27 June 2011

Up Next - A New Direction

Hello All,

It's been a quiet six or seven months since we launched Space Miner Blast and my last blog post. Ok, so it's more like 9 months, but that time does go by fast! Most of it was spent on some game contracts, with a smattering of some Space Miner 2. As a result, we didn't really have much to blog about.

Unfortunately, while Space Miner was a great critical success (Yay, GOTY on Toucharcade!), its commercial success was only mediocre, so finding time and funding to dedicate towards the sequel has been a challenge. We had a few months back from November to January when it was in active development, but we had to put it on hold when other, paying projects came up. At this point, we have a lot of design and prototype work done, but a lot more work remains before we have a Space Miner 2 sequel.

This leads me to a couple of unfortunate admissions. The first being we won't be doing a sequel this year, like we were planning. The second being we are working on something else instead.

Hence, the title for this post.

Let me start by saying I love Space Miner. Our company loves Space Miner. As a game developer, it is my favorite game I've ever made. So, as the head of Venan, the decision to not continue work on it was an agonizing one. I want to make this game so badly even writing this post makes me feel ill inside. But at the end of the day, we need to do what's right for the company. And I know deep down that doing Space Miner 2 right now isn't the best decision for us, because we don't currently have the time and capital to do it right, and I refuse to do it wrong.

So what next? The answer is, simply, something smaller.

We needed a project that we could reasonably expect to get out by the end of the summer, and SM2 is at least 6 months of work. So that meant re-evaluating our plans and finding a new game design to bring to the table. We did that, and we now have something new underway that we're really excited about. But I'll talk about that more later when things are a bit further along.

As for the "new direction" though, this next product will be freemium. Looking at the App Store, it is becoming increasingly clear that this will be the dominant business model going forward, with 8 of the top 10 grossing apps (as of this evening) being freemium games. Even the mighty Angry Birds finds itself out of the top grossing spot with two free titles in front of it.

I'm pretty sure if you did a head-to-head survey of these other games with Angry Birds among average consumers, (or even Space Miner!) they would not fare too well. Now I don't consider Angry Birds the best game on the App Store, I think it's a solid piece of work that resonated with people. But these other games are all clearly inferior. iMobsters is currently sitting at #12 and I hardly consider that a game. So why are they making more money?

I think when you see a bunch of mediocre products making a lot of money, and a lot of great products making equal or less money, it speaks a lot to which business model is working. And as much as I'd like to just make the games I want to make, the business side is what affords us that luxury.

That being said, I think there is a lot of opportunity here, since most of these games suck. Play-testing them is like pulling out my teeth. As far as I can tell it's a space dominated by good businessmen (or women) and lousy game designers. So our mantra is to make the freemium game we don't hate and hopefully find some success in the process. We've been working on it for about a month now, and I already enjoy it more than 95% of the ones I've played on mobile, Facebook or otherwise. Hopefully you'll all think so as well.

Ok, the cat's out of the bag now. It's unfortunate to announce this, but it's only a delay, not a burial. There is more to come for Uncle Jeb and clan, so be patient and stay tuned.

16 comments:

  1. Really sorry to hear that - Space Miner was amazing and deserves all of the attention it got and then some. I played it quite a bit.
    Hoping your freemium game is successful and looking forward to hearing what it is!
    -Josh

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  2. Thanks for those Lines, while I would love to see a Space Miner 2 I can understand that you Guys need to focus first on those other Projects to make sure you can pay the Bills.

    Sanuku
    Touchgameplay

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  3. Brandon - nice article. More than happy to help support, we have a nice little platform built exactly for this reason, to support devs moving to this space: http://www.openfeint.com/developers/f2p#sell
    PS: For what it's worth, I love Space Miner!

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  4. Sad to hear this. bug as you said its only a delay And hopefully you van makenenough money with youre new game! maybe you can look into THE game bugheroes those developers gett also great critical reviews And earn bug have à small player base. They earn more money on iaps etc. I think spaceminer plagers are willing to Pay for extra content.

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  5. Shoot. Space Miner 2 was the only iOS game I have that I have been truely waiting on a sequel (and I have purchased a couple hundred). I completely understand the need for a freemium title though...that;s defeintly where the money is.

    I'll buy whatever you guys make next (and I'm sure make plenty of in-game purchases too!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. If the next game is going to be free, how is it going to make money? Plastering with adverts I guess, shame.
    Please no more brainless stuff like Trees Of Doom.

    You need to work on advertising to make your games popular.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm late to the party, but since you're doing freemium games now you should check out what we're doing at Tapfame.com

    Here's a recent article about us: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57403451-94/how-sweepstakes-contests-can-drive-app-downloads-usage/

    We're providing new solutions to attracting and retaining players because it's hard to get and keep the attention of players in such a crowded app market.

    Good luck to you! I hope you get to finish and release Space Miner 2 soon!
    Let me know what your think.

    - Jarrad [at] tapfame dot com

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  8. So after reinstalling and playing Space Miner for the 100th time, I wondered what happened to that sequel. So I got on here and saw the bad news. I REALLY don't blame y'all for putting a different game out there in hopes of making more money. I'm sure going to miss having a sequel! Hopefully we'll see one some day though. One of the things that went thru my mind (and no doubt y'all's as well!) is that unfortunately I think you guys undersold Space Miner for iPad. I think it's EASILY a $5 game. Is there any chance that until y'all can finish the sequel that y'all could create ADD-ONS to the current version? Heck, I'd pay in a heartbeat for: more sectors to play, more ship designs, more challenges, more or higher license levels, and more! It would be pretty freaking cool too if you turned searching those cargo ships into built in hidden object games (at least maybe in the sequel if it happens and that could bump the price up a couple of bucks too!) I mean geez! You've got at LEAST 5-6 THOUSAND fans out there who took the time to write reviews and there's no telling how many didn't leave a review!

    I'm POSITIVE I'm not alone in thinking this! I mean Space Miner is a freaking AWESOME game! And I think it's a darn good way to make some extra capital for the sequel (and pay checks for y'all !!!). It's not quite "freemium" but it's as close to it as can be!

    Any chance y'all would consider something like this in the interim?

    Thanks!

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  9. Oh, BTW, if you create a bunch of add ons, people may be willing to buy extra space bucks to get those upgrades (including weapons) as quickly as possible!

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  10. I am so sorry to hear Space Miner 2 is being put on the burner. The first one is a fantastic game. Have you thought about Kickstarter?

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  11. It has been two years now, what's new? Is Space Miner 2 abandoned or what?

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  12. Space Miner by Venan was the first game I played through/completed on iOS (on an iPhone 3GS).Astonishing asteroid/shooter/rpg blend,that holds up with the absolute best games iOS brings to the table even by today standards.It didn't do excessively well on the off chance that I recollect accurately,maybe it was comparatively radical's...
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>
    hidden object game online

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  13. Space Miner Blast figures out how to make the experience feel absolutely fresh thanks to unique control plan,customizable upgrades, and "just one more wave!"game-play.It's the kind of experience that you essentially can't leave.
    ,,,,,,,,,Lock your apps free

    ReplyDelete
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