Re:My Year as an Amateur Android Game Developer
by TillE on Friday March 25, 2011 @11:26PM
(#2371257)
Minecraft is an excellent example of making something that is utterly different from anything else on the market.
The mobile market is hugely oversaturated with casual toys. Solution: don't make those. There are entire genres that are empty and waiting to be filled. Jeff Vogel is currently in the process of porting Avadon, his latest RPG, to iPad. I'll bet that he's going to charge at least $20 for it, and that he'll be quite successful. Why? Because there's absolutely nothing remotely like it out there on the iPad, and it's the kind of game I would love to play while relaxing with a tablet device.
The game he makes is very unlikely to ever compete with the studios who makes AAA games, this much more of a casual game something that you may play on the subway or the bus during your commute; it's main target is not teens and he doesn't have the expenses usually associated with a game that size.
Minecraft proved that you can make money with non-casual games without competing on the graphics.
But if you restrict your definition of games to games targeted at teens and competes on graphics, then yes you will be left behind.