Normalkid:Arnold Kim

Apple’s App Store is growing leaps and bounds with over 1 billion apps downloaded and the single largest app category is games. While Apple has not broken down the # of downloads per category, based on a quick look at the top rankings, I’d guess that the majority of downloads on the App Store are, in fact, games.

In running a large iPhone gaming site, I have a somewhat unique perspective into the market, and there’s been a notable shift in the market in the past month or so.

To give some background, the iPhone app market is competitive. There’s been a lot written about what it takes to get to the top of the App Store. In the end, it’s all about exposure. Whether that exposure is through the App Store itself or through review sites, it’s a pretty key component in a developer’s success. While several small “indie” developers have been able to successfully make it big in the App Store, there are, of course, hundreds of developers who have been unable to. Some of those developers have been more vocal than others over the course of the year about issues of fairness about coverage on reviews sites, and whether indies really do have a shot.

In the past, I’ve generally dismissed these complaints, as I didn’t necessarily think they held that much merit. While there were a lot of games being released into the App Store, I felt the majority of them weren’t worthy of coverage and very few really truly deserved to be a success. In the end, I felt that most developers needed to realize that their games were not as good as they thought they were, and their lack of App Store success wasn’t necessarily reflective of a flaw in the system but perhaps of the appeal of their game. I guess I believed the cream would rise to the top.

The reason I believed this was that despite the massive number of games coming out, I felt we could actually keep track of all the games coming into the App Store. Through our forums, and by playing the games ourselves, I felt like we could pick up on the games worthy of coverage. It was a somewhat tedious process, and I think we might have played 20+ games for every game we thought was worth covering. We also would try to play every game that would be sent in to us.

So what’s changed?

Well, clearly the volume of games appearing in the App Store has increased. But that’s not necessarily an insurmountable issue. While I don’t feel I can personally play every game that comes out, this is the sort of thing that more manpower can be thrown at, and we’re making adjustments to try to address that.

The biggest change, however, is the influx of mid-sized to large developers who are invading the App Store space. Companies like EA and Gameloft are really ramping up production of their App Store games. In March, EA announced 14 games coming in 2009. That’s a new EA game every 2 and a half weeks being released. Gameloft has ramped up their production as well and seems to be releasing games at least as aggressively. And these are high quality titles.

Ignoring those big players, a number of other serious small to mid-sized development firms have turned their attention to the iPhone. Glu is a mobile gaming company that has started releasing original titles for the iPhone as well. They’ve announced 5 at GDC and are planning more. The list goes on. Ngmoco, Freeverse, Digital Chocolate, Artificial Life, IUGO etc… all have multiple titles coming to the iPhone this year.

So What’s The Problem?

Well, for the serious gamer, there might not be a problem. The number of high quality games coming to the iPhone is increasing by leaps and bounds. For the smaller developer, however, it introduces a number of issues.

First of all, the quality level for gaming has been continuing to increase while the prices of games continues to drop. Major developers have been adjusting their prices downward in order to find the right pricing. At this point, I see $4.99 as a bit of a ceiling for quality no-name brands. If you price yourself above that you’re competing directly against Gameloft and EA titles. And the problem is that margin is getting narrower.

I think the bigger issue, though, is one of exposure. There’s only so much attention that gamers are going to have, and they are going to be naturally drawn to the big name titles.

From a news and review site perspective, you’re competing for attention against some major titles. This past week alone we saw the releases or news of Boulder Dash, Need for Speed, Sims 3, Top Gun, Star Defense, Mass Effect, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Myst, Siberian Strike and more. Those are titles that occupy the time and space of gaming sites. While story posting volume can increase to some degree, I don’t believe it can (or should) go up too high, as otherwise you’re losing the attention of the people you want to be exposed to.

That’s not to say all hope is lost. Fortunately, the iPhone gaming audience continues to grow, which means the absolute amount of exposure for a smaller game may actually be higher today than it was 6 months ago. However, since the numbers are up across the board, that may not help as improve App Store rankings as much as it has in the past.

Based on the news that I was pursuing a career in “blogging”, I naturally got a lot of emails from individuals who asked about how to start in blogging, how to build traffic, and similar plans. I promised them I’d post some thoughts here.

I guess the first thing to note is that describing what I do as “blogging” isn’t entirely accurate — in that it’s not all I do. It’s the accepted term, of course, and one that I adopted because it best describes my business.

The “blog” term has become so broad that it now encompasses a small site like this, but also applies to MacRumors.com. The act of blogging is simply writing a story and posting it to your site. Just by filling in a few blanks and clicking on a few links, you can easily set up your own blog on Wordpress.com.

The trick to being profitable in blogging, of course, is a combination of finding a large enough audience and being able to make money off that audience. Trying to extend your blog into a business will require you to become familiar with ad sales and ad networks. As traffic in your site grows beyond the confines of your current web hosting account, you may have to become familiar with the intricacies of web hosting and dedicated servers.

These problems, though, are good ones to have, because it means you’ve grown large enough that they matter. Most hobby blogs won’t ever have to worry about these issues.

For those of you who are already blogging or have established sites, this advice is not for you. Once you are familiar with the markets, you can make strategic decisions to start a site on whatever topic you want.

For those of you who were inspired by the story about someone who was able to turn their hobby into their career but don’t know where to start, here’s my advice on starting a blog:

I think I’ll stop there for now. I’m sorry if it seems like such a basic and obvious list, but I think those are the essentials.

I also don’t think people should be discouraged by my 8 year figure. I’d said before I think many people could and would have made the switch after 3-4 years. Recently some blogs have been able to rise to prominence over the course of only 1 or 2 years. Of course, competition can be tougher these days with the many corporate-backed blogs.

By now, many people have seen the New York Times article about me and my quitting medicine to pursue a career on my websites. Overall, the response has been amazing, and generally very positive. The article itself was amongst the most emailed articles at the New York Times for that day. Besides being a surprising story (‘M.D. quits medicine to blog’), I think it struck a chord in a lot of people.

Job and career satisfaction are always hot issues and I suspect there are a lot of people have that secret career in the back-of-their-mind that they wished they had pursued.

Understandably, there was a lot of coverage in the blogs and especially from those with similar aspirations. Several people had emailed me about thoughts and advice on building a site. I don’t know if there’s a magic formula, but I’ll share some thoughts in a later post.

Finally, there were a few people who found offense to my career switch. I understand some of the issues surrounding it, but I think the best thing I can say is it was a very difficult decision for me at the time, and also a very personal one. Some people are focusing on the money, but in reality, it was a lifestyle and family choice. I suspect that given the same options, most people would have made the same decision.