Indie Exposure: The Realities of Free

It's been a while since the last Indie Exposure post, hasn't it? When I was planning to post this instalment, I was preparing Greedy Bankers: Bailout! for launch - that is, the free version of the game with expanded game modes for in-app purchases. I fully expected this to make a massive difference to the game's fortunes - specifically, enabling much better exposure.

Of course, as with the best laid plans, this strategy didn't go the way I expected. While I am receiving consistently higher downloads of the free version as I had been getting on the paid version, I was expecting the userbase to grow by significantly more than it actually did. I needed to do some thinking before I could wax lyrical about the exposure opportunities for free games. 

I'll begin with my starting logic: offering your game for free should make it more open to recommendation, and hence benefit your exposure. Let's think about why.

The Logic

Put yourself in your customers' shoes, or look at your own purchasing decisions. I presume I am not an atypical iOS user, and from my own experience even paying 69p for an app requires a big decision. After all, how many times do I want to spend 69p before I find something that I really enjoy? Unless I am cautious about my spending those 69p's could really add up!

When I buy a cup of coffee, I know exactly what I'm going to get and have a fairly accurate estimate of how much I'll enjoy it. So paying £1.80 for my medium Americano is not a big decision. With a game I have only the vaguest idea how much I'll enjoy it, even if I take time to read all the copy, see the reviews and look at the screenshots. In short, I'll be taking a risk. 

Speaking at Develop Brighton, 12 July 2012

Hi everyone! Just to let you know I'll be speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton this July. I'll be giving a talk titled Indie Exposure: Tackling the Challenges, based on my recent blog series.

Breaking into the market as an indie developer takes more than just a great game, with publicity and exposure being major barriers to success. Drawing lessons from his Greedy Bankers series on iOS, one-man studio Alistair Aitcheson examines why visibility remains such a challenge, and explores ways to achieve it.

He’ll explore how freely-accessible marketplaces like the App Store are approached by consumers, the importance of a bold and remarkable USP, and how pricing and platform affect your ability to draw attention. He also examines the opportunities unique to indie developers, to take memorable design risks and to become identifiable personalities.

I'll be speaking as part of the Indie Dev Day on 12th July. Early bird tickets for the day are £75 before 13 July. I went to this day last year and found it both insightful and useful, and an affordable alternative to the full conference for smaller studios, so it's highly recommended! I'll be in Brighton for all three days of the conference this year, so if anyone else is going it'll be great to see you there.

The feedback I got from my Develop Liverpool talk was so encouraging, and thoroughly enjoyed giving my presentation. So I'm excited to be able to speak at the main event in Brighton this year!

The conference is also running an Indie Marketing Day on 11th of July, which has a very exciting lineup of talks, and is definitely work taking a look at.

Greedy Bankers: Bailout! Launches

The free-to-play edition of Greedy Bankers, titled Greedy Bankers: Bailout! is now available in the App Store.

Please do tell your friends, and pass on the link - the more players the merrier!

http://itun.es/iP66K7

The new version is FREE, and introduces two new game modes - Mystery and Bailout - alongside brand new music and sound design from musician Tom Parfitt.

Greedy Bankers: Bailout! is free to play, with additional game modes priced at $0.99/£0.69/€0.79 each.

Thanks very much, and happy banking to all!

Indie Exposure: This Time it's Personal

So we've had a look at where the challenges of indie exposure lie, and the power of the USP in your promotion, and how to make the most of it. It seems natural to follow on with a discussion of one particular USP available to all of us indie developers. It's something few AAA studios have quite the same access to...

It is ourselves.

Our ability as indie developers to be individuals, with distinctive personalities and motivations is incredibly valuable. Here's why:

Your Marketing Story

Your marketing story is one of the most important promotional tools at your disposal. Tadhg Kelly wrote a smart article on what makes for a good marketing story, which is a must-read.

Stories are emotive. Stories are memorable. Stories have a human face. We as indies have unique and fascinating stories to tell. Because of our scale, we can be individual personalities, and readers of our stories can put themselves in our shoes. You may not think you have an interesting story, but you do. Micro studios taking on entire game projects must inevitably take a unique and usual path to get there. The tale of an indie who struggled to get break through but persisted through thick and thin is inspiring.

Indie Exposure Addendum: Virality

Thanks to game developer Bateleur (FastRam Design) for recommending this video - it's well worth a watch. The video is a talk about how viral videos get popular, and I think there's strong parallels with the indie and iPhone games markets.



When I posted links to these articles on the TIGSource forums, a few points were raised. I'd casually mentioned a "mass gatekeeper" created by the consumer audience in my first article. This is to reference the point that the consumer network has replaced the gatekeeper that used to be publishers and platform holders. Developer Paul Eres suggested that the mass gatekeeper was less potent than the tastemakers: games press and gaming voices that inform large swathes of followers.

I think that both of these are true. Fortunately, I think that both of these gatekeepers are very similar to what they see as remarkable.

Preparing to Launch... Greedy Bankers: Bailout!

The previously announced Greedy Bankers:Bailout! has just gone out for its final round of testing! Should the beta tests prove successful, I'll probably launch the game towards the end of the week. Greedy Bankers: Bailout! adds in two brand new game modes, Bailout and Mystery, and offers the Arcade mode from the original Greedy Bankers entirely free of charge. The extra game modes will be unlockable by in-app purchase.



The new version also includes a brand new soundtrack and sound design by musician Tom Parfitt, making it considerably brighter and buzzier than its predecessor. The music's been stuck in my head for weeks, which is always a good sign!

I'll be sure to keep you posted as and when Greedy Bankers: Bailout! is submitted... watch this space!

Indie Exposure: Making the most of your USP

The articles in this series are featured as guest posts on GamesBrief: The Business of Games

In my previous article I discussed how and why exposure is the major issue facing independent developers. In the next few articles I want to talk about some of the key ways I feel this can be overcome, drawing on my own experience with the Greedy Bankers games on iPhone and iPad.

It can be very easy to see marketing and game development as separate disciplines - that creating an awesome game and drawing in new players are separate tasks requiring separate sets of skills. The reality is that designing your game to be marketable is a key part of development. It's up to you as a designer to identify, develop and promote your unique selling point.

Introducing Greedy Bankers: Bailout!

Today marks the birthday of Greedy Bankers on the iPhone: it went live in the App Store exactly one year ago. It's been an exciting year, with big updates, the iPad sequel, Greedy Bankers vs The World, and the game being exhibited live at Eurogamer Expo, GameCity Nottingham, the Guardian Gamesblog social at BAFTA, and the GEEK Expo in Kent just last week.

Of course, Greedy Bankers is an ongoing project, and I'm certainly not finished with it. There's a brand new entry in the series heading to the iPhone very soon... Greedy Bankers: Bailout!

Indie Exposure: Why's it so hard?

This article was featured as a guest post on Games Brief - the Business of Games

Last Friday I was at the incredible Bit of Alright, David Hayward's smorgasbord of indie delights, giving a talk about Indie Exposure. Self-publishing the Greedy Bankers games has taught me a lot of lessons, not least just how much time, energy and creative thinking I've needed to devote to PR and marketing. The problem I've had, particularly with the original iPhone release, is that while it's had a very positive response from those who have played it, getting into the hands of players has been a massive challenge.

In the next few blog posts I plan to discuss the issues involved: why it's so tough to get exposure for indie and mobile games, and my strategies for getting that coveted exposure. So without further ado, let's look at where these difficulties are coming from.

Growing Competition

There are increasingly many developers launching games into the indie space. The rise of free-to-access marketplaces with limited gatekeeping - the iOS and Android app stores, the web and portals such as Kongregate and Facebook - mean that it's never been easier to release a game. In fact, without this I probably wouldn't have been able to operate as a one-man studio at all.

Greedy Bankers to face prison!?

This turned up on the front page of the Mail on Sunday, and I couldn't resist posting a photo - does this make me a wanted man? I'd always thought addictive puzzle-strategy games would be celebrated by the British public, but it looks like chancellor George Osbourne begs to differ