iMoses iTablet

One thing about my long delay has been an expansion of the market. Looking at my positioning from a marketing point of view it is kind of interesting. My app has taken 8 months to get to market. During that time they came out with the 3GS phone, sold millions of iPod Touch devices, opened up in China, and finally made it available on the UK Orange Network. Believe it or not, over 6.5% of adults over 18 have an iPhone in the US. 85% of these people have jobs. 100% want to hit their boss in the face. So I will be coming out with a game where you can take out your anger on the corporate world during a time of double digit unemployment.

The next gold rush has not started yet. When Flash CS5 comes out and with other tools available there are going to be so many apps your head will spin.

Marketing apps is the next frontier, the App Store is going to have to expand their categories and find a way to warehouse the glut that is about to hit. My original goal was 100,000 downloads. I believe that is attainable in the above mentioned atmosphere. If I come out hot and continue to reinvest in advertising I could surpass that number.

Tomorrow Apple will announce their new iMoses device. It is supposed to be a great game player. A question it brings up for me is how will games designed for a mobile phone going to play on a 10" screen?

Will we have to create a tablet version? Will we play small games on a bigger screen?

This should be interesting.

Back up your work

I'll tell you, finishing this game has been one son-of-a-gun. Little things keep cropping up and we are stuck at 99.5%. Unfortunately, if certain shortcomings violate Apple's rules you will get rejected. The problems we have now fit in that category. I spent the morning working out details including the re-write of the press-release announcing the game to the app community. While typing away, suddenly my monitor turns off. Like anyone you curse first, leading to minor panic followed by quick disaster planning. We were in the middle of a huge rain storm. I looked at the floor in my office and I was 1/2 inch deep in water. My back-up power supply was filled with water and turned off like it is supposed to. I spent the next 9 hours dealing with the flood and I was lucky. It ends up the city had a back up of the entire system.

This brings up another point, back up your work and have a back-up power supply! Here is what I do.

I use a Mac Pro tower with a 23" monitor plugged into a back-up power supply. Two internal drives, one external. I have Time Machine backing up hourly to the internal drive, Deja vu backing up daily to the external. I also have a portable drive I keep in another location in case of disaster. Back-up came into play during the last few months, I'm glad I was doing it.

Come hell or high water I am finishing this app. More storms are coming, so I better watch what I ask for.

Do U H8 Your Boss?

Finishing the final files has been elusive. I want all the similar screens in the Free and Paid game identical so it looks pro. Sooner or later this thing is going to get finished. I have honed in the YouTube ad to be more specific. (Do U H8 Your Boss?)



It is almost time to submit the app. Marketing efforts start now. The next addition will be a FaceBook fan page where people can post their "Bad Work Stories".

www.BeatTheBossGame.com is the hub for all things related to the game.

New Directions

Thinking about it, I wanted to make the directions clear but still leave
room for specifics revealed on the website and using Twitter.

1. Use your thumbs
2. Aim for the face
3. Smack him silly
4. Before time runs out!

Crystal Ball to the American mobile future

It's almost the end of 2009. Mobile has come a long way since the turn of the century. The progression of mobile feels similar to the era when desktop computers first hit the internet. Speed and bandwidth were the issue, just like mobile. Let's take a quick look at mobile phone history from my perspective.

Picture the set of "The 70's Show". Little league parents were an excellent barometer for new trends back when I was a kid. They were pushing or dragging 30, had 2.5 kids and had a decent job. In the beginning doctors had pagers, followed by policeman and drug dealers.

One Saturday morning as a game was about to start an over-tanned yuppie dad showed up in the stands with a large metal briefcase. Slowly he freed himself of the restraints of his Hawaiian shirt and oiled himself around his gold medallion liberally. He spread out reflective material and kicked back wearing expensive sunglasses. He reached to his right, popped open the case and took out a telephone. The cheering that followed had nothing to do with the game. The children were fooled into believing they had just gained parental approval when in reality it was the birthing of their electronic leash. Bernie was mobbed by little league mom's, never to be seen again. What happened that evening is 70's legend.

The next versions of the cellphone were the size of walkie-talkies and weighed 20 lbs. Power was an issue and your car has a battery. The logical move was to have a "Car Phone". Having a phone in your car was a big thing. People faked like they had one just to look cool. Thieves would totally mess up a sweet ride to get a hold of a nice car phone.

In America, really cheap phones were offered with expensive long term contracts. SMS would become the huge moneymaker for the telcos, they had no problem giving away devices. Cameras would become more commonplace and people were itching to go online. PDA's became doorstops as telephones improved.

Someone asked Einstein his phone number. His answer was, "I don't know", I don't worry about things I can easily look up." How right he was, everyone with an iPhone and Wikipedia is a genius these days. In the 70's, when you left the house you made sure you had your wallet and your keys. Now add the cellphone to the pile, the cellphone has reached worldwide acceptance.

Things move extremely fast these days, but one thing holds true… Europe and Asia are two years ahead of what we do. We have progressed to the point of smartphone adoption in the US but the services available in other parts of the world surpass our expectations.

If we look to Europe and Asia they will give us a crystal ball to 2012. I would expect to see mobile TV in the the US in the very near future.

Wait, Wait, Break Wood

Finishing is an interesting topic. I have decided to work with Apalon out of Belarus to market Beat the Boss. Right off the bat there will be a list of 5-10 suggestions to improve the game. This is tough just from a human perspective. Anytime you have something reviewed and get edits it adds a little heartbreak to your creation. My next move will be to decide how much heartbreak I want to fix and how much it will cost me. The next adjustments have to be the final moves from a budget perspective. It is time to go to market.

Game quality is key. Most of the top ten games are established titles like Madden Football, Monopoly, Tetris and Scrabble. If my game is weak, the gamers will rip it. I need to reassess the playability. My guess, the changes won't be drastic and we will move forward.

My Christmas release may not happen but I am willing to wait. There will be plenty of new devices at the beginning of the year. Beat the Boss will kick butt on it's own time.

In my karate training we waited for one punch rather than going Jackie Chan. The release strategy will follow the same plan. Wait, wait, wait…break wood.

Availability date and update rule changes

What is interesting, is that one of the main reasons I got involved in iPhone Apps was because most of the rules were in place. Throw in a financial split of 30/70 and you know exactly what the game is. After taking my lumps big time releasing my first app, I studied marketing methods for iPhone apps and came to some conclusions. Many current successful apps stayed in the public eye by updating their apps and basically re-release them. You get new eyeballs for a few days and you stay in the public eye.

My game plan was built on these truths not realizing the rules would change. Behind the scenes I never thought about how Apple would deal with updates in the future. Well, the future is now. The original availability date is your app's permanent birth date in the App Store, you can't lie about your age and throw a new party anymore.

Overall, it really brings home a reality… apps are like records. Nobody buys a song unless they hear it. For the moment, the only radio station for an app is The App Store. The fight is over a spot in the Top 25. If you are lucky you get featured in a commercial or an ad. Other than that, you are left waving your arms on an island to a plane in the distance hoping someone takes notice.

There are many mind sets to marketing an app. I want to obviously start with a bang, then adjust after the two days that Apple gives you. It's like graduation, here's your diploma, wave, now get out of here.

You have to take the initiative to make people enter their code and pay $2 bucks. I believe this takes a number of methods to get the word out. I was planning on using the update method to stay in people's minds, I still want to. Apple won't give me the same love for doing so but I believe the public will appreciate additions to the game. Twitter and FaceBook will be the vehicles to announce improvements to Beat the Boss.

Two headed cats

Having two cats has effected Beat the Boss during it's creation. Just when you have a great thought one of my little buddies kills something or wants a thorough petting. Today is no different. I got up in the middle of the night and stepped in a huge hair ball making a gross squishy noise. A few days ago it appeared that Yuuki had been in an altercation. His head had been in something's mouth but it didn't appear serious. This morning he jumped on the bed and it looked like he had Bell's palsy. The right side of his face was swollen to where his eye was almost shut. It looks like he has two heads. He's at the vet now, I think he'll live.

I mention this because the development of an app or any other creation is effected by outside influences. Just when you have a good thought, the phone rings or your kid needs a sandwich. It's part of life, I have learned to roll with the punches and use unplanned occurrences as a springboards. In the game, you throw cats at the Boss. I wonder where that idea came from?

This is a picture of Yuuki as a kitten before he messed up his head. He also has a crooked tail.

The vet just called, $400 for surgery... I need to sell some apps.

ESPN influence

Watching ESPN gave me an idea. While the announcers do their thing a bar often appears at the bottom of the screen with additional information. Scores, injuries, lawsuits, steroid accusations etc. I am going to do the same thing on the BeatTheBossGame.com website.

I have created a futuristic city that serves as part of the loader in the game. Many flying objects have been added to the scene as well as buttons to YouTube commercials. After :30 seconds or so, a bar pops up with the game's first hint. This one tells you that there are different ways to approach the Boss. I will use this method to issue official Beat the Boss corporate communications. Next is trying to figure out how to program an iPhone to do an optical scan as an additional security measure.

I am spending a lot more time on the website than originally planned, but that's OK. The whole project reflects my artistic vision of corporate society. Having balloon boy fly by seemed like a good idea at the time. THEY loved the story airing it on all levels of communication.

Steve Jobs and tweet size headlines

I was sent an article discussing why Steve Jobs is a great speaker. He has been suggested as being "CEO of the decade". His secret has to do with simplicity and surprise. People were on their knees waving their arms in the air when he pulled a laptop out of a manila folder. Another thing he does is break down his message to visuals and simple quotes. He creates tweet size descriptions and people get it. Here is the list of tweets I plan to send out once the game is available.


A free iPhone app that really kicks butt - BeatTheBossGame.com
Beat the Boss on your iPhone for free - BeatTheBossGame.com
Kick Ass / Take Names! - BeatTheBossGame.com for the iPhone for free
Smack your boss in the chops with your iPhone! - BeatTheBossGame.com
Hit your boss without getting fired! - BeatTheBossGame.com for the iPhone
Suggest a weapon, win a free T-Shirt! - BeatTheBossGame.com
Take out your work frustrations on your iPhone! - BeatTheBossGame.com
Hate Your job? Have an iPhone? - BeatTheBossGame.com
Corporate anxiety therapy using your iPhone - BeatTheBossGame.com
Pink slip in your future? Have an iPhone? - BeatTheBossGame.com
Believe in executive punishment? - BeatTheBossGame.com
Ticked off at your boss?...hit it him with your iPhone! - BeatTheBossGame.com

Monetizing Mania

Digital media is a twin edged sword. It allows for unlimited creation, but it also allows the same freedom to other creators similar to yourself, there is a lot of competition out there. These days if you have an idea for a show you can make it and publish it all over the net, it's easy. This is a big win for people that have a project they want to get noticed. The problem is how do you make money? A chosen few are actually paid by YouTube for content, but the majority of folks are not in it for the money, they just want to share.

As a professional cartoonist I looked at 2010 back in 2005 and figured out something important. Everything in mobile is monetized. From the beginning mobile operators made sure that you pay for everything. Even if it's free you still pay for the service. I decided to follow the mobile path because people are willing to pay for communication. That is how I will monetize my mania.

My deal with mobile aggregators and phone companies left me a very small piece of the pie. I had two wallpapers surpass the 100,000 mark on T-Mobile. I would have made $70,000 each if that was an iPhone app. I made a fraction of that after agent fees and phone company splits. Apple takes 30% but offers a platform with over 50 million possible customers.

Though the app store is crowded, I still think it is a good place to be if you have a product worth buying. Being in the App store does not guarantee success, you have to promote. I am going to take advantage of all the methods available to shout these days. If the typical numbers happen 2-3% will buy. If I want to sell 100,000 apps I need to tell at least a few million folks.

Barking Signals

In a football sense, I am at the 1- yard line barking signals and the clock is ticking. It has been a long game. Once I cross the goal line, the game really just gets started. From everything I have read the only way to be successful is to create a game that is truly fun to play and gets good word of mouth promotion. First you have to get through the submission process, during that time you have to plant digital seeds.

My rolodex is ready, I have a lot of major players to contact. YouTube promotion and the website will be Tweeted. The missing element is a press release and overall timing of the announcement of Beat the Boss to the correct news outlets. I am exploring different avenues. I reached out to some business folks I know and have gotten some great referrals, I am also checking online. Working with some PR geniuses might be a good move, I can only do so much. I'll meet with Christina Jorgensen at Drizen-Dohs Corporate Communications. They have been publishing my cartoons for a few years but are business communication specialists. This should be interesting.

Completing a free and paid version that works is quite an accomplishment. This is good for promotion as well. Turnover rates are often over 50% from free to paid, so the free version will be my main sales tool. Taking suggestions from users and implementing it in the game will be great for keeping interest. My plan is to update at least every two weeks for the first three months.

My goal is to get a lot people trying the free version. If people like playing the game the upgrades will take care of themselves.

Thousand Pound Gorilla

This project has been rather lengthy, over 6 months. It could have been done in much less time, but creating in the USA and assembling in India has it's challenges. Making a game is hard because in some ways you are never done. There are always things you can do to improve the experience. I don't want to make the game a thousand pound gorilla, but I also don't want to leave something out that is glaring. Sooner or later you have to put your foot down and say that you are done.

I want people to play the game and have fun. A time element adds to the game play, giving you a reason to beat the boss other than just primal anger. The game play gets kind of frantic as time gets close. I believe the element of winning has been included with the satisfaction of beating the crap out of your boss.

Next time CS5 will be used and ActionScript 3 will be the method. The more control I have, the less I am dependent on making changes that programmers consider a problem. I am very curious how hard it will be to create a similar experience using the new tools. My goal is to be able to create interactive iPhone entertainment with maximum control but still work with talented programmers.

iPhone apps in Flash CS5

It is interesting how time moves on. The creation of the Beat the Boss was a cooperative effort between IndiaNic and Mike Browne. I created all the art and assembled it in Flash. Indianic took great efforts to interpret my thought and implement it in the iPhone SDK. They had to literally rip it apart and put it back together. Now that we are almost done, Adobe announces that Flash CS5 will include an output to create for the iPhone directly. It will be out later this year…it is now October.

When The Boss is done it will look like it was created in Flash and everyone will be wondering how we did it so fast. The reality is that it was put together piece by piece. One thing I know for sure is my next app will be created in Flash from the start. My guess the creation time of this same project would be a fraction of the 6 months it took to create The Boss.

As I write this, there are about 75,000 apps and 2 million downloads. A year from now it should be 5 times that amount. The tough part is going to be iTunes. How will people find your apps? It is hard standing out now amongst 75,000, imagine down the road. Another thought is the approval process. It takes minimum 2 weeks now to get approved by Apple now, with rejections this can be months. What will they do when the Flash crowd shows up?

The Boss will come out right on time. Just before the crowd hits after people figure out how to make Flash CS5 work for them. The game is changing, but I have the right skill set to work within the platform. I will adapt with everyone else. But there is more to it than tools. Beat the Boss is an idea that is well thought out and the game play is fun.

My good friend Terumi gave me this Flash action character a number of years ago. She was right, Flash is the answer.

Evolution of an art career

As I type, I am feeling strong emotions. I just spoke to my sister and found out that my stepfather died a few months ago. He was a strange guy. He married my mother many years ago just before she got sick and lived as a loner as he had before they met. He died in the house that my mother dreamt of. I understand the house is in such disrepair it needs to be torn down. My career is like the house, 100 years old and needs to be disassembled. I grew up loving comics and cartoons. Mom bought me all the Peanuts books. My goal was to be a strip cartoonist like Charles Schulz. In 2009, that is like having your eye on the job of being a blacksmith or buggy whip salesman.

Over the years, I have been hip to trends and quick to adapt. The hard part is having to learn so many disciplines. I started using the computer for print, then web, cd, dvd, video, commercials, big screen and mobile. I used to be unique because I had an interesting drawing style, now I am one of a million. The internet made delivery of art so much easier. In the old days, I would airbrush a project and have it shipped, but now the world is also a click away. Cartoon characters like mine are now available for $3 from stock photos. A friend from Tai Chi is getting 1-minute of animation from a company in India for $500. For me, the writing is on the wall, the dream part of my art life is over. I am not going to be syndicated cartoonist and my shows are not going to be on TV. This is a hard pill to swallow, but the world has changed again and I have to follow.

I have chosen iPhone apps as my comedic outlet for now. Who knows what the world will be doing in a few years, but for now people are very focused on the iPhone. It's kind of like creating a show, but an interactive one. This app focuses on my Boss character and people get to beat him up. I am alone on this project, no partners. I have made all the decisions. Doing most of the work yourself leaves you in a strange place. I don't have co-workers to share the burden emotionally or financially. People close to me like the idea but that is as far as it goes. If the idea makes it big most people in my life won't notice, if it flops the same.

The programmers are about a week or so from finishing, after that will be Apple approval time. I have been careful to not include elements that will cause disqualification. There still could be problems, but I believe I have a clean program. At one point, you hit the Boss with a phone. I had them remove the busy signal noise because Apple doesn't like mimicking phone maladies. Now I am planning the website, the app needs to be available and easily found.

If my app is successful I would like to get hired by a major player and work with other creatives. I have been working alone long enough.

National Boss's Day

I was getting worried that the game will turn out to be glitchy. There is a lot of interaction. I tested the latest version today up to 8 weapons. It works. I think the game play is a success. You kind of almost throw the phone by swiping your thumbs. It gets kind of frantic. It does takes some skill to beat the clock, but the game does have addictive qualities. It is starting to get interesting, I hope the public likes it. Soon it will be time to start the marketing effort. Not quite yet, the app needs to be completed and submitted to the App Store first. Soon, YouTube and a T-Shirt contest. I am hoping to be able to promote the app for "National Boss's Day" October 16th.

Snow Leopard

I'm working on a Mac. Snow Leopard is the latest Apple software update. There are annoying glitches that are supposedly addressed and some new functionality. I draw using Adobe Illustrator. One hassle that I have always dealt with is not seeing a preview of those Illustrator files. Now, the icons show you a mini picture of the content of the file. Small thing but huge for me. I have been using Macs for 15 years. It has never been perfect, there is always a bug. It seems as though computing has moved into an era where the main focus is to take advantage of the processor and move packets of information effectively using the Intel Highway. I am really concerned about glitches in my program. People are getting used to things working well. If your game hangs up or crashes your audience will write bad reviews and vaporize.

MotoRokr S9-HD

Sound is also part of a an interactive experience. One of the worst things as a mobile designer is to watch someone hold a phone to their ear while playing a game. It takes their eye off the screen. I am hoping that the audio is understandable when the phone is a foot away from your face avoiding such activity. I just bought the Motorola Rokr S9-HD bluetooth stereo headphones to work with my iPhone. My goodness, the sound is way better than my old plug-in head set I wear while riding my road bike. When I get a call I can pick it up immediately rather than fumble for the phone. I just tested, if you wear the headset while playing the game you can hear the audio just fine. Bad news is I can't seem to get it to skip the the next song. I hope there is a fix.

Crash Test Dummies

In the real world, game companies have the time and budget to test different versions of their products long before it is introduced. Try it on boys, try it on girls. When do you release? Should the character do this or do that? When my game is done, it is going to market. I don't have the luxury of corporate backing on this project. This one is on my dime. What's the other choice?...start over? I don't think so. I'll do the testing real time. I believe it will be a unique offering. Getting the word out will be key. If it's not fun to play, the word will stop. The reviews can be faked at first, but if you have thousands of downloads, people will speak the truth.

Voices.com

Being that I have an entertainment rather than gaming background I story boarded and planned like I was creating a short film. I am making this game piece by piece, one foot at a time. Most projects have a deadline. A client or your own brain demand you finish now. In a way, this is my life's project. No rush. It isn't tied to a holiday or occurrence. This is about people that hate their boss. There are cave drawings with that theme. I am the client. I always had the idea of verbal interaction with the Boss character. I wrote all the lines to be used in the game and recorded them myself. I made versions of the game in Flash to test. Then I got pro voice talent on Voices.com. The guy was great. He did all my lines within a couple of days for about $300- $400. No studio time, no engineer. The files are excellent. When the game comes out the voice will really stand out.