FB Instant Games , a long long journey

SinisterSoft

@jimlev I've made enough from my two games on facebook instants to at least pay for the apple dev account. You should make that back at least.

jimlev

Thanks for the encouragements but... your games are good, that's a difference !
I do code for pleasure, as an amateur, and I'm not sure that it can be, for me, a source of revenue. And, I have to also admit that I am a bit opposer to what I compare to a kind of racket...
Do you make IAP, ADs revenues or both? On the Instant Games Dev page, on facebook, a lot of dev complain that IG are not viable anymore for little developpers. Did you observe such regression in your game audience and revenue?

SinisterSoft

Thanks.

I make $ on both. The user can play for free (I give them a supply of daily credits), the more consecutive days they play, the more free credits they get. If they run out they can watch an advert for more or there can buy a huge chunk of credits for a small amount.

I saw a regression when they got rid of the 'boost', but I released the ping pong dx game after the boost had gone. It's slowly building up - some days (even the odd week), it makes nothing - others it makes $20 or $30 in a day.

I know it's not much, but I made it for fun - the sort of game I like to play and to show my kids how we used to make games.

jimlev

Could someone help me with that one ?

I try to get the count of entries in the leaderboard (to make something like 'you are #12 / 131 players')

FBInstant.getLeaderboardAsync("LeaderboardName",function (result,error) if error then print("get leaderboard error",error) else result:<b class="Bold">getEntryCountAsync(</b> function (result,error) -- Fetches the total number of player entries in the leaderboard. if result then <b class="Bold">print(">>>>>>>>> LEADERBOARD LENGHT") print(result)</b> leaderboardTotalEntry = result end end) end end)

Log:

>>>>>>>>> LEADERBOARD LENGHT table: 0x2d8c020

If I refer to the Gideros reference and the Facebook sdk doc, the result should be a number, isn't it ?
Do I misunderstand something ? (note that the table lenght is 0)

hgy29

Looks like gideros doc is wrong, in leaderboard related callbacks the first arg is the leaderboard object itself (self)

hgy29

Btw @jimlev since you are targeting FBIG, you should be warned that unless your game is a big hit on the platform, it will get removed 2-3 month after. Facebook now remove games that fail to reach 3000 monthly active players, active meaning players that played your game for at least half an hour in the month...

SinisterSoft

I personally think they will reverse it when it turns out to be a disaster. From the looks of it everyone who isn't in the top 5 apps has got the removal message - I even got them for apps that haven't even launched!

The other thing is that it looks like they are only removing them from discovery on the store - the apps are still there (otherwise they would have to refund IAP). If your game goes viral outside of the store (using social features), then you can still make money on it.

They should reverse it if that happens, but they haven't said that they will.

SinisterSoft

Maybe Mathew Hopewood's lib would be good being in Gideros - that way different html5 platforms can be targetted with the same API ?

hgy29

it looks like they are only removing them from discovery on the store

Oh, no problem then, nothing is discoverable from the store anyway...

SinisterSoft

That's what I was thinking. You can in fact get the game reviewed, it becomes available for anyone to play - but if you don't launch it then the 60 days doesn't officially start. If you can manage to get a few people playing it socially, when you are ready, then launch and it goes on the store. I think that will be the way to do things in the future.

I have RetroStar on there - not launched yet, but reviewed - so anyone can play it, not just devs. It's been given it's 60 days notice, but apparently that's a bug and it will be reset and I'll get the proper 60 days when it's officially launched.

jimlev

With such encouragements, I'm afraid that I really need to achieve my test on facebook IG

I did not have lot of time these past days and it will probably be the same during days (weeks?) to come. But, I will try my best to investigate a little bit on the leaderboard entries mystery. I'm a bit sad because my leaderboard is achieved at 99% and, as always for me (an amateur dev), it will take me a lot of time to understand what I did when I'll be back at the affairs.

So! thanks to everyone who helped me to make these first steps on facebook IG. I'll be back asap

Unknown

Wow, it looks really great man
Facebook UI is a really ancient thing xd