1. Tips for the Indie Web Game Developer moving to Mobile

2. About Me Chris Hughes Co-Founder, Head of Community and Product
FGL.com
skype: chris_fgl
Takeaway:
Chris Hughes is awesome.

3. Welcome to the Indie Era
- Right now, as an indie game developer, you can reach as far as you want
- Many companies are focusing on indies
- Many games that are popular now can be developed in a matter of months by a small team or even an individual
It is cool to be indie

4. Welcome to the Indie Era
- Don't let it slip away
- if you don't expand, others (probably larger companies) will swoop in to settle the new land

5. Web, Mobile, or Web AND Mobile?
- Still a lot of money and people on web
- web/social/casual games industry is estimated to be worth ~$6.7Billion in 2013
- Web games on FGL are selling for more than ever before.

6. Web, Mobile, or Web AND Mobile?
- But, we all know Mobile is huge

7. Web, Mobile, or Web AND Mobile?
- Games listed on FGL selling both web and mobile licenses sell, on average, 4x higher than games just listing web
- Most publishers on FGL want both web and mobile licenses

8. Other reasons to do both Web and Mobile
- Cross promotion getting better from web to mobile (not much data on things going the other way, yet)
- You can test your game on a large, easily accessible market (the web) before moving it to a large, hard to access market (mobile)
- Why not?

9. Design with mobile in mind
- Mouse only / touch screen friendly
- resolution / scale
- UI
- These things usually do better on the web as well, anyway!

10. Design with business model in mind
- the same model doesn't always work for both web and mobile
- Do not just assume you have to use in-game purchases as your business model!!!!!

11. Porting an old game or building a new game
- Tools: Holy cow, do you have options!
*source:
developereconomics.com

12. Finding a Publisher - Why? - Publishers are your friends
- Most of them, anyway

13. Finding a Publisher
- Traditional Mobile Publishers have a very narrow view
- They want AAA content only (And that’s by their criteria)
- They want to make millions per game
- They want most of the innovation to happen on the business layer
- They are afraid to risk money

14. Finding a Publisher
- Current, more savvy, Mobile Publishers have a broader view
- They want a mix of games
- They cross promote games, and send most traffic to the top performers
- They want innovation to be spread across gameplay, business, and distribution
- They are willing to put money up front (they believe in the game)
- Usually, they want both web and mobile rights

15. Miscellaneous tips - game rating
- You should ask a user to rate your game after playing for a certain amount of time
- Positive ratings will go up an order of magnitude if you do this right
- Otherwise, most reviews are due to technical issues (and these are bad ratings)

16. Miscellaneous tips - cross promotion - do it
Early cross-promotion, then ramp down
Ongoing cross promotion with newly released games

17. Miscellaneous tips - pricing changes
For many games, charging more (within reason) does not decrease the number of installs/purchases.

18. Looking forward - The lines between "web" and "mobile" are blurring
- By focusing on both, you will be ahead of the game

19. Questions?