It’s brutal guys, it was brutal 10 years ago even. It’s 10 times harder than Steam.

1:44 RobTop is the only one i can remember and yet he made a pc port

nobody likes it, but it is where most users are.

“some girl” with the coupon? Best not to gender stereotype

And by the way, I think you need a more sturdy table!

I made a game trailer which is worth watching, but unfortunately I don't have the skills to make a real game :D

I've done 7 mobile games alongside four years and all those games have generated me 5 usd total profit XD

I have a small survival RPG like game that is written in Java and runs on Android, Windows, and Browser. So to me you should just deploy to all 3 major platforms regardless. Even if the game is not a great fit for 2 of the 3 top platforms. This way you can at least offer something other than steam only stuff.

I can confirm it. I uploaded a game to the Play Store. It could not be found even when typing the exact of the name. Awful.

Mobile game dev gives me a job as game economy designer since 2017. 99/100 job proposals come from mobile. I certainly love the mobile game industry, which also knows better than any game designer how to engage and retain even with simple mechanics. Mobile F2P is easy to test and monetize and are games that engage 95% of non-payers that enjoy all those experiences for free. Edit: all audiences play mobile, and 15-30 aged play and pay a lot Edit 2: Designing games that can even run in a Nokia 1100, 150MB of size AT MOST, with servers, with tracking, with tests forms you as a game producer 94838282 times faster than making the level design in a fancy pc rpg dungeon

Valve and Gabe Newell have proposed a particular ideological framework on their idea of 'fairness' on Steam, which has resulted in a surprisingly stable market for many developers. By contrast, Google's business is ads, and so the extreme bizarro market of mobile dev is kind of the 'true capitalist' final form of all games storefronts. Lets hope that Valve hangs on to steam in the long run!

The life is too short to learn German or Dutch

The one thing I think mobile games are also good for is teaching game design because they are usually easier to breakdown and look over what the designers did that worked and what didn't work.

This is a great and probably underrated video. Good job. Love your channel. Greetings from a fellow Belgium KZbinr.

So a bit of an unrelated question but do you have a separate dev account or do you use your main steam account for game dev?

For anyone making mobile games, from every video I've seen The Google play store is absolutely a$$ compared to the Apple store (And I'm an android user, never had an iPhone ever) because on andriod you can get APK hacks of every paid game but on iPhone it's a lot harder to hack games so mobile games sell better (Plus the Google play store algorithm isn't made to push the little guys it's for the big studios who pay the promo fee)

Well, it would be about building a brand. That users can trust will deliver to them good small fun games that ain't just lazy cashgrabs. Now, this won't make one an instant millionaire overnight, but it is a sustainable approach to the problem of being in the market. You just have to believe your good will is going to be rewarded in the long term.

As a part-time mobile gamedev I have to say you were quite on point. I am only Part-time for a REASON! The BIGGEST ISSUE is user acquisition. You can go pure organic (with some luck and app store optimization) but then you are depending on the GOOGLE ALGORITHM with all of your revenue and it can screw you over big time. Or you try PAID user acquisition but in that case you are competing with all of the big boys and they can pay for user more than you because they earn from an average user a lot more than you. Therefore it's extremely hard to have paid user acquisition PROFITABLE and SCALABLE! Often you can have a few paid users daily profitably but when you try to scale, it just starts costing you more. It is very hard to have enough content to have high enough LTV (lifetime money from a player) to cover the user acqusition when doing it solo. Overall I am happy to be doing it part-time but I've been at it for the last 6+ years working on just one dream game. As BartMamzer author of Powerlust and my good friend mentioned... successful games there have A LOT bigger LONG TAIL in terms of revenue and organic user acqusition. There are many devs I know who have just one good game and it brings them good revenue for years if they keep working on it. Me included.

Watching some BiteMe while having a bite 😎

Hey there... I have a weird comment, I guess... See, I make indie games, and some games in a series I work on, is called BiteMe. Now, years later, I see you guys have a studio with the exact name and spelled the exact same way. (Edit: only in my case there is an "!" in the end, like "BiteMe!") Don't worry, I am not going to make a problem out of this. But there might be some confusion under both our audiences this way. So, here is a head's up. I wonder how you did come up with that name for a game studio, though? I'm just curious how you would think of BiteMe, what does it mean? :p In my case it was because it is a zombie game, and it sounds like giving someone the finger. (Edit: I realize this sounds as if I am saying: "Did you get the idea from me"? But I actually am just interested in how the name came to be, compare your train of thought with my own.)

I’m a new mobile game dev so take this with a grain of salt but I’m going to continue to make mobile games for one main reason. I have released one game so far and while it only ever got a handful of users (due to a $0 advertising budget) it has instead helped me find contract work making mobile games for others. Only a handful of interesting parties and meetings so far but having a decent website and proof that you can get past the google play barrier can put you ahead of others trying to sell their dev skills - and compared to the 0 interviews I’ve had trying to get dev jobs at a studio this is pretty good. I’m still working on my own mobile games and a steam game soon but making games for others is one of the reasons I think that indie devs can still get away with focusing on mobile.

I'd love to play test Japanese Fountain Girls ngl. Like the real ones 🥵

honestly, mobile games really need to go back to the classic handheld gaming design. Like, modern phones have been the best platform for things like Nintendo GameBoy/DS, Sega GameGear, Atari Lynx, and PlayStation Portable/Vita type games. We hardly have any portable games anymore, unless you're getting the Switch/2 or SteamDeck now. And even then, they're ridiculously powerful, so you can play some pretty big games on them. But, phones have always been sitting in the beautiful spot for portable gaming, and would be able to basically clear up the older options, for a more unified setup. Since you'd only need to make them for 2 base systems then (iPhone and Android), and that you know people will always be buying new phones periodically. But, not everyone would be willing to spend a couple hundred for the handheld gaming systems, *in addition to* buying a phone. I think, realistically, homebrew games would probably do the best off of this system for mobile gaming. But, overall, the massive flooding of the market of mobile games, where a "long" dev cycle is 1 week (seriously? that's fuckin short...), has just destroyed a viable market by wiping out the really great games that could be released on it. I do agree, that mobile games, probably shouldn't be done by most people. Though, I think the exception would be more like, if you happen to come up with an idea for it, and the only platform that could reasonably make sense for being able to play it is mobile, then, that's when you should make the game. That is, if a traditional controller doesn't give you the same level of control that you're looking for, but a touch screen does, *then* make a mobile game. Otherwise, just stick with PC, console, or VR gaming (and with VR, probably should wait till you've got a few PC games done at least).

My personal tierlist: S - FURRY GAME (Atlyss-like), GAME ABOUT KID MASCOT GOING WRONG THAT'S GOING TO BE PLAYED BY UNSUPERVISED CHILDREN (FNAF-like) A- NON-CONSENSUAL SEX AND GORE GAMES (think Fear&Hunger, The Citadel, Monster Quest Girl, etc) F - Honest game about your interests.

🥲me who has dictated my whole game dev journey to mobile 💔

I have worked on hypercasual games in the past with a well established company here in Pakistan. From what I know, everything you are saying is absolutely true. However for anyone who still wants to make mobile games, I think one of the few feasible options for indie developers is to work with mobile publishers. They have both the money and experience to help you make a game that can perform well in the market (they WILL take most of the money) but be prepared to work on extremely lame stuff if you want financial success. Working on those games does help to be able to look at your games as products though. Many indie game developers could use that perspective imo.

I dabbled in mobile many years ago, but surely wouldn't touch it now. Too many weird platform/build requirements, too many devices to test properly on, and of course micro-transactions/ads are a pain. However, as you said, cool small-scope games are still best suited to mobile. There's a big player-base there -- if you can find it.

You only need 20 playtesters on a personal account btw.

Everything you've said about mobile is so true, keep up these awesome videos! I've worked at mobile games studios for about 13 years now, it's very soul sucking watching the decisions made by the non-creative business types. While effective in pulling in revenue when done right, the end results of the games are not exactly games I am excited about, in the end they really feel like experiences, and at the end of the day, to maximize money from users . I'm lucky my current studio doesn't mind employees working on game related side projects, so any indie work I can do is very refreshing.

The part about the group who created an AI to extract the maximum amount of value from customers just makes me shake my head. I don't own a business or anything, so maybe I'm a bit naive - but I wish companies started from the viewpoint of "how much value can we provide" instead of "how much value can we extract?"

I'll die on the hill of no mobile games.

Tbh oversaturation was and issue on mobile even 10 years ago, so I wouldn't say it's a new problem. Other than that I agree on your points, monetization is hard and is a new skill to learn, user acquisition is hard and is another skill to learn, so is optimization. But like you said the quality of a mobile game doesn't have to be as high as a PC game, so imo that's a good thing for a new dev. What you didn't mention is the long tail, mobile has way better long tail than steam.

Souls-likes are the Dark Souls of solo dev

Apple has a Game Subscription Service called Apple Arcade. As far as I know you get paid for each download. Might be worth looking into

I do mobile games but boy the market is trash. I do them because I do gamedev on the side when I have time and I don't have (take) time to polish too much. That way I level up in game dev / game design / etc. for my future paid games

Thanks for at least tackling the subject! You're describing is mostly the AAA or AA tier. Indie mobile has a different approach. I give a whole 1hr talk on this, but some quick-tips: + Mobile players are everyone! Once you accept that, you can find your niche for whatever game you prefer to make. + Midcore mobile games support short play sessions, like 5-15min, but can also be longer. Think 30-45min on a lunch break or chilling at bedtime. + Gyroscope, accelerometer, GPS, NFC, Camera - all of these can be inputs. Even touch can be gesture or multitouch. I played a phone RPG using a Wiimote connected via Bluetooth. + Optimization, testing, and analytics are very important! But you can use that same approach for any platform - mobile is a good analogue for Switch or handheld systems. + You do need a real marketing strategy, and some kind of mktg budget. But you don't need millions of users either, so just focus on the places your likely players are. A good approach is to do a game suited for your local market, or a culture that you're very familiar with. The big companies have to be generic - if you are specific, you can make plenty of money for a normal indie. + Be prepared to keep your games up-to-date, since the Stores require that (at least once per-year). Lots of old games are delisting due to this, so you can stay competitive just by doing routine maintenance.

I think the optimal strategy is to target PC first and if your game is a success you make a paid mobile port. This is what many popular steam games did like Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire and Balatro. That way no need to worry about ads, etc... So maybe design your game PC first but with mobile controls in mind so that porting is easy when you reach that point.

Me who is working on a mobile game right now: 😶😵‍💫

Do you think it's even possible to develop mobile games without an absurd amount of micro-transactions nowadays? I feel like mobile games have a stronger motivation/pressure to be free-to-play, leaving very little wiggle room for devs who want to make great games.

Yeah I'm moving off mobile at the moment. It is hella tough to get visibility in the store against the bigger studios. That, and you really have to be going whaling to make those big mobile $ - something which doesn't necessarily align as much with our ideals

What about tower defense? Dead genre?

F tier gang here

i like the ui

Im making an arcade game(Basically Mr Driller) Its been a fun rewarding experience. This will be my third steam game. My first was a first person roguelike called Dungeons of Mysteria that I had actually made a year previous and I threw up on steam to learn all the back end steam stuff. The second(the one that had the most amount of dev time thrown into it) was a Third person ocarina of time style adventure but with cats called Paws for Adventure. The cat adventure sold terrible, even though it always got the better reactions from people and had more wishlists at launch. During the recent winter sales I sold 3 copies of Paws for Adventure but 13 copies of Dungeons of Mysteria. The last minute throw up on steam as a test game out performed my main title by a LOT.

to me it was 6 at morning aswell, not usually up that time at all but considering the amount of gifts and donations u might live stream this time more often

and thanks for the gifted membership 🤌🏼🤌🏼

Needed this bro thanks

Could easily extend your game by making it show some anomalies that triggered and if some was not triggered. Maybe have many different ones so you can replay and try and get them all. How about some pictures around the office like employee of the week / month / year. Could be the Patreons and Members... just like a wall with plaques or something. Just an idea for having something that is easy to add. Could even make it related to their support length. Like "John Johnson was employee for 320 Days before retirement" on a plaque. (Retirement = release date)

Hi, great video. What are you thoughts on Turn-Based Tactics as a solo dev? I've been working on mine for just over 2 years (part time) and I'm getting close to completion. I guess I picked it as it's a genre I like rather than something that I thought would be popular. It's also I thought was something I could do which was different (in some ways) to other games on the market. The problem I have as a solo dev is getting people to even see it to start that wishlist count !

You could play around with fog, to make it look dusty. Not entirely sure how it works in Unity, but that's what I would do in UE.