There are many reasons why a game may flop, but I want to talk about the ones I’ve seen the most in my career.
Not even trying to get your game featured
Having your game featured in one of Google Play or AppStore’s main pages is tricky, but it’s doable and it’s worth it, that’s the best kind of advertising, and it’s FREE!
Do you know those videogame developer conferences? I’m not talking about the GDC in San Francisco, I’m talking about whatever event that happens in your country.
That’s where you should go networking and searching for app store curators. There’s always a new Google or Apple employee there who wants to show results to their bosses, and these people will be in the crowd.
Once you get their contacts and present your project, they will probably invite you to a video conference to talk about your project, and you should listen carefully to their opinions and advices.
I did that since my very first game, the ridiculous Retro Runners, I talked to a Google Play curator and he asked me to implement Google Play Game Services such as achievements and leaderboards, he also requested me to use Google Analytics and Google Ads, and even though I hated that work, I just did it, and they featured my game, so it paid off.
I followed the same recipe with the next projects, and it worked too!
A few years later, when I made Westy West, I finally had a contact from Apple, and they asked me to implement some new iPhone features such as “haptic feedback”, which I found silly, but I didn’t question, I just did it, then my game got featured and I made dozens of thousands of dollars.
Not collecting analytics before advertising
Thousands of new games are arriving to the stores every day and 99% of them are just going straight to a limbo where no users are going to find them.
So what most developers do? They proceed straight to paid advertisement, as if that was an easy and efficient way to get downloads, but they don’t see that:
Paid advertisement is extremely competitive, you can’t just dump a few thousand dollars on Google Ads and expect your game to achieve millions of downloads.
Why it’s not that simple? Because big studios are spending millions on research before they set their advertisement campaigns. They only invest in advertisement after they’re 100% sure about the profitability of their project and the appeal of their marketing material, then they invest a lot of money and set the advertisement bids really high.
To compete with them, you’re gonna have to bid higher, but how much did you spend on test and research? Probably not even 1% of what these companies invested.
Do you know how many users download your game after seeing it on the store? You should.
Do you know the percentage of users who can finish the tutorial? You should.
Are you sure that players are seeing the in-app products? You should.
Do you know how long it takes for players to spend money after they start a game? You should.
If you’re not collecting these very basic analytics, your game is doomed to fail. Seriously, it will fail! It doesn’t matter if you think it’s a cool game, you need to understand your audience!
If 50% of your players can’t finish the tutorial, that means half the money you invest in advertisement is going straight to the trash bin.
If 30% of the other players finished tutorial uninstall your game afterward, then 80% of your investment is being burnt.
If the lasting 20% continue to play the game but don’t buy in-app products or watch rewarded ads, then YOU… JUST… WASTED… ALL… YOUR… MONEY.
I’ve seen great games fail because their developers ignored these very basic rules of paid advertisement, they didn’t put any effort into getting in touch with Apple and Google specialists and they didn’t listen to professional advice. Are you one of them?
TLDR
Seek contacts, listen to specialists, collect analytics and don’t waste money in advertisement before you’re sure your game is very profitable.