Hi peoples,
I have an idea - I don't know how it would work, but it's an idea and nothing more. Just putting out some thoughts out aloud and seeing what people think.
In 2015 I made a reasonably good looking game that plays well, looks excellent, is fully complete and mostly bug free.
I had next to no sales (10 - 7 of whom were family and friends).
I advertised it widely, on a variety of websites, platforms, ad networks, tshirts, - spent about $3000 dollars advertising it...for 3 sales to people other than friends.
What I'm thinking is this:
If I transferred partial ownership of the game to someone here and gave you full access to the code and media (minus the web content - passwords etc to my databases that it relies on) and you turned it into something you liked - with a solid code base behind you for a 3d space battle game - for a fee (the game cost me about $7000 AUD to create - fee would be far lower) and took a commission (10%?) on revenue made from your sales figures from the game (be it in ads or actual paid sales) how would that sound?
It's just an idea...I'm not saying it's an offer or anything yet...just an idea.
In my view the game should have been far more successful than a mere '3' sales given the success rate of other 'similar' type games of the era.
Ignore the 2 1 star reviews - I've had next to 0 downloads for the past year and only two ratings for this despite in my opinion it being quite good:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lloydm.geosword1&hl=en_AU (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lloydm.geosword1&hl=en_AU)
I'm not sure on the legality with this. As you bought in assets, I would look to see about the licence for selling them on. I have a feeling you won't be able to sell them on to someone else.
That leaves you with the code itself. You might be better served by just opening up the code for free as there doesn't seem to be any value in source code for something that people didn't like (for what ever reason).
But I wish you well.
@ Adam
He does not _sell_ the assets (A sells to B and to C) but transfers ownership (A bought licence to use and transfers licence to use to B, A is no longer able to use licence then). Might still be forbidden in the original contract but it sounds as a more viable way.
@ price tag
Think Indian (or other companies) might sell stuff (read assets, code, ...) for less money - with a more "casual gamer / teenager"-approaching style.
bye
Ron
Yeah..it would be a complete transfer of ownership of all graphics and music and sound (with no rights held by me anymore - that woudl be free of charge and separate to the transaction).
In response to your earlier comment (which was removed) about the code being bought by me - I wrote over 30k lines of code in php, bb, java, shader code, xml to write this - so it was all mine with the exception of an opengl es2.0 library which is free (jpct-ae)
I would transfer all the code and source to both this project and all the projects I have that reference the media (since I used it in a few projects) for a price and then request an ongoing commission from sales or revenue from projects that earned money upon release.
But as you say...no one is interested so I'll forget it and keep it for myself.
In every measurable way the game was a failure. That doesn't mean the time and effort in programming, design, etc was wasted. But it does mean there is little value in the result.
(I had said the asset were bought in, not the code)
Learn from the result, attempt to diagnose the faults and try to make a better product next time around :)
Wow, how did you manage to make the server side stuff? How can I learn that, if I wanted to do the same?
In any case, it's a grand portfolio piece. It shows you're capable of bringing a project like this to reality. Maybe you'd make more money by selling your skills? (Working for someone else)
Hi Kryzon....start small.
If you can write an online high score table you can do this
First step is getting android to call a web page and return a text result. Lots of source code examples of this online.
Second step is learning php or similar to accept parameters, clean or whitelist expected results, and pass to a database.
Database has to be setup with validation.
Because it uses http for a real time asynchronous game the trick is to inform the player in multiplayer of changes to the state of the world at the time they attempt to do something and act accordingly.
The year I wrote this game my job at work involved something very similar-writing online driven digital signage for televisions. It was very similar.
Hard work is:
- securing communication ("cheats/hacks" - do not trust a client)
- asynchronous message handing and message revoking in client (read: command chain and "undo"-ability in your game logic)
All the other stuff is pretty "basic" once you know how it works (just think of passing params to a function and evaluating the results).
bye
Ron
Thanks for the info guys (and sorry for the off-topic).
It looks like a fun game, its easy to see a lot of hard work and dedication was put into the project. Where it may miss its mark is in the game play department. I love a good strategy game but its a very niche market. In my opinion the assets would be a great start for a Colony Wars type space shooter.
I read your post.
I think most importantly Matty you should stay focused on one thing at once. It seems like every week you're posting something new here, whether it's your creative writing, your drawing, what's going through your mind and this idea about Game partnership.
If you did set this partnership thing into motion, are you going be bored of it or already moved and focused on your next idea to have time for maintaining this one?
Not that I'm saying that your idea is good or bad, just that, well it's you. Over the years you've been doing all sorts and as far as I can deduce from your frequent posts how many of these ideas have you followed through to the end?
"how many have I followed through to the end" - almost all of them....
Matty I'd punt into onto a game sales company. The thing is now : even excellent new games from unknown devs can't get any sales unless up to date and sustained e-marketing techniques are applied long term.
Just getting hold of one of these companies is your 1st challenge : most of them are inundated with devs with games that look and play fine.
a reasonably good looking game that ... looks excellent
Thats very impressive. Can u make a reasonably good fun game that's extremely fun to play?
The problem I see is that (it sounds like anyway) you're asking for a fee and 10% sales revenue up front, and your engine will become a SEUCK to so speak, and you're up against stable game engines like Unreal and Unity that are completely free to develop for.
Sure your game and game engine are finished, but if a serious develop is going to be developing a similiar game I can't help but feel that they are going to use an engine to build that.
What is stopping anyone downloading Unity and developing a game similiar to yours and for free.
Looking at this question here:-
https://support.unity3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/205253119-Can-I-make-a-commercial-game-with-Unity-Free-Personal-Edition-?mobile_site=true
As an example you could make a game in Unity in the free version, and even if you made a fair amount of money, as long as it doesn't fall over a certain amount.
I guess what I'm trying to say, it's kind of a hard sell, because there are lots of other alternatives that don't require any cash investment, just an investment of time.
Also, what iWasAdam said.
That game doesn't look attractive, to be honest.
It for sure doesn't deserve just 10 downloads but it looks like a boring game...
It looks like it is continuous destroying ships and destroying.
There seems to be no story, no interesting places, but just destroying these ships nonstop.
The UI is really cool though.
It would've been more interesting if you could visit planets, for example, or maybe some characters with stories.
The game is done well as I can see but there is nothing very interesting about it.
I think looks are good, but the game type is indeed bit niche market.
Imho the video shows the special effects and what it looks like quite well, but doesn't clearly show all of the gameplay aspects, so might not be entirely clear what the player can expect, how to play and if is their cup of tea, hence might be unwilling to pay for that if not sure what they are getting. Dunno if there's a video length limitation?
Further more as it's a niche market, you can either change the game type into a real time shooter/war/trader game or have something extra uniquely appealing to the general public.
What I hear is that most money making games actually do include in-game purchases, so I would install that if possible, but make it not too dominant to the outcome of the game.
I heard this type of game apparently makes 1 million a day so now they are giving away 100 million to the winner(s?):
https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/epic-games-will-provide-100-000-000-for-fortnite-esports-tournament
*sigh*
I dunno what it is, but "Free" games making millions in cash. Always makes me sad.
..well..adverts inside mentioned games..so, how much crowd one can attract, reflect on to paycheck..something like youtubers..but i guess, that was the always best way to go when we talk about mobile games as 'mobile gamers' are not really a gamer type as one on consoles/desktops...i believe selling games for desktops can make some nice money..
Hi Matty. I'm going to give you some feedback based on someone (me) who's written a few games for mobile. This is from those I've published by myself and those written by me but published by others.
The games I've published under my own name :
Made a few thousand quid but nothing life changing. Spent a few hundred on advertising but nothing spectacular came of it. Most popular game self published was Galaxix. Galaxix took me a year to write ( loved every moment ) and while it made the most money it was not worth the effort. That game is now freeware to which the original GLBasic source can be download on this very forum https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,59.0.html ( prepare for Global variable and crazy code madness... no, really, prepare yourself )
The games done for 3rd parties ( no titles as per NDA ) :
My income was a lot more than anything I'd self published. To give a hint, the first game I wrote for someone else provided 4+ times the income of Galaxix. That game took 3 months to write.
No idea how the games I'd written for them were more popular than mine considering what they were. Two had In-App purchases and from what they said one worked ok and the other worked well beyond expectation to which they sent an extra bonus.
I can only conclude that inside contacts and / or advertising budget helped here as the games were not that great at all.
Conclusion :
I'm no expert in this field and only worked in it for a short while before retreating back to small business apps. But as to what makes a game successful, I can only surmise as good luck and a good advertising budget.
I'd never venture back into that world of creating a game as a means to ascertain an income. There are far too many companies with fingers in pies to allow individuals to succeed. Only pure luck exists for the lone developer.
Having said that, I'm sure I will dip my toes into mobile development again at some point but only for the sheer curiosity of wondering how it performs.
Thanks folks...it was worth a try...no worries....
I did want to have another response to Enay's comment about my many projects he made earlier....I wrote this on my private online journal several moments ago...
"
Since January 1st 2018....in 5 months
I've produced:
1200 Journal Articles (online)
160 Artworks
1 Video Game (approximately 10,000 lines of code + 100 images created)
Filled out half a dozen paper diaries.
In Exercise I've managed to go from struggling to do 20 pushups to
comfortably doing 40.
And successfully navigated my job as well!
"
....so I am quite productive in a variety of different activities all at once...
QuoteIn Exercise I've managed to go from struggling to do 20 pushups to
comfortably doing 40.
Wow, I'd be lucky if can do only one without spraining an injury. lol
Top notch.
Hey Rick did 90 this morning. 50 followed by 40. Getting stronger every day! I struggled to do 20 when I began. As a teenager I did hundreds every night for sport training.
Wow, that's really amazing.
Situps I can do 100's but I need to work at my arms/shoulders/pecks. (am now, using dumbbells)