2 different versions of an indie game Thread

I'm thinking of having a more complex version of my indie game as a traditional pay-once PC game and a simplified stripped-down free-to-play version for smartphones.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this, and is it worth it? On the one hand, PC gamers and mobile gamers have different expectations of games on their respective devices but on the other hand, free-to-play is a lot more lucrative than the traditional pay-once model. I'd appreciate honest opinions about this

Edited by: Envy

Developing cross-platform like that - with such content differences - is going to cost you a lot of time. No one does that as far as I know. Dev times on mobile games are exceptionally short compared to most other PC games, and the marketing models are vastly different. It's a huge and unnecessary risk imo, and your total dev time will be much longer. Pick one platform!

Edited by: Nightshade

Thanks for the reply

I had posted this to another forum, and I decided that the two platforms would have two completely separate games but tailored to the audiences.

The problem is that I need cash flows to start coming a few months later and not 18 months later, without butchering the entire game design that I envisioned and would do well on PC. In an ideal world, mobile gamers would love deep experiences but unfortunately that isn't the case.

In an ideal world everyone would love deep gaming experiences, yes - that would be awesome for us developers Unfortunatly this isn't the case in the real world. as there are vast differences between different types of gamers. It's hard to develop a game with a deep experience too it on mobile platforms because the target audience is a different kind of casual gamer - a gamer which is impatient, very critical and not as prone to making a purchase as your typical PC-gamer.

Things that matter for a person playing mobile games are things like:
-short/quick game sessions
-uncomplicated controls/UIs
-zero cost
-the ability to post progression on social media

I know that most people find mobile game development interesting because a lot of people have made a lot of money in a very short amount of time - but it's plagued with pitfalls. I'm not trying to scare away you or anyone else here - I'm just saying that an awful lot of people think it's all pink skies and rainbows.
Mobile gamers are extremely impatient and critical. If your game doesn't attract within one minute of game play - or if the controls are too difficult - the risk is very big that they just move on to the next game. Same thing goes with too long gaming sessions. The mobile gamer wants to play the game 5, 10 maybe 15 minutes (tops!) at a time - and they are less likely to spend money on games compared to your stereotypical PC-gamer. (Especially on the Android market)

I think you need to think very hard and long about what direction you want to go with your project. If you think that the design can handle the things I mentioned above then by all means you should develop for Android/iOS. But yeah, look at all the super popular games like Angry Birds and Flappy Bird and you will get what I'm talking about. All of these games have a lot of things in common: They have exceptionally short game sessions, they have very streamlined and easy-to-learn controls/UI design and they are FREE (at least on Android).

Edited by: Nightshade

I was going to have a one-size-fits-all model but then I decided against it.

I mean, the mobile game is going to be simple and the challenges can be played for less than a Candy Crush session (1 minute as opposed to 3). It's just going to have procedurally generated quests for the player to do, leaderboards and the ability to post on social media. The F2P model would be fair, though, maybe that would be a problem?

I did that a few years ago, made an Xbox Live game and looked to also have a PC version...but there was much work to be put into it, as I'm not really a programmer. By the time it was live on the Xbox market place I felt kinda burned out on it, and when I didn't see success for that version pan out, it pretty much zapped ambition to get the PC version running right.

Purely anecdotal, and I say if you're driven, do it. I personally don't think I'd put extra time and tears into multiplayforms unless I had already released a version and the market demanded it.

Good luck!