I've been talking about this for the last few days and I'm not backing down. I've spoken briefly to Riq and he's not opposed either. Nonetheless, I think this is a larger community decision and discussion.
Personally, I see this as the most clear and present opportunity to do something about the marketing and visibility moaning. Apple is a brick wall to our super soaker blast.
So here's my proposal and idea for rules - you better speak up!
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Cocos Apps - A new website proposal
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A very rough homepage mock up made last night - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10760075/CocosAppsPage.png
Why? – The iOS Market is evolving and growing rapidly. It has been a hotbed for the growth of developers for the last few years and now appears oversaturated to some. End users are inundated with choices and feel all too often fooled into purchasing unpolished works, scams and other miscellaneous “crApps”. As a result, guards are up more than ever and even a 0.99c impulse purchase, isn’t so impulse any more. More people turn to recommendations from Apple, Booming Ratings, Review Sites and Friends before assuming any ‘risky’ impulses.
The number of frameworks available to developers is growing. Unity 3D and the Unreal Development Kit are gaining a foothold and it should be no surprise if more enter the market soon enough. The iOS game industry is getting a lot more serious.
Meanwhile, hard working independent developers of the Cocos2D community may feel increasingly left behind. Too often we are faced with a lack of support from any establishments of reputation and left to twiddle our thumbs as a lucky 1 or 2 units might be sold per day.
What? – The first and most clear answer to solving some of these issues, is to become App marketers ourselves as a community. While no single independent developer has much clout, as a community Cocos2d has been TREMENDOUSLY successful in the iOS market and as a whole could earn some attention. Cocos2D as a brand to the consumer, has no meaning though…
How? – We create a new brand as a game review website. A loosely coupled website called “Cocos Apps”. Personally, I see this as the most general and appealing name that maintains the framework’s identity without alienating any type of game or application. It is a stronger name for branding to end consumer. Secondly, we start a new Facebook Fan Page as well as Twitter account and actively recruit everyone we can to fan and support us.
Why Gamers should love it
- Because we will show them great games they’ve never heard and new ones that might be the next hit before anywhere else
- Because we will give away tons of promo codes to great Cocos2D games
- Because we will announce when great Cocos2D games go free for a day
- Because all our writers/reviewers are also hard working game developers who know and understand the industry. We are intimate with our gaming.
- Because they should know it is the framework that embraces any new comers to game development, should they identify with wanting to program a game themselves (Much like Flash games are for web)
Why Developers should love it
- Lots of free marketing opportunities with a larger fan base than you can accumulate alone.
- Opportunity to write and review other games/apps. Only criteria is that you are a developer
Why Cocos will benefit
- This strengthens us as a community. It gives us an arena that we can talk and be passionate about games in. We are gamers too!
- This raises the bar for quality. We will demonstrate stronger than ever what fantastic things come out of Cocos2D/3D. We can set expectations from our developers if they want Cocos Apps Features
Challenges?
An incredibly important challenge for us, will be getting and maintaining street cred among gamers.
If we feature ho-hum games because the developer is a friend, we risk losing credibility as a strong review authority.
As a result, I suggest the following rules. The main theme is to reward those who make great games and those who work hard and are committed rather than those who make an app and forget it. We want to feature and help as many developers as possible while maintaining a strong authority on what is good.
- We rarely feature the version 1.0 of a game until it has been tested and played more thoroughly and polished of any glaring issues.
- Developers who have apps that don't meet a quality threshold, but have multiple games may get a "developer feature" discussing all their games at once.
- I’d argue that we may also want to ask some developers with apps priced $1.99 or $2.99 to lower their price to 99c during a feature. I think this decision is to be determined on a case by case basis and I would expect some resistance on this. I know we talk a lot about what we feel our true game values are but iPhone market realities make me think arguing gets us nowhere – even the bigger developers are doing it. As I see it, it is the easiest way to be perceived as a great website to follow if we tend to review and feature games while they are 99c, even if you up the price later.
- We need to give away some promo codes for every single game, maybe for people who Like and Comment on a post in Facebook. Developers should expect to give 10 promo codes at a minimum for Facebook and Twitter promotions.
These are some of the best ideas I have of how to do this and now it is your turn to express your thoughts
