Smartcompany.com.au has an intriguing article on how competition and consumer expectations for apps in Apple's App Store is edging out the small game developer. The App Store has become a huge market for developers, and with an ever increasing amount of publishers and larger seasoned studios flooding the mobile game space with high numbers of quality big budget titles, consumers are now expecting a whole lot more from their apps.
With increasing development budgets and the marketing / advertising muscle required (the article mentions Firemint's dedicated PR people just for that purpose) for today's high selling mobile games, it has meant that individuals and small team developers are finding it increasingly challenging to compete in the marketplace. From Smartcompany...
Travis Yates says he's been forced into using thousands of dollars for advertising since his Card Counting app exploded – something he never had to do before.
"I've spent about $4,000-$5,000 on advertising just to give them a chance. "It's really gotten to the point now where if you don't have a bit of money behind you, there's really no point in making anything."
Smartcompany has the thoughts of many other local games and productivity app developers, including Firemint and Lookout Mobile, on how the fast-paced App Store landscape has changed consumer expectations of apps, and how the market place has shifted from where many small independent developers were able to achieve success to one that is dominated and successfully monetised by publishers and large developers.
There are, however, small developers still achieving remarkable success on the App Store, and it's innovation that independent games developers have in their favour...
(Akshay Kothari, Alphonso Labs) "I think that's the beauty of the App Store. It doesn't matter who's building it, because people are always going to discover really good apps."
"There are companies that can spend as much money on PR as they want, but in the end, it's the really good quality apps that will get noticed above anything else."