How do I deal with market glut?

Started by
10 comments, last by frob 8 years, 1 month ago

One thing I'm seeing some developers doing on Android is churning out a variety of games using the same assets and general style, but which play quite differently.

While this won't necessarily help you break through the wall of indifference, it lets you churn out multiple games rather cheaply, increasing the odds that a potential customer stumbles upon one of your products. If they use and enjoy one product of yours, there's a good chance they'll look at all of them.

I'm doing something like this on PC, but via episodic gaming.

Each episode uses the same setting, assets and characters, but I experiment in each one. One episode may have an emphasis on combat, another may be a murder mystery...etc. The base idea remains the same, but I do variations on it.

What I find is that I appeal to different target markets this way, and just because one episode appealed to a player, it doesn't necessarily mean that they would want to try out different episodes. This is a bit of a double-edged sword if you rely on sales to fund the development of the full season, but thankfully I have the resources to do so.

Advertisement

That style is one of several that historically has worked well. Think of all the games with expansion packs and annual releases. Also think of the many reskins or slight variations by a single publisher.

An episodic format gives you more products people might notice. It also gives an opportunity to identify barriers and remove/improve them. If previous builds haven't caught on you might take the time to fix them in older products or not, depending on your situation.

You might have Product, then Product In Space, or Product Medieval, Product: 1943, or whatever fits your game. Each time you get better skilled and the product gets better.

This topic is closed to new replies.

Advertisement