Almost everything you need to know to enter mobile game development on 2013 - See more at: http://ww

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This is a list of useful resources to help you refine, define, execute and possibly reconsider your decision to enter mobile game development this year. The resources are a little more inclined to the business and game design parts of game development, except
for a couple of ones linking other lists.

The executive summary version: It is a very attractive and fast growing market, but the odds are stacked against small, new and indie game developers. Successful games are usually paid, greatly innovative and highly polished casual titles -specially when working
with a good publisher or a known brand- or free to play titles that operate as a service, seeing little revenue for a span of at least six months after launch, adding new content and/or further polishing, balancing and optimizing for retention and monetization.
The former approach can be a logical step for studios that already have game development expertise, a team already in place and experience working with publishers. The latter is the approach that might yield the greater rewards, but requires a mid to long
term vision, and also a tight and strong combination of resources and execution speed to actually pull it off.

What is mobile game development? We’ll consider it as any game focused development for smartphones or tablets running Android or iOS. What does this market look like? Let’s look at some numbers and insights:

Mobile Gaming Market Projected to Grow
at an Annual Rate of 12.3%
Apple’s app store revenue is 4X
Google Play’s … but Google Play is growing 24X faster
Google Play revenue grew 17%, iOS revenue contracted 0.7% in Nov 2012 but Apple
disputes App Annie report: the app store did NOT grow just 13% this year — it grew over 200%
A $12-Million-A-Month iOS Game? NaturalMotion Has It With CSR Racing





[Source: eMarketer]

Looks promising, but it’s not all good:

Some Numbers on the Top Grossing Games in the App Store
Investors weigh in on falling game-startup valuations
Analyst:
Just 25 Developers Grabbed 50% Of App Revenues On U.S. App Store, Google Play Last Month; Earning $60M Between Them. (also on Venturebeat).
Sales, Profit And Market Caps: GREE vs. Zynga vs. DeNA (Overview)
Report: User acquisition costs for iOS shot up 30%
last month

So, how to make sense of the opportunity? Is it reasonable? Affordable? Worth pursuing? Let’s start with a list of general projections for gaming on 2013 and summaries for 2012:

Japanese Gaming Market 2012
2012: A Year in App Store (Infographic)
Social Media Report 2012
Gamasutra's Best of 2012
2013 Predictions for Mobile Gaming
What’s Next For Social Mobile Games?
7 Predictions For The Mobile Gaming Market
For 2013
The DeanBeat: Game industry predictions for 2013

This is a list of studies, articles and slides worth studying bit by bit to get a clearer picture:

Internet Trends by KPCB and 2012
KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update
How to create a profitable Freemium startup
(spreadsheet model included!)
Casual Games Sector Report: Mobile Gaming
Acquisition, Retention, Monetization: Final Report
The Game of Platform Power





[Source: Lostgarden]

Next, a collection of thoughts from established players in the industry:

Chillingo: Ruthless mobile
platform has "no room for anything except perfection"
The future of mobile games, according to
Gree
Gamers rule: Only 10% of the industry's $50 billion
comes from casuals
2012 in review: Doug Scott, ngmoco

Assuming you have a clearer picture now, and you are eager to learn more, what would be good resources to learn about all this?

Business links

Mobile Freemium Games: Women Thrifty, Men Binge
Three Steps from Paid to Freemium
Virtual Goods - An Excerpt from Social Game Design: Monetization Methods and Mechanics
More money from your mobile game for $0, part 1 and part
2
BII REPORT: The Mobile Advertising Ecosystem Explained
You Need $100,000 [Game Development]
What Do Investors Look for in a Game Developer?
Steve Blank’s List of Tools for Entrepreneurs. (includes technical tools and software)





[Source: Business Insider]

Game Development links

How does Rage of Bahamut monetizes? Analysing a Top Grossing Game:
Rage of Bahamut and How Rage of Bahamut Monetizes.
Clash of Clans - the Winning Formula
Free 2 Play and the Four Currencies
7 Ways to Fail at Free-to-Play
The Free-To-Play Triangle [Game Economics]
The Principles of Game Monetization
The Design of Free-to-Play Games, Part 2 (Part
1)
5 tips for boosting your virtual economy
Which Types Of Mobile Games Are In The Engagement Sweet Spot?
The Ultimate
Indie Game Developer Resource List (includes technical tools and software)
The Big List of Game Making Tools (includes technical tools and software)





[Source: What Games Are]

Going live links

Analytics: Flurry, Kontagent and AppAnnie.
The long post : metrics and business model.
ARPU vs ARPPU / ARPMU … but really LTV and CAC / CPA
The Biggest Problem in Mobile: Retention
Refining my first monetisation strategy and part
2.
Managing a Free To Play Product: A Publisher’s Perspective
Why your free-to-play users aren’t coming back
6 tips for a better mobile analytics experience
How Canada has become America’s mobile app guinea pig
The Big List of Indie Game Marketing





[Source: GamesBrief]

Last but not least, Blogs, People and Websites worth following.

Blogs

Deconstructor of Fun: Monetization in Social Games, written by “the evil monetization guy @ Rovio”.
Extra Creditz: Not exactly a blog, but lots of fun and thought provoking videos about gaming,
game design and game development in general.
Dr. Serkan Toto: Japan Mobile And Social Games Consulting.
Andrew Chen’s blog: Great insights about startups in general.
What Games Are: Great for game design and production.
Games Brief: Special focus on monetization.
Dave Sirlin’s blog: Great game design blog.
Gameconfs: a directory of game industry events.
Indiebits: Great tips for Indie Game Developers.
Game Design Concepts and Game
Balance Concepts.
Raph Koster’s blog: The author of Theory of Fun.

People on Twitter: All of them usually share good insights and links about mobile game development

Devs: Aki Järvinen, Tadhg
Kelly, Shawn Foust, Will Luton, Michail
Katkoff, Amy Jo Kim, Daniel Cook, Mike
Acton, Jesse Schell, Tami Baribeau, Raph
Koster.
Executives: Shanti Bergel, Jussi
Laakkonen, Lloyd Melnick, Kevin
Dent, Ben Cousins, Charles Hudson, Nabeel
Hyatt, Giordano Contestabile, Scott
Dodson
Press and thought leaders: Christian Nutt, Stephen
Totilo, Leigh Alexander, Adrian
Crook, Dr. Serkan Toto, Nicholas
Lovell, Epona Schweer, Allen
Varney, Nicole Lazzaro.





[Source: @BenjaminCousins]

Sites: Good for keeping up with trends, news, good games and stuff

http://www.altdev.co/
http://www.gamasutra.com/
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/
http://venturebeat.com/
http://techcrunch.com/
http://news.ycombinator.com/
http://toucharcade.com/
http://www.appspy.com/
http://www.insidesocialgames.com/
http://www.insidemobileapps.com/

I hope all this serves you as a starting point to learn more about your upcoming adventure on mobile gaming this year. Enjoy!

Bonus Tracks

Time Spent In Mobile Apps Is Starting To Challenge Television, Flurry Says
All I Want for Christmas Is My Apple TV
Valve will release PC/console next year
iPhone And iPad
Continue To Reign Over Developer Interest, But Cross-Platform Apps Are Now On Everyone’s Mind
Stop Trying to Make an Angry Birds. Build a Rovio. Or Supercell.
Or move to Finland.
Rethinking Mobile First.
2012 has
been ‘the year of mobile’ but the big mobile ad acquisitions were made three years ago

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本文出自：http://www.altdev.co/2013/01/02/almost-everything-you-need-to-know-to-enter-mobile-game-development-on-2013/