50 k words gamebooks

@mayday what’s your gamebook called?

@Mayday
Told ya xD even if it’s free, they don’t care.

I say the most important thing is whether you can write 100k words and still be excited about writing it by the end. It doesn’t matter how much money you could potentially earn or what reviews you could potentially get if you can’t bring yourself to finish the game.

That said, I don’t mind if a gamebook is short as long as it is good. There are plenty of long games that I didn’t care for and plenty of short games that I loved. Of course, not everyone feels that way, but loyal customers of CoG are usually not the type of people who write negative reviews simply because a game is short.

@Samuel_H_Young made an excellent point that a game priced at $0.99 can’t be published on Google Chrome. If you can find some way to make it long enough for the $1.99 pricetag, you could reach the largest possible audience. But like I said, none of that matters if you can’t finish writing the game. Don’t push yourself to keep writing after you have become miserable or bored with the story. And in the end, what you think of the story is more important than anything else. Do whatever satisfies your artist’s soul!

Yes, I agree with @Marabella. It’s good to get some of the perks of a smaller story that isn’t quite so small, but it’s best to do what you can and want.

@Vampierkid222 There is a 50-k-word gamebook hopefully coming out soon - Path of Light, but my question was more related to my next project.

@Mirabella The way things worked so far was the following: I get excited about an idea and write 10-20 k words, then I abandon the project and go for something else. After that, I return to what I abandoned and make it 50 k words. Well, tbh, that last part worked only for Path of Light.

@Mayday
lol xD! I never abandon anything, but I do have periods where I’ll write like 0.5k in one day, then 3k in another.

My Silent Gear title is less than 50k words, i purposely did it that way to keep it as a free title to gain a massively more download rate. I do get complaints about grammar and such (my fault for a rush publish) but nobody said a word about length. Currently, the profit i’m earning from it surpasses my expectations. So like most people have said, length isn’t as important as other aspects.

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@Zanity Do you think that it would have been a $1 game if it was longer than 50 k words? If it is free, how do you generate revenue? Is there an IAP?

@Mayday I have no idea what amount of words will cause it to be a priced app, I’m thinking it’s not based on just length alone, what other factors are involved? I can’t say because I don’t know. Also, rules are always changing, like how @Lucid was charging $1 for a 27k word title, that will never happen again, this I can guarantee. They’re always raising the bar for length and quality for a priced title as more people publish over time.

There is IAP in my title, but most of the revenues doesn’t come from IAP I think, it comes from IAA (in app ads). My estimate is that I’m exposed to probably atleast 5 times more downloads than an app that cost money. Ofcourse all this is my own speculation because I don’t own a priced app yet. I may try to release a priced title one day and compare the difference on my own to better understand the market, until then, it’s all speculation I’m afraid. Both has obvious advantages, free app gets you more downloads, more in app ad exposure, but extremely small average profit per download. Priced app gets you guaranteed larger profit per download but with lower download rates. To be honest, profit will always come if you put your heart and soul into creating a great title that people can enjoy, regardless if it’s free or not. =)

@Zanity Thanks for your answer. @Lucid states that the case of Paradox Factor was an exception of the rule. My observation is that the rules did not change, but there are other factors as well. I’ve been trying to get more information from Mr. Hill but to no avail. He says that each case is individual and there is no hard rule.

The most notable exception of what I though was a rule was United We Fall. I expected to see it priced at $ 3 (for a 120 k words) but it was a dollar less (probably because of the genre). On the other hand, that title was well received, so it I guess it was a win-win situation for everyone involved.

I myself insist on my games having a price tag for a few reasons. First, only people who downloaded the game can write comments and rate. In the past, I’ve had people give me 1 star reviews for absurd reasons (like the language was not Russian??). Second, I generally don’t think that free apps are worth your time. Third, ads tend to be more annoying than just spending a couple of dollars.

What I want to ask you is whether Hosted Games gave you a choice or was it something you proposed and they accepted?

@Mayday Actually, I’m pretty sure the rules did change, I remember I read something like, the minimal word count required for publish has gone up over time. I do agree with you on the comment thing, I do have absurd 1 star rating with childish comments from 10 yr olds who probably didn’t even try the game for more than 20 seconds.

On your question, Hosted Games never gave me any choice, they decide what to charge for my game, I had no say in it what so ever. Which I’m fine with because HG knows much more than I do on marketing and publishing.

There was a discussion. It was suggested that Paradox Factor might make a nice free game because Chrome didn’t like the $1 game. But, the ad revenue model was having troubles due to various reasons, so I shied away from that.

I felt that giving it a value made the audience value it more. Paradox Factor doesn’t read like a 27k normal branching game does. Had I been less efficient in coding it, it could have swelled to a larger number, but the reader wouldn’t have noticed a thing. :smile:

I disagree. If a shorter game has more replay value it’s a huge point in its favor, but artwork makes me feel that I’ve gotten more for my money. I’m always impressed by anything I couldn’t do myself.

Agreed!! If you come up with something that’s “short story” length but is really original and fun, I will absolutely pay more for a good concept. I thought that Paradox Factor was actually a little underpriced, but that also means I was able to recommend it to my broke friends easier.

I’ve worked in video game marketing, and I’d agree with that too. Pricing something too low makes people wonder what’s wrong with it. Free-to-play games get a different reputation, regardless of how much they are making in add-on content, ad clicks, etc. They can be wildly successful as a guilty pleasure, but it’s hard to love something that hooks you as free entertainment and then gets you to spend money on it.

This is why I’m planning to sell my own game at around $2, and offer some very cheap download content; free-to-play might end up being more profitable, but the perception of your work that comes from giving it away makes it harder to sell players on your games being meaningful. I would rather players pay a base price, not feel manipulated into purchasing more content because I’ve gotten them addicted to the free version, and then feel better about buying a sequel.

Companies like Zynga that capitalize on efficiently squeezing money out of players via optimized free-to-play models are really successful, then burn out and make players resent them. …I’m simplifying a lot, so I hope this is making sense.

Well…I agree personally, but most readers seem to severely dislike shortness and replayability doesn’t seem to redeem it for them., sadly. And yeah, I agree about art (and music, for that matter) which is why I ended up having them come as an IAP in CoF.

Also, free-to-play generally gets you like 50 times more downloads, but like a tenth of the revenue. Ads don’t get you very much money in the first place, and since CoG was banned from adsense, that’s been especially true.

But yeah, I agree about simplifying and being transparent. “In app demos” might get you more money initially, but they also seem to take a big toll on your ratings, as is evident with a few of the latest CoGs sporting that model. I’d rather have a little less money and better ratings than a little more money and worse ratings.

@Sashira We all disagree on certain things lol, I’m not sure Zynga is a good comparison with HG here, I know Zynga well as I been with them for over 3 years on AGG, before Zynga Beijing took over and destroyed it, now Zynga Beijing is going under because of the way they squeeze every penny out of their customers and nobody likes them anymore. In terms of free app or priced app for HG, there is not really a right or wrong answer I think, it’s a personal choice, and for me, I purposely write all my apps to be free app, the only IAP I have is the remove ads, so all the stories will always be free, the more people who can enjoy my app, the better, it’s just the way I prefer to do it. =)

@Zanity There is no direct link between downloading and reading (I think Samuel said that a few posts above). Of course, even if you buy a game, there is a chance never to read it, but I guess that almost every download there results in a read / play.

In terms of which results in higher ratings, I really don’t know what to say. I have a free Android app called Dating a Witch and it has the same rating with my paid Path of Light. There are the ones who will easily give you the 1 star just for the fun of it, but the readers who really go through a paid game would be a bit harder in their assessment because they relate it to the price.

Speaking about Dating a Witch, there are many reviews that sound like 5-star ones but in fact the user gave 3 or 4 because of the length. And, that app is really short - only 10 k words. Right now, I am using it as a sort of a background for the game I am writing now and I hope to be ready by the end of he month. Then, I hope to be able to persuade HG to put a dollar label on it.

Oh, I realized where the catch is. Turning the ads off in Silent Gear costs $ 2, which is twice the price that would normally be charged for a 50-k-word game. Having in mind the big exposure, I guess that model may actually work fine :slight_smile:

So would it be better to have a $1 game over a free one with ads?

I don’t like ad enforced games. Since I use the apps to read the CoG and Hosted Games, I just turn the data off when I want to kill them.

Depends on what you’re looking for. $1 gets you more money, but ad supported gets you more exposure. Although neither of them will earn you very much, I’d personally go for the payed version.