Make an awesome iOS game and enter to win a trip to Palo Alto | Hacker News Reader

Make an awesome iOS game and enter to win a trip to Palo Alto

makegameswith.us

31 pointsjvrossb18 comments

My biggest question is, what if I publish this game myself? I have a developer account, a game at about 75% completion, 6 apps on the app store, and a decent plan to monetize it already. The only thing that would be nice is the press for winning, or placing. That and a free trip to beautiful California. What turns me off about publishing through this route is the first $1k is yours, and 30% after that. So, after Apple and MGWU, I would be left with 40% of all sales - something I don't think the publicity would offset, even long term. My gut says this hinges on the fact that I'd have to publish through MGWU for it to count as an entry.

I'm also wondering about guaranteeing 10,000 installs. That would be nice, but I have over that on one of my apps and that doesn't really equate to blips on the App Store internal marketing/searching system in my experience.

EDIT: After reading the detailed rules, it looks like you do have to publish through them. And, instead of being left with 40%, I'd be left with just under 50% of the price/prices of items for sale in the App Store.

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This is probably a good deal if you can't make the art for your game, and can make the mechanics/playability fairly quickly.

Your interpretation of the rules is correct. You do have to publish through us to count as an entry. On the rev share split: if a user spends $99c on your app, Apple takes 29c, we take 20c (70% post-Apple), and you are left with 50c which is just over half.

Our publishing contract is very developer friendly - we don't take ownership of any of your IP. So, you could publish your game with us (and we'd probably end up touching up some art here and there) and if you didn't like what we were doing with it, you could publish a version yourself. If we aren't worth it, you're not tied to us. If we are we hope to publish a bunch of your games :) Very low risk in giving us a try if you already have a game on the way.

"Winning games must be free during the time that we are driving your guaranteed installs."

Does that mean you take 20% (28.5% post-apple) of the sale after the guaranteed installs and you take the first $1000 after the guaranteed installs?

We just tweaked the terms slightly - we're going to keep track of our actual art costs (which tend to come in at $1000 but may be lower especially if you game has a bunch of art) and deduct that. So if the art cost say $750, we take the first $750 Apple deposits into our bank account and then 30% after that. Once the rev-share kicks in on every 99c spent on the game Apple takes 29c, we take 20c, and you get 50c.

My thinking is that a lot of games will need in app purchases for this to work out, so I'd imagine that's where most if not all monetary value would come from.

If a game is paid, we will switch it to free for a day or two during which the installs will be driven. This is a common promotional tactic (see freeappaday.com and others).

If the game is free then we'll just drive the installs when the developer wants us to. We won't require the game have IAPs at the time we start promoting the game (though of course we'd prefer it).

This not a good deal even if you can't make art. You can get plenty of art on iStock photo and what you don't get when publishing as an indie with someone else is the network effect of publishing multiple games on your own. This is essential if you want to grow your brand, user base and revenue over the course of multiple titles.

Cross-promo is actually one of the draws of publishing with us. We already have a larger network than most indie devs will be able to build (10 games and counting) and they all cross-promote each other. When you publish with us you get exposure in every single other game we've published.

I'm saying that long term people are better off not publishing with you and should just be cross-promoting within their own games or just using ads so they don't have to give you a cut.

Every time someone does publish with you they are setting themselves back because they are not growing their own portfolio of apps but instead enlarging your network at significant cost to themselves.

No offense, but iStock Art isn't gonna' net you a solid brand if that's what you're looking for.

I'm not going to go through with this either way - this seems like a good deal for those that really don't have their feet wet with games or creating their own art. I graduated with a BA in art (graphic design), so I don't really trust a whole lot of people when it comes to them creating the graphics for my own products. They'd have to be damn good. No offense to Make Games With Us, but I could handle my own on this one for sure. Hopefully you get some good contestants and creative ideas though. Can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Agreed on the art - iStock art isn't going to cut it. We just tweaked the terms to accomodate folks like you - we're going to keep track of our actual art costs and deduct that instead of a fixed $1000. So if you provided all the art there will be no deduction.

I beg to differ on the iStock art issue. I have seen people build large streams of revenue by starting with iStock art as a base for their games (Sure remixing etc and being handy with photoshop does not hurt)

In any case the issue of iStock art took away from my main point and that is publishing with you guys gives away the most important ingredient of becoming successful as an independent developer in the app store. That is the network effect of having a bunch of your games installed on peoples phones and computers. When someone publishes with you they are trading a potential short term boost in sales for a long term disadvantage in the market while at the same time growing makegameswithus own network and brand instead of your own. As an indie dev it's a foolish tradeoff to make if you truly want to have a sustainable app business and not get squeezed by yet another third party.

This is an awesome idea. We're always kicking around shitty ideas for contests that probably won't deliver enough value to offset the cost, won't attract the right types of users or clients, and take too much effort. I don't know if this one meets all of those criteria, but it's such a cool concept for a young person interested in programming, gaming and startups, to bring them out to Palo Alto for their own game's launch party, etc. Anyway, kudos to the Make Games With Us guys. This is outstanding.

I'm mildly interested in this. I might have a go at making a game, but do you know what date the winner would be flown out to Palo Alto?

We're flexible on this, depends on the winner's availability

Palo Alto?

I'd rather win a 7-day trip to New Calendonia, all expenses paid.

great idea. How do you "guarantee" installs?

We buy ads in a trackable way and run them until we can prove to you that we were responsible for driving N thousand people to download your app.

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