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There are countless mobile games in the market now (about 800, 000 on App Stores at May 2017, while Google Play Store definitely have more than that), some of them went successful but some of them flopped. Publishing a mobile game is not as easy as just drop it in the market when the game is done, instead you will need a good planning and marketing strategy for your game to be successful and well-known.
The process of publishing a mobile game can be categorized into 3 categories – pre-launch, launch and post-launch, which we will list the steps below.
Pre-launch
- Build the game and test it on the OS platform you wish to launch your game
Of course you will need to build a game so you can launch it, but what is more important here is to make sure that your game works on the OS you wish to launch it on. For iOS, you need to test it on both iPhone and iPad (if you want to launch on both devices) with different version of iOS. While for Android, you can test it on Android phones or emulators using different version of Android OS. The more devices you used to test your game, the more accurate the result will be.
Testing the game doesn’t just mean “test it” but also improve it to perform better on whatever platform or OS version you want it to be, thus define your game’s device compatibility.
- Research on your target audience
Perform research on your target audience and collect data, identify what is the trend or style they like so you could design your app to launch in a way that appeals to them.
- Research app submission guidelines
Thoroughly reading up on the submission guidelines for whichever app stores you are going to submit your game. Doing this avoids you from getting an app store rejection when you submit your game, which will cause a huge delay on your launch schedule. (iOS: App Store Review Guidelines, Android: Developer Content Policy)
- Plan your mobile game’s store listing
Design an app icon which looks appealing to your target audience, prepare the descriptions, screenshots, trailers or any promotional graphics for your game too. You should also localize them in all the languages your game supports and for your target countries.
- Create social media accounts, community and landing page
These are important for you (and your game) to communicate with your fans and gaming community, getting feedback and improve or delivering updates. Remember to post content frequently too.
- Set a date for Alpha / Beta test, recruit testers and launch the Alpha/Beta test
Alpha / Beta testing helps greatly in discovering bugs or issues with your game so you could fix them before you launch the game officially. For closed Alpha / Beta tests, you can recruit testers from your landing page or social media by collecting their emails or phone number. Inform and send them the app link when your APK or Testflight file is available. While for open Alpha / Best test, you can just upload your APK or Testflight file to the Alpha / Beta channel and share the link out.
- Getting feedbacks from Alpha / Beta test and improve your game
You should read the feedbacks from your Alpha / Beta tester, communicating with them on whatever questions or suggestion they give. The best method is to build a feedback loop in your game, allowing the players to leave their feedback without leaving the game or create a market research survey for them to fill up after testing your game.
- Launch Pre-registration
You can launch a pre-registration event with milestones rewards on your landing page to hype up your fans and gather a certain amount of potential players.
Launch
- Submit your app to the store
You should have read up on the submission guidelines by this point, but you still should submit your app at least a few weeks ahead of your launch date so you will have time to make any last-minute changes. You should also have decided your pricing and post up the store listing.
- Notify your subscribers and the media
Once your game is live, it is the time to spread the words out. You can notify your pre-registered users of your game’s release and send a promo code, encouraging them to try it out. You should inform your social media followers too.
You should also prepare a press kit and send out to the press. If you have a budget, you can engage with medias and KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) with it while if you don’t, you should tell them why your game is worth to write. The press kit should include any relevant materials and links so the media doesn’t have to crawl the web to find information.
Post-launch
- Monitor reviews and ratings
When a potential player clicks into your app page, one of the first things they will look at are the ratings and reviews. Positive reviews and a high average rating encourage your potential player to download the game. Therefore, you should reach out to your players and solve their problems as fast as possible to avoid negative impressions which lead to low rated reviews.
- Monitor feedbacks and suggestions
Since bug-free release is impossible, you should monitor your feedbacks constantly and release bug-fix updates. Listen to the suggestions from players too, get to know what they need or hope for in the next update. Doing this will increase your players’ royalty as they feel valued.
- Updates with new content constantly
After a certain period of playing, players might feel bored at your content (especially those who achieved the highest level or got the best outfit etc), therefore you should release new content to keep them playing.
Launching and managing a mobile game is a long-term process, you will need to continue working on the game until the day it ends service. These are all the steps we know, you can to leave your comment below if you have any add-ons!
(feature image credits to Culturalweekly)
