As we continue to define game mechanics and features of our game we have come to the conclusion of highlighting sustainable tourism as the cause of our game. There are 5 questions that we have answered to help us develop the dynamics and aesthetics of our game.
- Who Will Use My App? - People between the age of 16 to 25 usually students who are in university or completing their education
- What Is My Competition? - Mobile games that have a strong replay value considering the main hero of our game is a pigeon one of the most obvious competitors is angry birds, but then again our unique value of being a game that has a social initiative sets us apart from a lot of our competitors.
- Why Will My Product Be Unique? - Yes we do believe our game is unique because of the social element involved in it and as we agree to this, we all are trying to keep the fun element in mind. It is very necessary that we have a balance and i As mentioned in the previous Blog social games are causing a ripple effect and making a difference.
- How Will People Interact with My App? - As our game appeals to the digitised age we will utilise digital marketing platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google+ and other such platforms that will compliment our game and influence audience members to participate and share our game. The reason i think this is necessary is because the ages of 16 to 25, which is our target audience are heavily obsessed with such platforms.
A very important point that we need to take into mind is market research and audience research in order to design our game. As our target audience is set from 16 to 25 a very important question to answer was the current gamers market and the kind of games (Genre) people are playing.
Considering our audience target is 16 – 25
and that accounts for 30% of mobile social gamers and considering our topic our
World heritage conservation, we should concentrate on the game as a commercial
game that is meant for every age and gender.
The game is sold from the point of view of
educating people and making them aware of issues with World heritage sites. The
game should look into a selling point that attracts audiences of every age just
like candy crush.
Since our the hero of our game our Pigeons
and we are trying to keep the game light, we need to come up with a tag line
and a ‘why should you play this game’ tagline that defines our theme and why
people like US would play the game.
Again considering our competitors only come
in the form of characters(birds) when we look at games like angry bird which
was not a social game, we should formulate an attractive marketing strategy
that will make heads turn.
According to audience research majority of
mobile gamers like spending money so we could add a donation drive on the game
which is like virtual money or support that shows the amount of people who care
for world heritage sites.
Also a lot of mobile gamers are females too
and we should keep them in mind as well while constructing the game. Our audience
is both inner and outer directed as our topic is of a social game and its for
the betterment of society hence our consumers would be coming from both
categories and are multilingual and are a mixture of different nationalities
since we are making an international game with a far reach, the best kind of
target audience would be users like us, since we come from different
backgrounds have different choices and likes and interests , the question after
all this to understand the success of our theme ‘would be to ask would we play
this game?’
These are the
reasons why people play games and highest comes to word of mouth –
recommendations and rankings.
\
(source: http://www.newzoo.com/insights/cga-smartphones-and-tablets-2013-games-market-sector-report/)
Another important decision was platforms for our game, and we came to conclusion that our game will be Smart phone/ tablet game and will subsequently also be launched on Facebook. This could be supported by the players statistics mentioned in the diagram below
(Source: http://www.newzoo.com/insights/cga-smartphones-and-tablets-2013-games-market-sector-report/)
As we finalise game dynamics and aesthetics we also are looking into costs involved in developing our game. Our game will utilise 2D graphics as mentioned by my colleagues.
Costs and Finance:
Estimating a cost for development is essential to develop our game concept. According to market sources a game like angry birds required 140,000$ and received 70,000$. As we are an indie game our basic outline of costs include:
Game Design : Aesthetics and features
Marketing : Advertising, Promotions and Public Relations
Production: Game development, distribution etc.
Coding: 2D softwares and programmings
Arts: Music, Animation and effects
There is no specific estimation for our budget. We would like to spend minimum amount of money but if we do receive the required funds we can develop and enhance the feel of our game. Various game bloggers and critics have given a minimum for 2D mobile games and they have divided into levels of complexity involved in developing the game as follows along with estimated costs for an iPad game development-
- Simple Enterprise iPad App Development Cost: $50,000 (+/- 20%)
- Medium Enterprise iPad App Development Cost: $100,000 (+/- 20%)
- Complex Enterprise iPad App Development Cost: $150,000 (and up)
(Source: http://www.formotus.com/14018/blog-mobility/figuring-the-costs-of-custom-mobile-business-app-development)
This is only a rough cost for an apple device supported game
and the costs are more or less similar for Android and Windows markets. Keeping
in mind the rapid change in technology and operating software updates we will
require our 2D game to be built with accordance to all the latest OS available
on smart phones. This will be an added cost since not all games are based on just a
website but multiple platforms. Another important cost for us
would be 'upgrades' which, will be after the official launch of our game and
shall be an added download for the user. It will be followed during the post
launch phase of our game.
In order to come to a finalised budget we accessed a website that generates quotes according to platforms that we would like to launch our game on. This is just a tentative figure but that could be worked as and when we work on investors for our game.
Source: (http://howmuchtobuildanapp.com/#)
As we work further into the budget, we as a team agree that our game should be as cost effective as possible but, there is no finalised minimum or maximum figure to it! We would like to spend an average of 100,000$ for its development and around 50000$ to 75000$ for the post launch game upgrade and refining process.
PFC are now working on game levels and finalising the games - story line, locations communication/promotions strategies and designing the feel of the game.
Stay Tuned!
PilotFish Communications
Sukriti Chopra
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