Save it for yourself, have a track record that makes you a good risk, or come from a rich family. Did I leave anything out?
Blakberry Is the Blackberry game market worth it? Is it easier/cheaper to get a Blackberry game done?
The number one rule is don't invest anything you can't afford to lose 100% of. Imagine flushing the money down the toilet. That's probably very close to what will happen.
DJ Is that what Doodle jump thought? Lets just speculate here! If I outsold Words with Friends on Iphone and Ipad say Iphone is paid 99 cents and Ipad is 4.99 (Android will come later) then what would I make?
Doodle Jump is the lone exception of a bygone app store. It is in no way indicative of current market conditions. I speculate that you will get ripped off by your programmers because you don't have any knowledge of app development and you'll make another puzzle game, lost among the millions of identical copies. And you really think you'll outsell words with friends? A cross-platform game with huge market share? Your hopes are beyond unrealistic.
Oh yeah Have you publishes games? How will I get ripped off do you think? Do you think Frima studio will rip me off?
How do you know? Do you have a time machine? Why does that K guy not back up his argument? I do not have a Scrabble clone its way different so the same people who like Word games and Words with Friends will like to play mine you negative people
Words from friends doesn't necessarily make a lot on paid sales to my knowledge. What they do make, last I looked into it, is around a million a month in ad revenue. Best of luck with your ventures, my only recommendation would be to do a lot of research, and due diligence before investing to heavily. Developing a multiplayer game is even harder and more risky than the typical app store venture, and has other associated costs depending like server infrastructure, and server development/administration. Though there are some free solutions that might meet your needs, like Open Feint's multi-player turn based capabilities which we can recommend, from our app store board games.
You will find that many people on this forum have published games, and have learnt through experience. What you see as pessimism is realism, only a few games sell in large numbers and to base your investment on the expectation of hitting the top of a very large and competitive market is very risky. Your optimism and enthusiasm are great, but reinforce them with knowledge. People are trying to help you.
We are not trying to be negative. We're trying to tell you what is typical for the App Store. The same people who like Word games, and Words With Friends, will not automatically want to play your game. Heck, many will never even see your game's icon. A quick look at the store shows that there are currently 1,567 paid Word games, and 907 free Word games. Only a small percentage of those are making any money at all. And only a handful are getting rich. But most of them were positive they had a killer Word game. The vast majority of games (any games, not just Word games) on the store do not make enough money to pay for themselves. This is not us being negative. It is a fact. By all means, follow your dream, and make the ultimate Word game. But do not assume you will get a return on your investment, past the experience of creating a game. If you make back your money, great. If you manage to earn a nice profit, even better. If you become the next Words With Friends, fantastic! But, do not invest significant amounts of money into this, if your assumption is that you're going to get rich just because you created the best game ever. Some extremely impressive games crash and burn every single day on the App Store. Quality does not equal success. To succeed, you need to understand the market, and even then, it's no guarantee. My best advice is to start small, and get a feel for the store.
Some people just like making games as a hobby, and so they release them for free so that more people have a chance of playing them!
