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Even the lucky few who get outsized returns find it unsustainable...

• mdorazio 11y ago
  Exactly this. The writeup is excellent, but also shows exactly how hit-driven the app market is. The dev made one game (based on already-successful IP) that generated a lot of revenue, and then the subsequent games are only modestly successful. I think one of the big "do's" from the article is very good advice: don't spend huge amounts of time working on an app and expect it to provide a return. The dev says 2 months of part-time work should be a target, and that seems about right to me as well. Beyond that you're just asking for negative returns if you value your time highly.
  • forgetsusername 11y ago
    >The dev made one game (based on already-successful IP) that generated a lot of revenue, and then the subsequent games are only modestly successful. And now is going write a book and probably go on to become an "expert" and do consultation on how to successfully repeat a process that they themselves couldn't repeat in practice. The transparency and information in the post is awesome, but I don't see any systematic path to success here, in what is the crap-shoot of the App Store. One-hit-wonders are everywhere.
• trcollinson 11y ago
  That's not an entirely fair assessment, at least in this case. He ported a popular Web game with about 3 hours of content to an iOS game. He made about $700,000 gross on that. He then followed up with a few partial attempts at similar games that were either a) built to be exceptionally hard (The Ensign) or b) unfinished and barely playable (A Noble Circle). I'd say the unsustainable part for him is his entire (lack of) business plan. It shows very little other than the fact that very little sticks when you throw random things at a wall.