Is a physics platformer game a good niche?

Is it large enough to attract many users?

Is it small enough to not have crazy competition from the big boys?

I’m very interesting for this question, too. I think that google play is full of copy platformer games and very bad 3d simulations. But if game has cute graphic like angry birds or something like that, i suppose people will play :slight_smile:

A dextery based oldschool platformer is a good niche. Physics based stuff is out since a few years already. Your physics really need to be groundbreaking (Badland for example) to have success with physics based platformers.
Keep the levels short and very difficult, focus on gameplay, not on eye candy. Keep the look simple or retro. You have actually chances to get support by press and social media with such a game under the condition it’s well made of course.

you mean they used be a better niche before?

Your physics really need to be groundbreaking (Badland for example) to have success with physics based platformers.

If you mean the physics engine, I’ll just use Box2D. I’m sure Badland uses Box2D too :slight_smile: doesn’t it?

You have actually chances to get support by press and social media with such a game under the condition it’s well made of course.

Isn’t this the case with any game we make? Or is it particularly the case with this niche?

Thanks for you reply!

Consider that it is particularly time/cost intensive to create content for such games. A lot of level design, testing, balance, etc all to the expenses of the creators , unless you maybe include a level editor (but i suppose it is only worth it if your user base is very large) or some randomization process that allows to create different levels from same assets and mechanics.

I don’t exactly know what badland uses as engine. Chipmunk for example is a much better physics engine than box2D, but it isn’t free to use as far as I know. But the way Badland used and integrated it’s physics is top notch.
The hype for 2D physics is over now though. There was a time between 2008 and 2012 where physic games were pretty popular, but people are rather bored of them today.
About the press: There are genres you have better chances to get press with, because especially journalists from gaming sites want to support hardcore gaming and keep it alive at all cost. That’s why you have a better chance to get press with a very difficult platformer.

I agree with baksai though. We for example have our own engine to create platformers, so we can finish them pretty fast. Platformers of any kind, if it’s physic based or dextery based usually only earn about 3 cents per download from ads and IAP are difficult to implement, that’s something you should keep in mind because that makes only $3000 for 100.000 downloads on Android.

I made a level generator. Took a while, but worth every bit of effort. Making levels isn’t easy because there’s a lot of testing involved, but isn’t really hard with the tool I made.

I’ve been working on and off (part time only) on the game and level generator tool for about a month and half. I still need to make levels, but before that, I’m just making sure things are configured correctly, and that the game doesn’t lag even with the most complex levels. Am I being ridiculously slow?

How long do you typically take to make such a game?

About IAP, I don’t think it’s particularly hard because you can let users “unlock” levels or “worlds”. I saw this game called “Freeze!” and they make use of such IAPs. What do you think?

Also, it would be an awesome idea to port it to iOS (if we used Unity or LibGdx or something like that) given the effort we put. I’ve read that people tend to pay and play games more on iOS.
Even if there is a 1 percent conversion from free to IAP, that would mean $1k per 100,000 users on top of what you make from ads. But 1 percent might not be realistic.

That´s not a good implementation of IAP´s. First of all you are kicking out of the game all the non-paying users, who may not give you money directly, but are a strong marketing asset. And secondly, you are only charging the paying users once (or once per level).

Make the game completely free to play from beginning to end. Offer IAPs to enhance experience, not to be able to experiment it: Character, level, UI customization, lives/power ups, etc. Make sure users who are not willing to pay can still enjoy the game completely, while giving paying users the chance to spend as much as they want. Make it possible to spend $1k in your game. Give many opportunities for players to spend their first $0.99, that´s the most difficult sell.

And remember to ask for their money only after a couple hours of play, after they are engaged with the game or you will scare them away. You don´t ask a girl to sleep with you after the first minute you meet her, don´t you?

@kakashi - I estimate that my current platformer will take about 4 to 6 months of fulltime work. Counting only half of the graphics, since I’ve freelanced half of it. It will probably earn me $1000. :wink: I am creating the engine for such games at the same time though, when it’s ready it will be quite fast for me to make another platformer or runner/dasher or even space shooter using it (since they are all similar in concept).

And box2D is good for platformers if you know how to use it for them - when creating my first platformer I didn’t which caused me a lot of trouble. :slight_smile:

PS. Isn’t Chipmunk2D free now?

Hmm, what you said makes sense. But it’s so difficult to make it fit my game :slight_smile:
After I played the free levels of “Freeze!”, I found it so hard to resist buying more levels even if all at just $1.99.
I had this idea in mind for my game too. If I get “conversion” rates of 10% or so, and I get ~100,000 installs, it will serve the purpose. But I have no idea how people’s mentality is when it comes to buying stuff from games.

About IAP in my game, why the possibillity of spending $1k in the game? Is that ever going to happen realistically?

Btw I checked your game. It’s awesome. It’s the perfect kind of game every dev might want to make:

  • levels can be randomly generated
  • ^ so you can supply a lot of levels => users play for a long time.
    I tried digging up your stats on the forum, but to no avail. Can you please point me at / tell me how much you earn with IAP and banner ads and what your users’ behaviour is like?

Because of so called whales. There are people who spend that kind of money on IAP and if you manage to get one or two of them to play your game - why not give them something to buy? :wink:

We currently have 2 Platformers in development that are both about 50% completed. I put them on hold now though to make a good monetized Adventure RPG 3-Match game. Why? Because Ads are in the worst state I’ve ever seen and I am a bit afraid it won’t get better soon. There aren’t any new big games around that advertise, just the same ones that no one wants to download anymore. Not to mention Admobs horrible performance. Even the performance on iOS dropped. If we were about to release a Platformer now we’d only reach 1cent per download on Android. It’s really sad, but we need to make some money. Usually we could always break even with Platformers, but I just don’t see this right now. Usually we need 2-3 months per Platformer. If this 3-Match game turns out to make good money per user, we can still cross promote it through our Platformers later which usually reach at least 500.000 downloads, that’s the actual plan.

I wouldn’t let users buy levels btw. You are only loosing all your free players who reach this point. You simply will earn less with ads at this moment for a few $$ IAP and earn probably less altogether. Whales are usually only to be found in social games with PVP. Big games you can play over weeks and months. Not going to work in a Platformer.

500,000 downloads? So platformers have an inherent advantage?

I understand that letting users buy more levels => lesser income, but what’s a modest conversion rate I can look forward to (free to IAP users)?

I will try and make IAPs not level dependent, but my last resort would be to sell levels if nothing else fits my model well.

Oh if it’s not too much to ask, can someone please point me at physics platformers that have IAPs?

Freeze! was the only one I could find and it sells levels :frowning:

You are too obsessed with IAP. If you want a game that earns money from IAP then simply don’t make a Platformer. I just looked up the grossing rankings for freeze. They are extremely low. They definetly have a lower conversion rate than 1% and their IAP range is only from 78-128cents. I estimate they earned only about $5000 from more than 1mio installs.

Yeah, I am kind of obsessed with IAP because a platformer isn’t even a kind of game where the user spends a lot of time. Once he finishes all the levels, he’ll uninstall the game.
At best I can get the user to play my game for ~2 hours. If I show an interstitial every 4 minutes and banner ads every 1 minute, I’m going to have to get ~30 interstitial and 120 banner impressions. That’s about 10 cents per user (assuming RPM of 1$). If I get 100.000 users, and 20% of them play the game fully, I’ll get 20.000 * 0.1 = $2000 USD at best.

But like you said, if I got 0.5% conversion from IAP, I’ll get $500 :frowning:

Looks like platformers aren’t that easy to monetize from, after all. I guess it’s best to have other forms of IAPs as well.

Btw, how did you find that stuff about Freeze? I badly want to know how certain games are doing monetarily, but don’t know how, except maybe ask the authors.

Thanks

Yep, you get what I mean. But it’s going to be shorter than 2 hours. And you can still show ads on app start and app close, so 4 minutes is not quite accurate. We also have some games in the arcade category, so their revenue was an estimate based on our stats. I simply took a look at their grossing rank on Appannie and compared it with ours.