Tardy Posting!

Yes, I know, I have been quite tardy in posting updates.  It is a struggle when there is so much going on in the world, and updates funnel through slowly.

Yet - while I might not have been busy on the blog, we have been very busy behind the scenes with a great new update on its way.  The Shop has finally arrived!  I have to say, I'm kind of excited!  Now there is a reason to want to Save up your Bacon!  Yep, you can now exchange your bacon for upgrades just for your pig!

Here is a sample of the artwork that has been developed along the way:

Now your pig can be as cool as you are - lol!

We'll see what happens here, but it does change the way the game feels, and I like that.  It gives it something a bit extra.

Oh...and then there is the "Golden Pig"...but more about him later.

The journey continues...

AG

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Chartboost Chart - Week 7

Here is this week's Chartboost dashboard.  It has been a busy week, with most of my focus (for this app) being on Tweeting.

The new version was released last week (finally!!) and the inclusion of Global High Scores is good as it gives a few options on targets to aim for.  It has reminded me, yet again, that the Play Store is a lot more responsive, with the new version coming out in a matter of hours, and the App Store, one week later, is still "Waiting for Review".

I realise that this has a bearing on the quality of the apps in the various stores, but, as a publisher of apps, the wait is a little frustrating.

So, a little progress, but nothing worth getting too excited over.  BTW - Does anyone know the difference between "Earned" and "Balance"?

Here are this week's stats from the Stores:

Play Store
Install count (this week): 27 / 56
Ratings: 4.55 / 11

App Store
Install count (as at this week): 291
Reviews: 1

Slowly heading up again, we'll see what the week brings...

The journey continues...

AG

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Chartboost Chart - Week 6 (hmm...missed week 5 this time!)

Here is this week's Chartboost dashboard.  I have found that while waiting for development to complete, it is hard to maintain a focus on posting!

Finally, the new release is imminent.  Let's see how it goes.  Tidies up a lot of niggling little things and adds some nice (and needed) functionality.

As the app was new, with little marketing (I didn't really want to!), it has started to die down.  Let's hope with this new release it will be a little more engaging.

Here are this week's stats from the Stores:

Play Store
Install count (this week): 25 / 54
Ratings: 4.55 / 11

App Store
Install count (as at this week): 262
Reviews: 1

Stats are down a little this period.  Let's see what the new version can do?

The journey continues...

AG

(don't forget to share with the buttons below if you like this post!)

Chartboost Chart - Week 4 (sorry! I missed week 3)

Here is this week's Chartboost dashboard.  Sorry I missed last week...other "real world" stuff got in the road.

Still no new release, for reasons that you'll see in a future post.

We seem to have established a kind of heart beat now.  It isn't awesome, but the trend is kind of steady.

I think I'll also include stats in these posts too.  It will be useful to see what happens over time:

Play Store
Install count (this week): 30 / 51
Ratings: 4.55 / 11

App Store
Install count (as at this week): 241
Reviews: 1

The journey continues...

AG

(don't forget to share with the buttons below if you like this post!)

Chartboost Chart - 1 week in

OK, as promised, here is the Chartboost chart for this week.  As you can see, not a lot of movement.

So far, this is v1, really just gameplay.  Marketing has been spent on this blog, Twitter and Facebook only, and only a bit of time on both - posting to my feed.

Will be ramping up marketing once High Scores and Achievements are enabled, with a greater push once the Shop is online.

The journey continues!

AG

In Game Advertising - Yes or No?

Before I go into detail about those two stores, Play Store and App Store, there is an important question that really needs to be asked.

Do we have in-App advertising?

In today's very consumer driven world, there is little value that is applied to innovation or investment when it comes to the mass driven app gaming market.  People have an expectation of high quality and low (free!) cost to them.  No longer do people think they should be paying for applications, everything should be free!  Well..shouldn't it?

A truly successful app can be given away for free, and the developers will still make plenty of money via a variety of mechanisms, including:

• in-App product placement advertising for other products
• in-App purchases to help progress in the game
• Website traffic advertising
• Sponsorship
• etc.

But let's face it, unless your name is Mojang or SuperCell or one of the big boys, the opportunity for revenue from these mechanisms isn't great.  If you don't have traffic, you won't make money.  If you charge for your app, there is a strong probability that you won't get much traffic.  The trouble is that you have just spent either lots of your own time or lots of your own money in order to get the app to market.

Somehow, this has to make good Commercial sense.  If it doesn't, it is an investment in time or money as a labour of love for the marketplace.  This is noble, but unless you have some money hidden somewhere, at some point this is not sustainable.

Enter in-App advertising.  This was a concept that didn't even exist only a few short years ago.  By simply showing ads to hundreds if not thousands of pair of eyes it has all of a sudden channeled an entirely new opportunity for income.

This means you can release an App for FREE and still MAKE MONEY!  Wow.  This is a model that could make everyone happy!  Awesome!

It seems like a real win-win, the best of both worlds.  The consumer literally gets something for nothing and the developer can still make it viable for them to create these free apps.

...and this mostly works well.

Unfortunately, there are still some people who will whinge and complain about seeing an ad.  They see it as invasive and "Why should I have to see ads?" and "I expect to get stuff for free".  This kind of selfish attitude really is a disappointing but very real part of the world we currently live in.

Because of these selfish people, if you choose to run ads, expect to get some 1 star ratings.  It is simply a fact of life unfortunately.

For Save My Bacon, we have decided to run a simple ad that is to appear briefly at the end of the game.  It is certainly a struggle to generate much cash in these early days, but there are some semi-promising signs.

We have decided to go with Chartboost.  It has simple integration, seems to pay OK and has a nice dashboard.  I'll be posting pics of progress, for a while at least, every week as we progress along this marketing journey.

And to start that off, here is my dashboard after 7 days.  The only marketing so far has been some simply Tweeting which I'll talk about soon.

It will improve, because it must!

Please leave me a comment on whether you agree with in-App advertising and your reasons?

Also, what advertising network do you use?

The journey continues...

AG

How the Game was Born - Starting to create an App

You know, these things start off in the most unexpected ways sometimes.  "Save My Bacon" was a concept that was brainstormed with my kids.  It was to be a simple game where you didn't have to think too much, but instead you could just turn off your brain and waste some time.

Initially we weren't even interested in the skill level, but as the game development progressed, the skill level, although pretty simple, became an important part of the game.

Now, I have been developing or managing the development of software for many years, but the focus has always been on business applications.  We have developed some pretty handy stuff over the years, but this was our first attempt at a game.

Fortunately for me, during these years of development, I have been able to identify and form a good team, and my first action was to shoot a note off to my graphic artist to have a chat and get his feedback.  He seemed pretty enthused, so I pulled together a product specification outline.

It wasn't long before the first images started to appear and the game started to come to life!  This is possibly one of the most exciting parts of these projects.

Check this out as some of the early artwork.  It kinda makes you a little ill with him jumping up and down like that!!

However, it was at this time that I knew we would proceed.  The game looked good, the gameplay was nice and simple.

Next...advertising.  We wanted the game to be free, but we wanted some way of recovering our outlays.  When you consider Flappybirds...well that was one of those amazing benchmarks.  Apparently, at its peak, Flappybirds as raking in $50,000 per day.  Seriously.  Have you seen Flappybirds?

Some people must have found it amazingly addictive!

Well, there are lots of Ad networks you can plug into your App.  We have landed on Chartboost. This is a useful plugin that pays reasonably well for ads.  I'll let you know how we track, as this is a first for us.  I just hope we have chosen well.

Please let me know in the Comments as to whether you have used Chartboost and/or others and what you think of them!

OK, Artwork, Ad partner and into development in earnest.  A few weeks and a fair bit of testing later, we had v1 of Save My Bacon ready for release!

Um...so now what?

Well, we wanted to sell at the Android Play store and the Apple App Store.  Time to set up some accounts.

Unfortunately, this is not as simple as you might think...and I'll think I'll make that the topic of the next post.

And so the journey continues...

AG