i keep seeing posts like this:<p>"we made a quality game and it's not selling"<p>"the app store is a disaster"<p>"it's a lottery"<p>no -- none of that is the problem. the issue is that all of the easy, low-hanging fruit is gone and to get workable revenue out of a game, you need to make a quality game.<p>that's quality without the quotation marks.<p>and, i'm sorry, but the games in the original post are nothing compared to the likes of papers please, don't starve, or guacamelee! -- much less amazing upcoming indies like no man's sky or ori and the blind forest.<p>you are kidding yourselves if you think something like "catch the monkey" is going to sell. i was floored to see it actually made $7k in revenue. i would have guessed $1500.<p>you -- yes, you with your fresh copy of unity and an mvp-fail-fast-idea -- are not going to cut it on the app store. you need to put out a real, honest-to-god, high-quality game.<p>catch the monkey or a is for app? really?<p>your game is going to be in the app store next to ori and the blind forest. your game is going to be in the app store next to white night. the player is going to look at both of your games and spend their money on those -- not yours.<p>the app store is not a disaster -- your game just looks like a disaster sitting next to those titles.<p>and swapping to pc? have you browsed through the greenlight options? you think your game is going to make it there when you couldn't cut the quality bar on the ios store?<p>let me help you with that decision:
<a href="http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight?appid=765&browsesort=pending&browsefilter=pending&p=1" rel="nofollow">http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight?appid=765&browsesort=pe...</a><p>is your game more amazing than anything on that list? better than jotun? better than bounty hounds? probably not.<p>sure, there are some mediocre games that catch fire and shoot to the top. that's where the lottery is. chances are those 304 apps released on the app store are all crap and don't have a chance in hell of real traction anyway so their only option is catching hold of the lottery tail. if you want to be part of that viral-dependent circus, more power to you, i suppose.<p>quality games -- real quality, not monkey quality -- are getting written up in indiegamemag.com or the like. they're thirsty for real, quality games to write about because people keep submitting monkey-catching games or yet another boring, pixelated, hero's journey rpg to them. you can't expect spending 3 months of nights and weekends on a game and it'll beat out all of the awesome stuff indies are producing right now.<p>however, if your game is legit, you'll do just fine.<p>that's the key takeaway, make a real, value-for-the-player, interesting game and you'll do just fine. if you can't do that, accept it as a hobby or get a different job.