作者：Stoic Jester

去年年末几个月，我利用业余时间制作一款iPhone游戏《Bullseye Factory》。制作iPhone游戏不过是我的业余爱好，但这次我非常喜欢这个构思，看到作品顺利完成我非常兴奋。我说服我妹妹协助画面制作，而我自己则承担编程部分。我们最终完成这款制作精美的作品。

Bullseye Factory from mobilefile.info

过去我很少吹嘘自己制作的小作品。但从付出努力和反馈信息来看，我认为《Bullseye Factory》会是款截然不同的游戏。所以我希望进行适当营销。很多文章都谈论相同策略，包括在游戏信息板发布消息，进行“媒介闪电战”，制作预告片，下面我将阐述系列我采取的策略，以及它们相应成效。

那我就开门见山，老实讲《Bullseye Factory》几乎没有什么销量。

效果不佳的策略

于信息板发布消息

所有重要iOS游戏消息板都有供开发者公布游戏新作的空间。这给玩家带来很大方便，因为他们可以直接跳过这个部分。

依托媒介

我联系所有我能想到的iOS和手机博客，向他们介绍《Bullseye Factory》，并免费提供游戏。从中未获得任何回应，只有有些网站自动回复，要求我给出“评价”。但几周后，著名手机游戏网站SlideToPlay.com，给予《Bullseye Factory》积极评论。这算是最令人难忘的经历。

Bullseye Factory from slidetoplay.com

我怀揣激动心情猜测这会给销量带来何种影响？第二天我发现有两个人下载《Bullseye Factory》。帖子是晚上发布的，或许隔天，在评论置身网站首页一整天后，销量会更好。第二天我发现下载量为零。

盗版游戏

虽然游戏下载量不容乐观，但获得大网站评论带来个好处：谷歌告知我《Bullseye Factory》开始出现盗版。但我不以为然，至少有人会下载游戏盗版版本。这也算是种安慰。

采用新技术

当首次接触iPhone 4，尝试通过其玩陀螺仪游戏时，其控制准确度令我大吃一惊。但当时很少有游戏利用该功能。所以当我着手下款作品时，我想这或许是我能够脱颖而出的突破口。所以我尽可能突显其陀螺仪功能，我敢断定我是全世界唯一关注陀螺仪的开发者。最终带来的结果是我不过是把潜在玩家变得更具局限性。

iPhone陀螺仪 from cntronics.com

不尽完善的预告片

玩家通常会通过模拟器体验游戏，使用页面截取软件获得视频，获取游戏活动镜头。我曾在之前的游戏中采取此策略，效果非常好。但因为我们很难模仿陀螺仪，这并不是个可供选择的方案。我最终只好选择寻找能够越狱iPhone的应用，以截取所有应用画面。进展相当顺利，我当时对于取得结果非常满意。但现在回头看，当时的帧速并不高，所以没有看到游戏实际运作的玩家（游戏邦注：或者说看过预告片的玩家）会认为游戏颇为跌宕起伏。

我同时还合成另一使用连续镜头的预告片，是通过拍摄手机画面制作而成。影片展示顺畅游戏玩法，但我认为画面本身还是不够专业。我本来已采用手动模型，但其在电子游戏中表现得不尽如人意。

限定发行日期

项目持续拖延，不断占用我的夜晚和周末时间，我最终给自己定下最后期限，一定要在圣诞节前发行，这样大家才能在节日收到的新设备中玩这款游戏。但不幸的是其他开发商也有此想法。任何时候想要在App Store脱颖而出都是非常困难的，但我不认为在节假日高峰时期发行会有所帮助。虽然作品本身没有受到影响，因为圣诞节后《Bullseye Factory》的4份销量让我确信我的销售报告并不存在任何问题，我原计划销量只有2份。

通过开发者活动展示作品

我加入的开发者团体Twin Cities即将开展活动，让当地开发者展示自己的手机应用。报名对我来说并非易事，因为我常避开那些人流众多的场所。但奇怪的是，我很喜欢公开演讲，所以我决定试它一试。我很高兴我最终选择参加，因为活动成果显著，我从中认识很多很棒的人。

相反，演示过程中，我询问多少人拥有第4代设备（游戏邦注：以便能够体验这款基于陀螺仪的游戏），约有40-50人举手。这超出我的意料，我以为销量都来自电脑骇客，他们显然会舍弃99美分作品，支持他们的同行。第二天早晨我发现游戏售出2份。几个月来，游戏销量都不到2份，所以我已经习以为常，而这次居然新增2份。我不久前同下载游戏的玩家进行交流。

在HN发帖

HackerNews是我最喜欢的网站之一，因为他们拥有人气充足的迷人社区，这些人若手头没有项目就会变得焦躁不安。我喜欢网站的一点是常常会有人提交自己的应用或其他辅助项目，获取社区意见。我想在此方面我并非孤单一人，“评价我的应用”的帖子非常普遍。除我的失败经历外，帖子通常能够快速入驻网站新作首页，速度胜过TechCrunch文章，通常只消片刻。

这相当令人沮丧，因为HN用户并不为溢美之词所动，所以我期待看到真正的评论文字，最好能够解释销量不佳原因。或许这些帖子会更受青睐。

总结

我发现文章大多是消极内容。但我不希望作品遭遇“我真不幸”的悲惨故事，或者能够成为AppStore巨作。这不过是游戏运作不佳的方面。只消苹果公司将《Bullseye Factory》列入推荐名单，问题就迎刃而解。这不会阻止我进行新项目，所以请拭目以待。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

How (not) to sell your indie iOS game

For a few months late last year I spent all of my free time working on an iPhone game by the name of Bullseye Factory. Making iPhone games is just a hobby, but this time I really liked the concept I’d come up with and I was very passionate about seeing it through. I convinced my sister to do all the graphics while I did all the programming, etc. and we ended up with what I think is a pretty polished title.

Now, in the past I’d put out a few other smaller games that I released into the AppStore with very little fanfare. But based on the effort we’d put in, and the feedback I’d been getting (even unsolicited from strangers who happened to see me playing the prototype), I felt like Bullseye Factory was in a different league. So I wanted to market it the “right” way. There are all kinds of blog posts out there that all talk about mostly the same strategies, involving things like posting on the gaming message boards, doing a “media blitz”, creating a trailer, etc., so I figured I’d put together a list of the techniques that I employed and discuss how they worked out.

Oh, (spoiler alert) I’ll cut to the chase and tell you that Bullseye Factory sells approximately zero copies a day.

Things that worked

Umm… TBA

Things that did not work

Posting on message boards

Most of the major iOS gaming message boards have a section where developers are “allowed” to announce the arrival of their games. This is convenient for gamers as they can just avoid this one section altogether.

Contacting media

I contacted all of the iOS and mobile-centric blogs I could think of (around 40 of them), telling them about Bullseye Factory and providing them with promo-codes for a free copy. I heard back from exactly zero of them, with the exception of a few auto-replies asking me to pay for a “review”. However a few weeks later SlideToPlay.com, a rather prominent mobile-gaming site, posted this review of Bullseye Factory, which was actually very positive. That was one of the coolest things to happen during this experience.

I was excited to see how that would affect the sales. The next day I woke up to see that two people had downloaded it. Hmm… Well, it’d been posted in the evening, so perhaps the next day’s sales would be better after the review had been on the front page of their site all day. The next morning I awoke to find zero downloads.

Getting hacked

Although it didn’t lead to any downloads, getting mentioned on a large gaming blog did lead to one thing: ever since that day I started getting google alerts about downloading the cracked version of Bullseye Factory. I didn’t take it too hard, though; at least I’d finally made something that people thought was worth stealing. Kind of a compliment.

Using new technology

When I first got an iPhone 4 and tried the first gyroscope games, I was pretty much blown away by the accuracy of control that it allowed. But there weren’t many games out there that utilized it. So when I started writing my next game I thought that perhaps this was an angle I could use to try and stand out a bit. Well, I promoted the gyroscope aspect of it everywhere I could, and I was able to determine pretty conclusively that I’m the only person in the world who cares about the gyroscope. So, in the end all I really did was just limit the size of my potential audience.

Imperfect Trailer

In order to get footage of the game in action, oftentimes people will just play the game on the simulator and use screen-capture software to get the video. I’ve done this with previous games, and it works fairly well. However, since there’s no way to simulate the gyroscope, that method wasn’t an option. I ended up finding an app which allows jailbroken iPhones to screen-capture video of whatever app is running. It was incredibly slick and at the time I was very pleased with the result. Looking back at it, though, the framerate it was able to capture wasn’t very high, so anybody who hadn’t seen the actual game in motion (read: anybody who’d be watching a trailer) would probably think it looked kinda choppy.

I also put together another trailer using footage that was gotten by just holding the phone in front of the camera. That showed off the smooth gameplay, but I think there’s something inherently amateurish about videos taken in that manner. I would’ve hired a hand model, but they all suck at videogames.

Releasing in December

As the project kept dragging on, consuming my evenings and weekends, I finally gave myself the deadline that I wanted to release before Christmas so people could play it on their newly received toys. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure everyone else in the world had this same idea. Certainly it’s hard to stand out in the clutter of the App Store at anytime of year, but I don’t think that releasing in the midst of the firestorm that is the holiday season helped matters. Although, it didn’t hurt matters either, as the day after Christmas, when Bullseye Factory sold 4 copies, still stands as the only proof I have that there isn’t some bizarre bug affecting my sales reports that is capping the numbers at 2.

Presenting at a developer demo event

One of the developer groups that I follow here in the Twin Cities was hosting an event where people in the area could come and give a demo of their mobile apps. This was not the easiest thing in the world for me to sign myself up for, seeing as how I usually tend to avoid going places where there are likely to be people (not a big fan). However, somewhat bizarrely, I do enjoy public speaking, so I decided to give it a whirl. And, I’m really glad I did because it went really well (I think) and I met a bunch of cool people.

Conversely, while I was demoing, I asked the audience how many of them had a 4th generation iOS device (capable of playing my gyroscope-based game), and about 40-50 hands went up. That was way more than I expected, and I was looking forward to seeing the sales numbers from all of those hackers who surely would part with a measly 99 cents to support one of their colleagues. The next morning I woke to find a big two had been sold. Now, at this point I’d been waking up to a sales figure <= 2 for a few months in a row, so I’d gotten fairly used to it — but this was an especially difficult “2″, as I’d spoken to three people the night before who told me they’d already downloaded my game.

Posting on HN

HackerNews is one of my favorite websites because of the fascinating community they have there that’s filled with people, like me, who get restless when they’re not working on some kind of project. One of my favorite things about the site is that oftentimes people will submit their apps or other side projects to get the opinion of the community. I don’t think I’m alone in this, as “rate my app” posts always tend to be fairly popular. Except for when I did it. It shot right off the front page of the new section faster than a speeding TechCrunch article and only elicited one comment.

That was rather disappointing, as the denizens of HN aren’t much on sugar-coating, so I was looking forward to some real critiques and, optimally, theories on why sales were so slow. Perhaps this post will have better luck.

Conclusion

Now, I realize that this post is mostly negative, but I don’t want it to come across as a “woe is me” kind of sob story, or a hit-piece on the AppStore. This is just a list of things that haven’t happened to work yet. It only takes one Apple employee putting Bullseye Factory on a featured list to completely turn things around. And this experience certainly hasn’t dissuaded me from starting on my new project, so look forward to news on that and, with any luck, updates on Bullseye Factory’s circuitous route to success.（Source：stoicjesterstudios）