So I’m back from holiday but I’m sick…. Still no rest for the wicked, or the self employed as it turns out.
I’m looking to release Android, Mac skus of Major Mayhem this month as well as get the ball rolling on Black Berry playbook and Steam (PC/Mac).
Wish me luck!
After releasing I’ve been asked many times what’s next. Most people assume we have another game underway already but this isn’t the case. In fact we have only really begun the work on Major Mayhem.
We have decided that seeing as we have put 7 months of effort into the iOS release of Major Mayhem we need to boost and maintain sales of it for as long as it makes sense to. We are also using Unity which is known for its cross-platform nature so we are going to make Major Mayhem available pretty much everywhere.
So the current plan is (but is subject to change):
As you can see we don’t really have a precise timeline but that’s because we don’t really know what achievements and features we’ll be adding yet. More on this at a later date.
The real challenge is figuring out how to maintain a single project that can build and run to all these platforms and all their various versions at once. Excluding functions and features from platform to platform and keep the project tidy and manageable. This is a must seeing as our team consists of only two of us.
Efficiency is key!
So we launched the game. We had an apple feature and we had advertising on Cartoon network thanks to our publisher Adult Swim. However this did not mean that we did well. In fact at the moment I’d say it hasn’t gone well at all. After 10 days on the market we have shipped around 23,000 copies. This sounds reasonable right? No, the fact is that we’re dropping in the charts fast and I don’t expect to hit our 150,000 target anytime soon.
Here are two simple things we should have done on launch that would have boosted sales considerably.
a) We should have been under 20MBs. The fact we weren’t was just plain fail.
b) We shouldn’t have assumed that people wouldn’t care about parting with a dollar. Even if the game had a bunch of 5 star reviews. So in hind-site we should have done a lite version out for launch as well.
Right now we have finished an under 20MB build as well as a Lite version and we should see them in the store shortly. I’ll post a graph of our rankings up once their out so you all can see if it actually has any effect.
So far the user reviews have been really positive which is great. The main suggestions are that we add achievements, more levels and weapons, all of which we planned on doing at some stage. We’ve also had our first App site review on Touch Gen http://www.touchgen.net/major-mayhem-review.
Keep em coming!
Major Mayhem is in app stores near you. Right now! Go buy it!
http://itunes.apple.com/app/major-mayhem/id470272134?mt=8
You might be wondering what one does after a game is released. Well right now, i’m biting my fingernails and watching the app store rankings like a hawk! I have to say it was pretty nerve wracking. The first 12 hours it was out there wasn’t much movement at all. Pretty much the only people that bought it were my friends on facebook.
You can follow us and Major Mayhem here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Major-Mayhem/165940640167280
But now the advertising is live and we got a nice banner ad on iTunes in the games section as well as featuring the New and Noteworthy section things are on the up. I have no idea what the sales numbers are as I don’t have access to those but I can say that in the last few hours we’ve climbed a few hundred ranks in the US to a current #137 spot, and we’re still climbing higher by the hour!
Thanks to all that have bought it and a special thanks to all those that supported Corie and myself during development with kind words and the occasional play test. 
-Ants.
Well it’s been a very bust few weeks finishing up our game, hence the lack of blog posts. The game is done now and it’s name is Major Mayhem. All going well it should be hitting the app store in a couple weeks.
Now it’s time for some much deserved R&R.
