What happened to pocket pc games development?

[babracadabra]

I've been working on a game for about a year now, and now that it is nearly finished, it seems like the Pocket PC market for games has died!

Looking on the sites like Handango and Pocketgear, the number of downloads per month has dropped drastically, aswell the number of games being released. and here... there are hardly any posts in the forums. Where have you all gone?

I really hope that I am missing something, and that there is still a market for my game. Are there any developers still trying to make games for this platform out there?

hello?

[Kindred2k7]

I'm just starting development of a new Windows Mobile game. I don't know how the two sites you mentioned are performing compared to the past, but I think ClickGamer.com is doing alright and seems like a good place to market a game.

Take a look and let me know what you think! I'm hoping to develop a few 3-4 month projects over the next year or so. The release of Windows Mobile 6 will hopefully ignite the mobile gaming market again.

[David Horn]

Focus has shifted away from Handango and PocketGear for games, and I think Clickgamer tends to be preferred by developers. I've watched several large developers switch their stores to Clickgamer in the last year.

[Dan East]

Do you know, even anecdotally, what type of commission clickgamer takes? I know Handango pretty much raped developers, which is why I never sold anything through them. Even if I sold half as many copies going it alone, I kept 95% of the proceeds, so I would still be ahead in my book.

Plus, if you can make the same amount of money selling 10000 copies verses 100 copies, you better bet you would prefer the later. Less time spent on customer support!

Dan East

[David Horn]

Clickgamer take a 35% commission on Pocket PC games. I think it came up in the discussion when we switched affiliate stores to them, as I was adamant that the PocketGamer commission didn't come out of the developer's share. Lookin' at you, Handango.

I have to admit that I've been tempted for a long time to tie in a store to the new games database that lets developers sell at at 0% commission (ie, the only thing they pay are the credit card fees, and with PayPal that could be cut down even further).

However, Clickgamer have been absolutely fantastic when it comes to looking after PocketGamer, and I feel that it would be incredibly unfair to undercut them like that.

[Presto]

Clickgamer:
For my products, I get 94% using their mini-cart solution on my website, and 71% for sales they generate. You can increase your revenue with them by doing any of the following:
Link to Clickgamer from your website = +1%
... or link back to Clickgamer and put them FIRST in your list of TRY/BUY links = +2%
... or link back to Clickgamer and put them as the EXCLUSIVE TRY/BUY Link = +4%
So if you ONLY sell through Clickgamer you get 74% for sales they generate, and 94% for sales you generate (via mini-cart). Not bad at all.

Handango:
Using their shopping cart on your site gets you 80% of the revenue. Otherwise you get 60%. Handango generates a ton of sales, however. Even after switching to Clickgamer's mini-cart, Handango still generates five times as many sales as Clickgamer. Before switching, when I was using Handango's solution, it was about eight to ten times as many sales. The increased revenue from Clickgamer seems to offset the fewer number of sales I get through Handango now, however, and Clickgamer is a delight to work with.

PocketGear:
For my $9.95 games I always seem to get $5.53 from them, so that's a sorry 55.5%. They take 40% + processing fees, and you absorb any fraudulent chargebacks or returns. I once actually received a negative statement from them for a couple of bucks. I just waited until the sales for the next month covered it. (That was a few years ago with only one product on their site, so now it's not really a problem.)

PayPal:
Since the only source of PayPal sales comes directly from my site, there aren't many sales made using it (especially since I also give links to Clickgamer, Handango and PocketGear). Anyway, in 2007, 1.46% of my sales were through PayPal, but that was 2.75% of the total revenue, which speaks quite highly for the percentage you receive when you use it. Selling the Collection Bundle from my site for $14.95 produces $14.22 in revenue, which is a 95.1% return.

I haven't tried any other portals. I'd rather spend my time making games than doing the administration work. Hopefully this information helps.

-John

[mm40]

The market is far from dead, but the days of releasing a crappy game and making some money are long gone. If you don't release a AA to AAA title then you are wasting your time. I have seen sales fall over all the portals over the last year, but not too much.

Its kind of ironic considering that there are probably 10-20 times (yes TIMES) the number of windows mobile devices out there than there were a few years ago, yet software sales are the same. This is because all of the new devices are sold by the big telco companies which lock users to their platform, and most people buying a phone from them, have no idea they can even hook it up to their computer, go on HDGO/PG/CG and install a game on it. Hell most of them are still paying $2 per ringtone when you can simply copy your own MP3 to the device for free! The telcos are VERY good at keeping their monopoly intact, which includes software.

As far as market share through the portals is concerned I have seen PG fall a lot, ever since thier portal change they are doing terribly, they are doing about 1/6th the sales they used to be doing. HD is holding steady. Last month here was the breakdown PayPal 29% HD 51% PG 10% CG 10%. Its funny even though HD does almost double the sales as Paypal, I take home more with Paypal.

[sponge]

This is because all of the new devices are sold by the big telco companies which lock users to their platform, and most people buying a phone from them, have no idea they can even hook it up to their computer, go on HDGO/PG/CG and install a game on it.

I'd also argue the pathetic performance of some of the phones isn't helping-- my brand-spanking new HTC 6800 is slowe than my years old Asus A620.

[jaguard]

As far as market share through the portals is concerned I have seen PG fall a lot, ever since thier portal change they are doing terribly, they are doing about 1/6th the sales they used to be doing.

Same there. I can't believe they did this - they simply ruined their own business.
First time I saw it I just failed to operate, and it's also amazingly buggy(pocketgear shows palm titles and they do nothing to fix it!).
They used to have the greatest (in a matter of navigation) portal, now they have the worst.

As for the market - I think it's pretty alright. The bad thing is that it didn't grow at all for the past several years. This is awful, considering that PC, console and mobile(non-smartphone) markets are all making at least 30-50% growth per year.