I am almost ready to test the waters of iOS and Android with a port of my old classic web game "Spore Cubes". The
full version is approved and just waiting for a release date. Free version will be up for review any day now. Next comes the part that strikes fear in my heart: Launching and Marketing.
(I'm going to start small and only release in New Zealand first.)
I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to send emails and a press release. Some years back someone on indiegamer.com
had a PR service for indies. Does this still exist?
Next, my game isn't all that sophisticated and "press worthy" on its own, but I thought that a good angle to get
press coverage would be proposing an article that promoted 3 or 4 "classic web games" that have been ported to mobile. By "classic" I mean from the era when Flash games just started to appear and the stuff that was more sophisticated than the typical "whack-a-mole"
click games that existed at the time (around year 2000 and up) would go viral. Any suggestions on who to approach? Anyone here have Flash "classics" from a decade ago that they have or soon will port to iOS?
Marketing
such games on mobile is going to be extremely tough. Magazine and reviewer won't be interested, they are already choosing between few 100's different apps per day to review. So, even for a top game, most of the time they ask you to pay. Sorry, for bringing
the bad news, I'm just stating the truth: it's extremely hard to get eyes balls even with good games. That shouldn't stop you to start porting your games to iOS and android and put a foot in these market. In the long run, it will be beneficial for your business.
So
what you're saying is "don't even try to market" ?
Yep, as lennard said, I was saying don't spent too much time/money porting this game to mobile, at the end it will
be extremely hard to get your investment back. But I think multi-platform is a most have for any devs, so if you want to test mobile, you shouldn't hold yourself and test it out.
Well, my original post wasn't to debate the merits of porting this game. I know there are plenty of "Same Game"
clones already out there, but thousands of people play this one daily on my neglected Flash Game portal, so I know it still has legs. I have already completed the port for iOS and Android, including revamped artwork. Like I said originally, it's already approved
and available in New Zealand (initially). The free/lite version is going through Apple approval right now. Totally investment: $200 for the new art.
So that said, I am trying to think of "guerilla marketing" strategies to reach the type of people I *know* like
this game. The idea of going through the traditional channels is, as you've pointed out, next to impossible due to the quantity of games released every day. My players are regular people, skewing heavily towards female and seniors. I doubt that 60 year old
women bother visiting IGN or TouchArcade. But there are other media outlets they DO go to! That's why you have to think outside the box and go where your audience is (potentially niche, but less crowded by games) rather than go where "gaming" is and fight
with every other game for exposure.