YMTIS WorkshopGeneva

Working with the Marketplace

Marios Karagiannis

*The steps

*Register as a developer

* free for students, $99 per year for everyone else

*Read the certification guidelines

*Develop your app/game

*Test your game against guidelines

*Create the submission artwork

*Submit your app/game

*Cross your fingers and wait

*…

*Profit

*General Tips

*Try to make something good

*Original is one way to go

*But anyway make something people want to use/play

* Every day if possible

*Try not to make something fast just for the fun of it

*Except if you don’t really care about your app succeeding

*And we have enough tip calculators, thanx

*Marketplace Tips

*Read the guidelines carefully

*Small things can get the app rejected

* Like not handling the Back button correctly

*Or having one of the artworks 1 pixel too big

*You don’t want to wait a week just to find out you waited for nothing

*Test your app for bugs

*Try anything you might think of

*Give it to your friends, family etc to test stuff for you

*If your app fails

*Microsoft will provide feedback

*Fortunately, they provide very clear instructions on how to reproduce the problem that got your app rejected

*Follow the steps, fix the problem(s)

*Test again your app

*Re-submit

* Is there money to be made?

* Short answer?

* Maybe, but not yet

* While people may buy your game/app, and although the Marketplace is growing _really_ fast, it’s still small

* Unfortunately, you cannot make money from free apps/games and in-app advertising outside of the US

* But…

* …rapid market expansion is on the way!

* Microsoft – Nokia deal

* CDMA update (Sprint and Verizon in the US)

* And you want your app(s)/game(s) to be in there when the millions of user come…

* …and they will come, the platform is usable, great and improving very fast

* Not to mention that the developer tools are the best out there

*Your app got accepted

*Congratulations

*This is just the beginning though

*Work hard to support your users with updates, bug fixes, new features etc

*Listen to their feedback

*Get ideas for expansions

*Advertise your app as hard as you can

*People cannot buy your app if they don’t know it exists

*Promotion 101 is out of the scope of this talk

*Ideas/Help

*I am always open to discuss your ideas

*And help where I can

*Find me at www.kariosgames.com

email@kariosgames.com

*Thank you