Promotional Video

Now it is a new year, thank the Lord. The delays releasing Beat the Boss have been necessary. The market has changed, having to wait created deeper understanding of the situation. There are 125,000 apps at this time, there are 100,000 developers. I believe many thousands have dropped out of the game. Making a profit creating an app takes experience combined with a good product. The days of iFart are over. The average guy does not want to go through the pains of creating a hit and sustaining it. Quality iPhone entertainment will take careful preparation and skillful promotion. Personally, I am not planning on luck.

Marketing a game is like promoting a new song. You have to tell your exact audience that you exist and how they can buy your game. You have a short time frame to get this done. It is not a slow building process, you have to come out throwing punches.

Now I am in the process of creating a promotional video the IndiaNIC will use to talk up Beat The Boss. I purchased a Flip HD Video recorder, set up a tripod and had Marianne interview me over the weekend. I also got Final Cut software to edit the piece together.

Now I am my own client. All aspects of the project need attention at the same time. Having programmers and marketing help makes the task a little easier.

Headaches

An interesting phenomenon shows up just every now and then. This annoying occurrence makes me think my friend Mahesh has lost his mind. At the same time, he thinks I have lost mine.

Part of the difficulty about working long distance is understanding. I have contact with India, The Netherlands, Belarus and the US. I am getting used to working with people all around the world. There are some typical challenges including time coordination and the delay that I call "international art lag".

Today's discussion has relevance to my story about having a bad guitar wire. For three years I couldn't hear my guitar through my computer because of a bad cable. This is kind of happening again.

I just tested the final versions sent to me by Mahesh, both FREE and PAID versions. They were supposed to contain minor adjustments. The PAID reflected the changes, the FREE didn't. Interesting.

In normal procedure, I go to iTunes / iPhone / Applications and delete the present version of Beat the Boss, then I sync. After sync I add what Mahesh sends me and sync again. Then I test.

I loaded a FREE and a PAID version. The PAID looks great and reflects the changes I suggested for that current version. The FREE showed no changes at all. I sent a note saying great, but not quite there. I assume this is when Mahesh starts taking aspirin.

In the past we have run into times where I have to "Restore" my iPhone when it doesn't recognize the changes sent to me. That is what I did yesterday.

It ends up I have a bad cord again in a digital kind of way. It happens intermittently so you forget about the possibility.

Pocket god

I read Dean Takahashi's article on Venture Beat's site about the "pocket god" iPhone app and the reasons for it's success. One reason they are successful is because they constantly update their app, with every update they alter the icon.

This isn't a new concept, but what got me is that two guys put together pocket god. One is an artist another a programmer. Sounds familiar, but my programmer is in India. I can emulate their method.

It has been such a long haul, the thought of making the game bigger at this point would have programmers at Indianic planning my early demise, but I want Beat the Boss to stay popular. Sales spikes occur when you do an update. I am going to take suggestions for weapons online and add them regularly if possible. The chosen weapon winners will get a free T-Shirt.

Being that the game is level oriented, the framework is there. The Boss icon is set up well to accommodate version changes.

I look outside and see pitchforks and burning torches. It must be programmers.