“Your app is trying too hard to be Flappy Bird": reasons your app might fail (Casual Connect Asia 2014)

Moonfrog Labs co-founder Oliver Jones spoke at Casual Connect Asia 2014, dealing out the harsh truths on what makes games fail, and how to avoid making some critical mistakes in game development.

One reason Jones said apps fail is when developers do not take full advantage of current day technology, using virtual buttons on a touch screen when they could have used the entire screen as an interface.

Another point he shared was how many developers “saga-fy” their game, by needlessly adding elements to their games that they think may make it more epic. For example, some developers take a game concept and wrap it in a map progression metagame, which might not be suitable for the actual game at all, and may actually turn players off.

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Jones also mentioned that failure happens when developers don’t optimize their game economies. Game economies dramatically affect player experiences, for example over-charging on virtual currency or items may cause players to feel the game is unfair, and turn them off.

In addition, Jones also believes that optimizing a game for the wrong metric is a surefire way to fail. He feels that some developers get too focused on a single metric, like their rating on the app store, when they should be looking at other metrics like downloads and purchases. He believes it is impossible to distill value down to a single metric.

Fortunately, all of Jones’ points on what causes failure could easily be reversed to find the formula for success. For example, another of the points he shared was how many developers don’t make players share the game within their first session. He explained that player interest is only held for a limited time, and the best time to get them to share their game is when they are still fresh.

I would certainly hope that Jones is not an expert in the subject of game failure. But, as he put it, it’s just as important to know what makes a good game as it is to know what makes a game fail. It’s a great philosophy, and I’m pretty sure there’s a similar quote somewhere in Sun Tzu’s Art of War novel.