Thinking about looking for a person, to promote/distribute my apps and share profits - Any advice?

[Ninjadoodle]

Hi guys

I'm in the process of rebooting my little game-making business. I've had a lot of downtime since Flash and Mochiads went downhill and recently decided how I'd like to proceed in the future.

Basically, I want to run a website for my own HTML5 games and monetise through sponsorships and advertising. I'm comfortable with this part of the business, and happy to be fully responsible for all the work that needs to be done.

I do however want to finally start putting some stuff on iOS and Android (a little late I know). I've made almost 40 games over the last few years, and I am looking at porting a bunch of them, as well as making new ones regularly.

To the point ...

I've been thinking, that it would be a good idea to find somebody with whom I could share the iOS and Android profits, if they were to do the distribution / promotion etc.

Obviously I would need to find a knowledgable, trustworthy person who can show me that they can in some way push the apps to make some sort of income.

Basically, I would make the games - they would do all the iOS and Android stuff, and we would split the profits.

At the peak of the Flash era, I've a pretty nice following, with good feedback and scores. I want to get back to having fun making games, but I don't have the time or knowledge, on how to market them on iOS and Android.

Here are a few links to some of my games (most made with Flash - looking to port some of them) ... 

http://jayisgames.com/tag/clickplay
http://jayisgames.com/tag/binga
http://jayisgames.com/review/shurizzle.php
http://jayisgames.com/review/lightybulb.php
http://jayisgames.com/review/one-button-bob.php

Do you guys have any suggestions / thoughts on this?

Thank you very much for any feedback!

[plicatibu]

I think it would be better for you to learn the basics of marketing Android and iPhone games than rely on someone who else to do it for you.

Let's face the truth: marketing Android and iPhone apps are very expensive nowadays. So it is not enough to know what to do in order to spread the word about your game.

This knowledge is easily accessible (there are forums that talk just about this).

As competition is so fierce you will have to invest a lot of money in advertisement. So, IMHO why to share money with someone else if he/she will not do perform much better than you?

Many great games don't have as many downloads as they deserve just because lack of money to marketing them.

I won't publish here the link to a forum dedicated to Android marketing because I don't know whether it's against the forum rules to promote other forums, but if you're interested send me a PM.

[Ninjadoodle]

Hi @plicatibu

Thank you for you reply!

I think you are right, and I've started looking into the basics. I've found a few decent resources that outline the minimum steps that should be taken when publishing a game.

I completely understand about the competition and the money that goes into advertising. Honestly, I'm not expecting that much from native mobile, but I would like to give the people, who enjoy playing my games, the option.

The other path would be just to stick with HTML5, even for mobiles, but then how do you advertise to the mobile market. I'm not sure if many mobile users are actually playing HTML5 games on the web.

I'm going to finish my current game and then decide which path to take

Thanks again!

[plicatibu]

Nowadays the number of mobile users is much bigger than the number of desktop users. That's a fact.

I don't know how many mobile users prefer to play native games instead of playing games on browser.

Advertisement path is almost the same for both types of games. If you plan to make money with in-game advertisement do NOT invest a peny in paid methods for advertising the game. You will lost money. Period.

For HTML5 games if you intend to make money solely based on advertisement it's much better for you to integrate an API from some enterprise like FGL, softgames, etc in your game and let them to distribute it for for you.

But I doubt it will result in real money.

I never sold game licenses, but by reading posts in this forum, your best bet is to sell licenses for your HTML5 games and if the buyers require (and pay you for) native versions of them,  you do port them.