ARE WE THERE YET?!

Hello guys and girls!

sorry i've been so radio silent lately. things have been pretty busy! So heres a quick recap of what i've been up to.

~Run Frosty Run launched and quickly rocketed to the bottom of the charts!

~We also launched a sequel to our most popular game, Pull! Skeet shooting , called Pull! Skeet Shooting 2 Carnival Games. (quite the mouthful i know! that ones actually not doing bad so thats exciting.)

~ We Also attended our first expo! The Heartland Gaming Expo was an absolute blast! we meet a lot of great people and got some excellent feedback on our projects!

My girlfriend holding down the fort while i snap a picture!

Outside of that we have several projects we've are working on. most of which are still too early in production to talk about but we are excited to announce Pass n' Play which will hopefully launch this month!

Pass n' play is a really simple idea :  take 4-5 classic travel / time killer games, and stick them all in one app. Waiting for that summer blockbuster to start? play a round of paper football with a friend. Kids won't stop whining in the back seat? how about a few games of tic tac toe. No AI or online multiplayer, this is a game intended to be played with friends & families.

My Favorite part about this app is the art style. everything has a simple hand drawn look to it and it all appears in a note book. Animations really help this all pop as well, for example X's and O's are drawn on the screen when a player moves to support the feel of playing on a notebook. i've got all of the modes finished except for one. so it won't be long before I'm testing! over the next few days i'll officially announce more of the game modes, and provide some more screenshots!

Thanks for everyones continued support and if you haven't yet, please stop by and like us on Facebook or follow us on twitter @Winter_Stories 

Echo....echo...echo..eko....o...

Greetings everyone!
its been a little while since i updated you guys on the workings of my life as an indie dev so i figured why not do it right now?! i mean i could press submit and send the game i've been working on 8-14 hours a day on for the last 3 months off to iTunes for review.... but the bit of my brain that controls the fear of rejection says lets hold off as LONG AS POSSIBLE!!

so here we go.  First off i suck at twitter. this is something i've talked about before but its something i continually struggle with.  people can be very fickle when it comes to twitter(sorry to all you twitter fiends out there but its true). posted something that doesn't immediately please or catch their eye? UNFOLLOW!  post something to close to a previous post? UNFOLLOW! its the most stressful form of social media because its based entirely on you having something interesting to say. had a pretty uneventful few days? well that means you fail at life and you've lost 4 followers... HA! that'll teach you not to post a picture of that delicious steak you had last night at the Cheesecake Factory!!

Other than that i've mostly been trying to get Run Frosty Run out in front of people so when it launches more people will know to be on the look out for it. The people over at Digital Tutors wrote an article on it which was awesome! all off those guys have been amazingly helpful and constantly supportive of not just me but all the Oklahoma Dev's. (They are based out of OK. they aren't just playing favorites..)then there was the article on Ok Game Dev's site that they did on us! pretty excited about that as well! we actually partnered with them and did some giveaways.  over all the people from Oklahoma have been incredibly helpful and supportive of other game dev's. i was also featured on a different websites weekly indie games article. I'm not entirely sure how i feel about that one. don't get me wrong it was great to get stuff out in front of people but at the same time the article left a bad taste in my mouth. i can't say for sure what it was about it but it almost felt condescending i guess when the talked about Run Frosty Run. i know its not going to be winning any awards but i am proud of the game. its far more complicated than anything else i've worked on (even tho it looks really simple it has a lot going on behind the scenes )and i think it came together really well. this of course could simply be because i've spent 3 months of my life on it and i've grown attached, the game could very possibly be the worst game ever released and playing it might cause you to never want to play another video game again..but fingers crossed thats not the case... daddy needs a jet ski!

The third and final thing thats been on my mind lately is how i want WSS to grow. the dream for me is a 5-7 person indie team. thats enough to share the workload but not enough to get bogged down with conflicting opinions and financial issues. heres the rub, Oklahoma is not a state know for being an indie developer spawn point. thats not to say we don't have several very talented studios and even more talented game developers working by themselves. it simply means its not always easy to find people to work with. i've tried working with several different people and i feel like some people have a lottery sensibility about it. dreaming about what they'd do with the winnings but never going and picking up a ticket. (by this i don't mean that they think oh i'm gonna be a game dev and be rich...i mean they like the idea of being a game dev but not putting in the actual work). To be completely fair it is difficult to balance a full time job + Family + Schooling + game dev. i only work Part time and its still a lot of late nights and long days and i have nothing but the upmost respect for every single person i've worked with so far. they have all been incredibly talented and WSS would be better with than without them.
so thats about it... i guess i need to stop slacking and just click that submit button for Run Frosty Run. Thanks for giving me a few minutes to distract myself. i'll of course let you all know as soon as i figure out if its been approved or not and if your dying for more information about the final bits of Run Frosty Run head on over to our other blog ( HERE ) and check it out!

Thanks for stopping by everyone!
-Mike

After this is all said and done... I'm taking a nap...

Hello everyone! sorry for the HUGE delay in updates on how things have been going over at Winter Stories Studio, LLC.  so here we go!

First off Run Frosty Run is insanely close to launching! like hopefully i'll submit it to iTunes within the next few days.  right now i'm just finishing up coding in app purchases and posting highscores and Snowman Selfies to Facebook. (See our other blog if your hungry for a more detailed update on Run Frosty Run   http://wssdeveloperdiary.blogspot.com  )


now for a quick update on date on the advertising front. i've found a couple sites that have really affordable indie game advertising prices. and i think I'm going to use those instead of chart boost. heres why.

Chartboost has a MINIMUM $100 per day advertising fee and they said expect that to go over by about 10% . this means (at $0.50 per install that 100 could get me at most 200 installs. now if this was a paid game that wouldn't be so bad but I'm assuming not everyone is going to buy any in app purchases.  maybe 10% of those people will. so for 100 bucks i predict i'd make about 20 bucks...

now these online advertising places i've found have told me that have between 50K - 80K unique IP visitors a month. and for 100 dollars i can have an add displayed on there site for a full month. thats a lot more face time and potential sells. so i think for sure I'm gonna go that route.

i've also been continuing to hit up the online forums and such. as well as Twitter. I hit 71 followers today... and then immediately dropped down to 70...twitter is a fickle fickle friend.... but still my followers are slowly growing and my game is getting a bit more attention. More attention like this!! ( http://okgamedev.com/2014/06/winter-stories-studio-releases-run-frosty-run-trailer-also-giveaway-promo-for-other-games/  ) one of my friends i met at the Oklahoma Game Developers Meetup is a guy named Zachary. Zach runs this website called Ok Game Dev. and he basically post reviews / previews for games developed in Oklahoma. (theres a lot More than you would think.) anyway he posted an article above showing of my new trailer (which is not great but I'm not a video guy... ) and we've also teamed up to give away several codes for our older games.  Other than that theres a pretty big something something coming up for us but I'm not sure i can talk about it yet. i'll post on twitter and Facebook as soon as I'm able to. (what everyone likes it when batmans all mysterious....why not me? I'm kinda like bat man...with more fat, less muscle and no crime fighting skills...)  anyway thats what i've been up to.

Fingers crossed next week i'll be able to tell you guys all about sending the game to iTunes and (hopefully) Android.'
as always thanks for stopping by and please leave me a comment below and if you haven't yet liked us on Facebook or followed us on Twitter please do so.

well...this makes things harder....

SO this blog will be part info part rant... so please forgive me in advance...

Today i read an article talking about how Apple is now rejecting apps that offer incentives for watching ads, clicking ads and /or sharing to Facebook. ALSO advertising for apps that are not your own is another no-no now.  as with most things there are good things and bad things about this. But unfortunately the bad things far out way the good, at least from a developer stand point.

THE GOOD!  :-)

•  Apps like candy crush that force you to flood both your friends and your Facebook with invites and gifts and lives and all that stuff are effectively going to die. * so your Facebook wall will once again become your own. This will also prevent apps (Again Like Candy Crush) from preventing your from progressing through the game unless you use Facebook integration. 

THE BAD!!! :-(

• As a developer one of the HARDEST things we face is getting our apps out in front of people and then convincing them to get the app(Yep thats harder than programming,modeling, concept art-ing, the whole lot of it.). Facebook integration is awesome because we don't have to pay for advertising. When your a small indie company money is ALWAYS an issue. lots of us don't have money to pay for ads, or commercials. encouraging people to invite friends to the game (when not done in a harassing way) is a GREAT way to encourage growth in a game.

• Another way outside of Facebook integration that developers can encourage growth is to cross advertise with other developers. (i'll put an ad for your game in mine if you do the same. ) This again helps with the burden of advertising by allowing developers to work together and help each other out. This is now dead.

• now for the big one Ads. when you download a free game and you see an ad pop up. thats not just for funnies or to annoy you into buying the ad free version. its how as a developer we make money off free games. every time you click on an ad we get a little bit of money (with me on chart boost i make $0.04) and when you download that app we make a little more ($0.50) granted the ads can be annoying but all in all its a good ecosystem. we (developers )still make money you(the players) don't have to spend a dime. NOW there are without a doubt games that abuse ads making them appear way to often in a desperate attempt to make more money.  I'm not entirely sure where this lands with this update.

All this being said i understand the logic behind apples decision. they don't make money off free games (unless you do micro transactions...) & obviously they want to make money.  but people don't like to pay for games (Pull Free! is at 1.63K downloads while Pull! Paid is at about 214) this puts us (developers ) in an awkward situation. we NEED to be profitable to continue making games. finding the right balance between pleasing the players and pleasing the bill collectors is difficult and as a developer i feel Apples Change in these areas is going to make it even more difficult resulting in lots of great indie studios closing their doors...

Summer is coming!!!

Hey everyone! sorry its been so long since i updated this blog. i've been trying to do a weekly developers blog and a lot of times i don't have enough to say to justify updating two blogs a week! but i figured i'd stop by and let you know how things are going and whats going on over here at WSS.

so last week we did a big reveal week on Facebook. we revealed some characters, some videos and the names. (if you'd like more details head over to our Facebook or check out our developers diary blog  i don't want you guys to have to read the same ol same twice!)

so that blogs got more to do with the game design bits of what we are doing here. i thought this one i might go into a little bit of details about the other side of stuff. 

FIRST OFF Facebook. Facebook is not our strong suit. we've been rocking the Facebook page for about a year now, maybe more. and we've reached 70ish likes. while thats better than none its not nearly the numbers we'd like to have. we've also done some Facebook advertising which reached about 8,000 people and cost us about 20 bucks. while that might SOUND great in reality Facebook counts you "reaching" someone as your tiny little ad being displayed on their Facebook page while they look at what the really care about (which is to day who took a food snapshot from that favorite restaurant of yours and if that girl(or boy) you are hardcore crushing on has changed her (or his) relationship status to "its complicated".) In the real world it got us 41 photo clicks, 3 post likes, 1 comment (a truly moving comment of "Skeet Skeet Skeet....") and 1 share. so not NEARLY as awesome as 8000 people. so now we have to decide is Facebook advertising worth the money. IF we knew for a fact that every person who clicked on the photo went and bought a game then maybe. after all thats 41 bucks. but we don't. so as of right now the "Is It Worth it" question is hard to answer, right now i'd go with a medium-rare Maybe. 

SECOND! twitter. everything i've read so far about how to get your indie company out in front of people talked about the same general things. Facebook, Blog, Website and Twitter.

Check, check, check and...checkish.  i've made the Facebook, obviously i've made the blog(if i hadnt you wouldn't currently be on the edge of your seat.) and i've made the website(altho is REALLY needs to be updated). i've also made a twitter. BUT twitter is hard for me. i never know what to say. Facebook isn't to hard because i can be as long or as short as i want to be. twitter says i can ONLY be so long. suddenly every character is a precious commodity. do i use & or and. 2, two,to,or too.  AND #! what if i miss use a HASHTAG!!! my children to this day still call me old because i said "Or Not" instead of "Or Nah" (something i still am not sure i understand )and while my children are diabolical geniuses the internet makes them look like kittens! i don't want my company to be forever known as that company who thought the Hashtag was the number sign!...sorry that got away from me there.. 

THIRD! i've been told by a fellow game designer (whose way more successful than me, so I'm not going to give you his blog info because you'll never read my blog again...and i need you...) that how he gets his games out in front of people is he follows really popular online game bloggers, and every time they post something he leaves a comment. this way he builds up a relationship with the blogger and when it comes time to release his game he strikes! asking if this blogger(who now considers him a friend) will review his game. thus reaching this HUGE audience that someone else has already done the work of tracking down and collecting... this is on my todo list...

FORTH AND FINALLY!! Profits and sells. Pull Skeet Shooting Free has sold about 1.5k copies, not to shabby but also not great by any means. i make money through this one via ads. i'm currently using Chartboost but not sure I'm gonna stay that way and heres why. first its incredibly invasive.  it pops up with an ad that takes up the full screen. something people are not a big fan of and secondly i've currently made about 35 dollars from advertising with chartboost. (which if you do the math thats about 2 pennies per copy sold. )now I'm not saying this is their fault at all! simply that I'm not having much luck with their service. i've heard tales of people who make TONS of money of Chartboost. I'm just not one of them. from Pull! Skeet Shooting (Paid) and both copies of The Pale One I pulled in about 250 this month. Not bad but also not good. ESPECIALLY since about 200 of that came within the first few days and now its dropped to the point of me making about 1-7 dollars a day. which is awful. NOW I'm also not paying for any in game advertising service like chart boost (i get paid to show other peoples ad's i don't pay to have my ads shown in theirs) which is something you HAVE to do to make sure your game stays out in front of people(When you first launch your game it appears on all kinds of new games charts and such so people can find your app quickly and easily without knowing that they wanted it. but once that app leaves that list only people who are looking for your game or games like it can find your game ). but i simply can't afford the 100 a day price tag.  we've got plans in place to keep this new game out in front of people for much longer. but more on that later. i think i've rambled on long enough. 

As Always please leave us a comment below and let us know how you think we are doing or even suggestions on how to get our game out there in front of more people or questions on how we do what we do. If you haven't yet please stop by our Facebook page and send us a like.

Thanks

Apples vs Androids. The (not so ) Surprising results, Next...

Hey guys just stopping in for a real quick Update on all things Winter Stories Studio, LLC. Pull! Skeet Shooting and The Pale One HD are now both available on iTunes! i got a little nervous when they sent me an email saying the pale one needed a bit longer to be reviewed but it all working out. AND I'm very happy to say that the few days they've been up on the apple store the apps have already earned more than their Android counterparts. (Apple for the win.) Not by much but still, baby steps. This friday i think I'm gonna give Facebook advertising another try and see if we can scrape together a few more sells.

Other than that we've just been busy working on our newest game project tying to get that up and running as soon as possible. aside from the mind numbing issues i ran into with it so far I'm really pleased with how its coming together. i like the look of it.  the plan is to upload a video next week showing of a bit of the prototyping process we used and some early gameplay footage of the game itself. if however your itching for some more information on the new game (Title hopefully coming soon) stop by our Developers Diary blog  to  get the low down, 411 and or the happy hap.

as always thanks for stopping by, please send us some love in the comments below and if you haven't already be sure to send us a like on Facebook.

-Mike

Winter is Coming....

Hey everybody,

Been a fairly productive last couple of days. i sent off  PULL! and ThePale One to apple to try and get those bad boys approved. hopefully i'll know with in the next few days if those make it or not. i've got to admit the process to submit an app to apple is a bit of a pain. downloading certificates and using Keylogs and all kinds of crazy steps. compared to Android Apple is a HUGE pain in the butt! 

Oh well its all done with (for now). Next I'm on to a new game project. don't have a whole lot to announce on it at the moment other than this new Facebook banner!

This week i'll be starting a developers diary blog that me and my good buddy David will be updating as we progress through the development of this new game! we'll be giving you guys updates on the game progress as well as insights into how we are making this particular game. theres a chance we might do a couple "Making Of " videos that we will release towards the launch day, but we haven't really made up our minds yet on that part.

as always thanks so much for all your continued support! i'll be back soon with some more updates and hopefully a few more tidbits about our next Project!