events, it can be being involved in the community on forums, twitter etc. Perfect chance is blogging through iDevBlogADay as well 
Getting the required coverage to punch through the app-noise can be also achieved if you partner up with a publisher like Chillingo. Sure they will take a part of your app revenue but if they can get you those interviews / reviews / featured spots you need, doesn’t it worth it? We do not have any experience on this front though so if you have insights on how well they can support you it would be great to read about!
Now, let’s focus on the other two points.
For the most part of the last 3 years we have been creating games and although it is great to see our own little products taking shape, start moving and become alive, we have to admit we are in an extremely risky business. The games category is a very competitive, hit-driven marketplace. User retention is tough because every week there’s gonna be another game your hardly-acquired users want to play with, something cooler than your game, something better looking, better features, etc. Or even if none of these apply (you must have a very good game), they will want to play other games because they are newer than yours. Games provide a unique form of entertainment, but there are only a handful of those that don’t lack a lasting appeal.
Compare this with a utility app or a service that deals with a real problem the users have, or make their everyday lives simpler / better. Your users will keep coming back for the delight of using your app! Even if a competitor shows up with providing the same features as you are, you have already locked in your users in your little system and they will be reluctant to jump ship!
Creating services provides a more predictable business than creating games. This piece of advice will definitely not help those who are just insanely passionate about game development though.. So what is there to do? Solving the retention problem definitely helps a lot in building your user base and it has been proven many times that introducing meaningful multiplayer elements in your game will improve retention rate. We have experienced this with our Soccer Tactics game. The original version which allowed players to play against the device or against each other on the same devices debuted mid-2009. We added online multiplayer features a year later, and we still have happy players who joined us from the beginning! Without significant gameplay updates, the online games provide a continuous challenge for many players! Of course there are thousands of ways to try to improve retention, I can heartily recommend multiplayer as it has been a proven method (I have to emphasize again though, meaningful multiplayer, not only for the sake of it!).
Our third point to consider is the Android userbase which has grown immense. It’s not wise to ignore a market which is bigger than the iOS market but I totally understand the reluctance to jump into a fragmented nightmare. We have recently started looking into Android and we might come up with articles if there’s enough interest to show how it feels like to develop for the Android with a solid iOS background. Another option is using tools supporting multi-platform development, Unity, XMLVM and the likes. Not only has Unity an extremely powerful editor (you can even change your variables while running and debugging your game and see the changes immediately), the promise of building for several platforms easily is very hard to resist. We have also started to look into Unity lately, and although the first encounter was a bit intimidating, nonetheless we were impressed. There’s even an Asset Store for Unity where you can sell your own Unity plugins for the rest of the Unity devs and I can tell you there is a LOT of them! Might be suitable for a decent side-revenue.
I am not interested in WP7 currently at all but that might change if the manage to carve a healthy slice of a market share for themselves with the Nokia guys.
So my advice on survival:
- calculate your annual burn rate, multiply it by 3: that is your minimum target to reach. scale your ideas accordingly
- if you want a more predictable business, focus on apps solving real-life problems rather than games.
- if you are really passionate about making games, do not give up! accept the fact the you are in an extremely risky business and plan accordingly
- widen your userbase. go multiplatform, use dev. tools to support you with it. you can not postpone it anymore.
- try to get a deal with a publisher to cut through the app store noise. Curiously enough I do not really see articles about this topic, why aren’t people looking into this possibility more often?
- build your app with retention in your mind as well! think about cool game modes offering multiplayer challenges.
There’s one last thing to mention here and I know many people do it for survival purposes as well, and that is: client work. Do not be afraid to go for it. I know that becoming indie has that great image to it that you are absolutely independent, working for yourself etc. However, there will be stressful times in an indie’s life and you’d better make sure you never fall into the worst cause of stress: financial insecurity. Creating your own product and releasing it is great, and you want it to be as perfect as it can possibly be. If you have to worry about how to pay rent and fulfill your basic needs, how could you possibly perform your best that your product deserves? It is important to have a solid background and if that means client work you should not think of it as a failure of any sorts!
Well, that is all for now, what are your survival advices?
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