Hey, so as I mentioned before, I’m planning to start developing mobile games soon. I recently got a Galaxy Note 2 phone, or er, it’s almost big enough to be tablet actually. Anyway, I played a lot of games on it while I was in Sweden.

I’m trying to figure out what sort of games are popular, how controls are implemented on touchscreens, and how developers monetize and market their games. This post is mostly just some notes for myself, which others may find interesting or want to add to.

First of all, here’s a list of games that I played:

• Labyrinth 1 and Labyrinth 2
• Whale Trail Frenzy
• Rayman Jungle Run
• World of Goo
• Pixel Kingdom
• Cut the Rope + Experiments + Time Travel
• Pudding Monsters
• Ending
• Fruit Ninja
• Color Zen
• Can Knockdown 3
• Monster Cube
• Happy Fall and Happy Jump
• Jetpack Joyride
• Jewels Saga
• Nyan Cat: Lost in Space
• Shogun: Bullet Hell
• Space is Key
• Sporos
• Temple Run 2
• Unblock Me

They’re all pretty fun and you should check them out. There’s still a lot more that I’ve installed and have yet to play…

Touch Controls

I found that the more simple the controls, the better they worked. A lot of the games literally had one type of input:

• Rayman, Jetpack Joyride and Whale Trail have “tap the screen anywhere to go up”
• Sporos, Monster Cube and Pixel Kingdom have “tap objects”
• Fruit Ninja, Pudding Monsters, Unblock Me and Color Zen have “swipe objects”
• Happy Jump and Labyrinth have “tilt the device to move”

Games that try to use traditional gamepad controls with onscreen buttons weren’t very fun to play in my opinion. They feel a bit awkward to play without physical buttons to guide your fingers: there’s a lack of physical feedback. Meanwhile, the above listed controls can be combined easily, as tapping, swiping and tilting are very distinct actions.

Lesson: Use simple controls that are native to phones and tablets.

Adding Replay Value

A lot of the same schemes are used in mobile games as in web games, so there’s nothing too surprising here. Most games have achievements, level rankings, upgrades, highscores and the usual stuff.

Something which I found interesting was that a lot of the unlockables don’t even add to the gameplay. There’s stuff like new skins for your character, or wallpapers for your phone, or links to promotional YouTube videos. I guess this is because it’s a more casual market and kids like that sort of stuff? Maybe. I don’t know. Sounds fun to implement though.

I also noticed that a lot of games are updated with new level packs or other content to keep users coming back. Most web games on the other hand don’t usually add new content once they’re finished, unless they’re really popular. This is down to the distribution method I guess: mobile games can easily alert you to new updates, while web games are hosted on a lot of different websites and can’t be updated so conveniently.

Lesson: Add plenty of stuff to unlock, whether it effects gameplay or not. You can also update games.

Monetization Strategies

This is the most important section, for developers anyway. I’ve noticed a lot of different approaches to monetizing mobile games…

• “Pay for the game” – No free version, just a paid one. Not sure how these games are supposed to gain popularity if users can’t try them out for free. I guess this method relies heavily on good reviews to promote the game (that’s how I found them, anyway).
• “Try for free, pay for full version” – A single payment that unlocks a “full” version of the game, which usually includes extra levels, or removes ads. Great because the user can get addicted before spending any money, and it usually means there’s no microtransactions (but not always!), which a lot of users don’t like.
• “Pay to progress faster” – Microtransactions that give in-game currency or other upgrades to reduce the time spent grinding. I’m not a fan of this one because it means you have to make a grindy game. But on the other hand, it means players who don’t want to pay can unlock all of the content for free, but slower.
• “Pay for more content” – Microtransactions for level packs, new characters, upgrades etc. Good because it lets you keep updating a game and milking dedicated players.
• “Pay for cheats” – Microtransactions for, er… cheating. Pay to skip a level or to make it easier! Sounds really cheap, but most games have been quite careful with this, and make the cheats available for free too (although only a limited amount of them).
• “Disable ads” – Usually thrown in as a bonus with any other purchase, but sometimes it stands on it’s own.
• “Watch ads” – Of course, developers can earn money without taking any from the players. Not particularly profitable from what I’ve heard, but it can be if you have a really popular game. I’ve noticed that ads can usually be removed by disabling your internet connection (I wonder how many players have figured this out…?). Some games give out in-game currency for watching ads, playing the game once every day, and stuff like that.
• “Get sponsored” – Some games include a lot of branding in exchange for monies from a large sponsor. There’s a Skittles version of Fruit Ninja! I’m not really sure what sort of sponsorships are available yet, but I’ll have a look into those. Kongregate and Armor Games do mobile sponsorships too, though they promote the games rather than receiving promotion from them, and take a cut of your profits. I think.

The best monetization method really depends on the type of game and amount of content you’ve got.

Lesson: There’s a lot of different ways of making money!

Anyway, that’s all for now. I still need to do a lot of research (income and download stats for different games, if I can find those!), but that’s a good start.