So have you ever thought about building or porting your existing Marmalade games to Windows?
Microsoft is committed to giving developers what they need to build outstanding games for Windows.
Whether you are a current Marmalade game developer, or an aspiring one, we hope you can participate in one of the events, programs, or online trainings available this month.
14th November 2014 Microsoft/Marmalade day at Platform Expo Hull Register here - https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032599163&culture=en-US
20th November 2014 Microsoft/Marmalade MVA – Creating your first Marmalade App Online learning https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/liveevents/creating-your-first-marmalade-game
4th December #Include Marmalade Developer Day https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/include-2014-tickets-13759522101
Game development is perhaps the most rapidly growing sector of the mobile app space, and the opportunities are continuing to grow. Go get started!
To be able to create Windows Store deployments you will first need to sign up for a Windows Store developer account. This is a one of fee of US $19 for an Individual account and US $99 for a Company account to become a registered developer.
Once you have published your first game to Windows/Windows Phone apps you can enjoy the Dev Center Benefits
If your new to Marmalade and Windows you should check out the following resources https://www.madewithmarmalade.com/windows
The new dedicated windows landing pages includes all the information and materials you need to get started including guides, written by a Marmalade developers to help get you started fast as possible using your favourite development tool building for all mobile devcies.
So what is the opportunity of building for Windows?
Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 supports many improvements which are all supported in Marmalade see
Windows 8
https://docs.madewithmarmalade.com/display/MD/Windows+Store+Apps+Platform+Guide
Windows Phone https://docs.madewithmarmalade.com/display/MD/Windows+Phone+8+platform+guide
With users rapidly adopting the 8.1 versions and the wide range of benefits for developers, now is the time to ensure you target your apps to Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1.
The graphs below show which OS is generating app downloads in Windows and Windows Phone.
Downloads Per Category
Games are the most popular category for all devices, followed by Music & Videos, Social, Entertainment, and Tools & Productivity. Of note: Windows downloads are more highly skewed towards games than Windows Phone.
The graph below shows the percentage of all downloads grouped by category.
Downloads by Market
Windows Store is available in 242 markets, and Windows Phone Store is available in 191 markets. As you localize your app for Windows consumers outside your home market, consider which markets are generating the highest downloads.
The market with highest number of downloads is United States, though the distribution of downloads shows that several other markets also generate significant downloads, including China, India, France, United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico and Russia. That doesn’t mean, however, that you shouldn’t consider other markets. Your app may have characteristics that make it perform differently in different markets.
Many markets have low credit card penetration, and the Store supports additional payment instruments so users in those markets can purchase apps and make in-app purchases. The Store supports Alipay, PayPal, as well as carrier billing (Windows Phone only) with 65 partners in 38 markets. Carrier billing offers consumers a convenient one-click way to buy apps, games and in-app purchases, and we see developer paid transactions typically increase by 3x in developed markets and 8x in emerging markets.
Localisation is key
Language is a key driver of downloads and adoption. As you evaluate languages to support in your Windows and Windows Phone apps, you can extend the reach of your existing apps by adding support for more languages.
Offering your app in English only will only cover about 25% of Windows Phone customers, though it covers a larger percentage of tablets and PCs users. Adding Spanish, French, Mandarin, Russian and German increases coverage to more than 75% of the base. Take a look at our docs that show how to localize your Windows or Windows Phone apps.
What is the best Monetization strategy for Windows?
In-app purchase of durable and consumable digital products is the model that has grown the fastest in the Windows Phone store, and is becoming an increasingly significant source of revenue in the Windows store. Advertising also continues to grow, although it is a more significant source of revenue in Windows than Windows Phone. The paid apps model is beginning to show a slight decline as developers move to the “freemium” app model that offers both in-app purchases and/or advertising as a potential revenue source. As the adoption of in-app purchasing continues, particularly of consumable in-app purchases, we expect this to become an increasingly significant source of revenue.
The //build presentation Maximizing Revenue for Phone, Tablet and PC Apps in the Windows Store has more detail about the different revenue models and best practices to help you optimize your app for maximum revenue.
Windows Phone In-App Purchases
In-app purchase was available on Windows Phone starting with Windows Phone 8, and has continued to grow and improve, including aligning the API with Windows 8.1, enabling a larger number of in-app purchase items in the catalog.
Apps that use this source of revenue effectively are quickly becoming the highest-grossing apps in the store. As this trend continues, even some paid apps are moving to a “freemium” model with a free base app and an in-app purchase feature. We now see that in August, all of the top 20 highest-grossing apps used in-app purchase, as well as 44 of the top 50 highest-grossing apps.
Nineteen of these 20 apps are games offering consumable in-app purchases, and only one uses durable purchases as its main revenue source. In short, if the value is there, in-app pricing does not have to be low to be profitable.
Next Steps
We recommend you take some time to browse through https://www.madewithmarmalade.com/windows to understand what it takes to develop and port your existing marmalade games to Windows.
We highly recommend you begin developing for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 using Marmalade, since these have become the primary operating system for users.
Marmalade allow you to develop and manage one source code for both platforms. Also, we strongly recommend consider using the in-app purchase model to increase your app revenue and a cloud backend.
Additionally if you’re a start-up Microsoft BizSpark https://www.bizspark.com provides free software, cloud resources, support, and visibility to help start-ups succeed.
We look forward to seeing you at one of the events above!