I happened to know that a dev team worked for 3 years on a car racing simulator for Android, which is technically very well-made.

It's like playing Gran Turismo 3 or 4 with better graphics (like GameCube/Xbox or maybe better).

And i happened to know they only got € 10 000 earnings out of it, considering the game is in English, downloadable worldwide from the Play Store for about 0.50€ and has no ads.

I was wondering why and i came up to the conclusion that

1) Making racing sims only require technical skills, not creative, because the gameplay is well-known and you don't need to invent anything, same applies for the "characters" and the levels. The cars can be just copied from the real models on the market, the tracks can be copy/pasted from photos of city roads and places, real racing circuits etc. then it's all about 3DS Max and programming skills

2) Point 1 implies there are more potential dev teams which can develop a good game in that genre. If it was a creative game chances are a beginner team would make an awful game

3) Point 2 implies there are plenty of racing sims on mobile because there are plenty of amateur dev teams there, unlike consoles. You're gonna face a saturated market.

If my conclusions are correct, if you are creative you better avoid making sim games because it's like you are Steve Jobs and you sell hotdogs at a McDonald's No?

I saw a "you are a bird" simulator for Oculus Rift the other week which struck me as a genius idea which is going to show up in every arcade soon right next to the motorcycle-riding games. They hadn't game-ified it yet, but the final version will most likely have a version where you collect stars or drop water balloons on targets, and that's the creative development part. Less realistic racing games like Mario Kart also show a lot of creative design. Games like the Grand Theft Auto series and the Tony Hawk skateboard series have both creative physical challenges (missions and achievements like jumps) and creative characters/stories.

That's a lot of conjectures coming from a single project...

It could also be that this team has failed at any given level.

There are a lot of sim games that actually end up being quite profitable, so I wouldn't anchor myself to these results and generalize these conclusions.

1) Making racing sims only require technical skills, not creative, because the gameplay is well-known and you don't need to invent anything, same applies for the "characters" and the levels. The cars can be just copied from the real models on the market, the tracks can be copy/pasted from photos of city roads and places, real racing circuits etc. then it's all about 3DS Max and programming skills

correct. hard core simulators require FIDELITY, not creativity. Its all about simulation realism. so its all about research and modeling (as in modeling and simulation, not 3d modeling).

2) Point 1 implies there are more potential dev teams which can develop a good game in that genre. If it was a creative game chances are a beginner team would make an awful game

If it was a creative game, its more likely that an UN-CREATIVE team (beginner or otherwise) would make an awful game.

3) Point 2 implies there are plenty of racing sims on mobile because there are plenty of amateur dev teams there, unlike consoles. You're gonna face a saturated market.

its more likely that amateur dev teams will not know any better than to enter a saturated market. the "we can do that, lets make money too!" mentality. but the world won't beat a path to your door if you simply create yet another mousetrap. its only if you create a BETTER mousetrap that the world will beat a path to your door. and it takes a bit more than unity and sample code and open source and meshes DL'd off the web and quality time with 3ds max and your compiler to make a better mousetrap.

to properly analyze their odds of success, you have to consider:

product quality (high)

competition (high)

demand (unknown?) an android device strikes me as a bit small to play a hard core racing sim on. this may limit demand. does android even support a racing wheel and pedals, like hard core PC racing sims do? you see my point? it might be a hard core game developed for a casual gaming platform - which might not work out so well.

marketing (unknown) even if you build a better mousetrap, it does no good unless the world knows about it.

<begin hard core gamer rant - no flames please!>

my personal take:

hard core sims are for hard core gamers, and they want a hard core rig to play on, not some stupid little android thing. if it were me, i'd probably play the pc version, but wouldn't touch the android version. androids are for playing tetris on the subway on the way to work. alienware is for playing real games.

<end hard core gamer rant>

I don't think revenue of a mobile game really correlates to creativity.
angry birds copied a long existing genre of tower crashers, while all the other incarnations were barely successful, it was.
on the other side, a lot of mobile devs tell it's not about the idea or creativity, it's mostly about execution on mobile. you need the right business model, the right amount of pushing of the gamers to pay. it's a since and that's what simulation game also are.

it's a bit sad. if there was a good game like granturismo mobile, I would buy it even for 40. I've paid that for the psp version and if rather pay that on mobile than playing those games that have no simulation, but just arcade competition and you can pay real money to complete against others who pay.

if you are a creative person, don't get burned on mobile. go for console, steam, etc.

1) Making racing sims only require technical skills, not creative, because the gameplay is well-known and you don't need to invent anything, same applies for the "characters" and the levels. The cars can be just copied from the real models on the market, the tracks can be copy/pasted from photos of city roads and places, real racing circuits etc. then it's all about 3DS Max and programming skills

You need to do more research. First if you could just copy and paste and then have it work the way you intended, every person on earth would make racing games.

From a players view point all games look like 3DS Max and programming, that's because thy see the meshes and know there is code. In truth all games have level designers who work with the code and 3D assets, placing them in such a way that thy not only look good but play well.

Also there is the sound artist who magically takes random noise and turns it into ear pleasing music and sound effects. Then the graphics programmers and there excessive blooming and lens flares , who also make the meshes into real models. There is Marketing and human resource, who is responsible for the team and there money. Last but not least is the developer who is not only the sticky glue that holds every thing together, but also oversees that each part of the game delivers on that adrenalin filling, split second decisions that racing games are known for.

So as you can see, racing games and simulations like any genre isn't some lesser form. If a game doesn't sell, it isn't the game it's how it was made and presented.

If my conclusions are correct, if you are creative you better avoid making sim games because it's like you are Steve Jobs and you sell hotdogs at a McDonald's No?

It would have only taken him a month to reach the position of CEO. Siting there eating a hot dog while some worker in a Ronald costume begged for a job.

If you have the proper skills it's your choice how and where you use them.

only require technical skills, not creative

Well, I bet that the movie ''The Hobbit , 5 armies" earns more than all the creative movies of the last year taken together, just based on a creativity which is summaries in the title '5 armies' and which could be told in 5 minutes. A good example where technical skills overrules creativity.

In a time when hundreds of new apps are published daily the overwhelming majority of all released games make little or no money; the fact that this particular game was a simulation may or may not have any impact on it's lack of success.

Thats like... your opinion man! (to quote the Duke)

Lets see... your sample size is 1.... you have no other data than the money they made with the app and the time it took them to develop... you seem to have NO knowledge of the sim genre, and a huge distaste for it.

I would really like to leave the thread with the Dukes words, but I cannot.

1) Simulators need just as much creativity as any other genre. True, if you create a "true" sim, you might not be able to invent your own laws of physics (hello there star wars), you cannot simplify complex stuff until the average gamer understands it (hello there health bar), and so on...

But: no one FORCES you to a) stay with existing cars or weapons or whatever in a sim... as long as it follows this worlds laws of physics, its still a "true" sim if you replace the Ford Fiesta with any fantasy car that works on RL physics, b) your sim doesn't need to be following RL physics or whatever, as long as the laws of physics it follows are clear to understand for players (see the Trackmania BS physics... after some tries, you get the hang of it... I know its not really a sim), c) your sim can have just as much story and fluff as any other game (just because most sims are dry as the desert doesn't mean it has to be that way)

Of course, at some point you get to the blurry line between sim and arcade, but that is a very personal opinion as to what is still sim and what is arcade with sim elements.

If I had to give an opinion, here is mine:

1) Simulations are ALWAYS made for small niches. More than anything, even with the best User interface and helper systems, a sim a) needs a much more involved player that understands some laws of physics, and the basics of driving/flying the vehicle/whatever that gets simulated. The average player wants instant fun, no work or learning involved, and wants to feel powerful. The average player is very much in casual lands when it comes to game preferences. Simulation are on the other end of the scale, even most hardcore gamers will not put up with a REAL simulation (like flying 12 hours from europe to new york in Flight Simulator).

If you create a hardcore simulation, you either have a very good user interface that scales the difficulty down, or you prepare to only sell little copies of the sim.

2) The mentioned User Interface. While creating the simulation itself might need little creativity from a gameplay perspective (yet a lot of creativity to get the physics and performance right), creating a user interface that makes the hardcore game accessible for a non expert (not everyone wants to spend years just to be able to keep a plane in the air in a sim for more than 5 minutes), and if possible creating an interface that can scale the difficulty (so that an expert gets his hardcore mode, while the noob can hand off more work to the "autopilot"), will need A LOT of creativity. And User Testing.

Get that part wrong, and no matter how good your simulation is, no matter if the graphics rock your game will stay ultraniche.

5) Sims on mobiles... touchscreen sims. Really?

Sim fans most of the time are ultrahardcore guys. They are the guys who thinks nothing wasting 1000$ on a custom cockpit rig with seat, joysticks and pedals, as well as all the monitors and other instruments needed to make the expierience seem more real.

Mobile controllers struggle even with giving ultra casual players enough accurate control over their jump'n'run characters when no bluetooth controller is connected...

And there somebody thinks a mobile simulator will do very well when it targets a niche within a niche? (Simulator fans that are ready to put up with inaccurate controls and small touchscreens)

4) Mobile apps.... 0.5$.... nuff said. 10k$ are not that bad when you need 20k copies sold to make so much money. If the game would have been sold on steam and priced like most serious Indie games, at about 15$, they would have made 30 x more money. 300k$, that sound like a healthy return on investment.

Would the game have been good enough to sell 20k copies on PC, for 30 times the price? IDK... but then, any sim targets a niche, probably they would still have sold almost as well and made at least 5 times as much money a) going to a platform more suited to sims and b) charging a more sensible amount of money for their efforts.

I respect your opinion, but I have to say you couldn't be more wrong...

I happened to know that a dev team worked for 3 years on a car racing simulator for Android, which is technically very well-made.
It's like playing Gran Turismo 3 or 4 with better graphics (like GameCube/Xbox or maybe better).

And i happened to know they only got € 10 000 earnings out of it, considering the game is in English, downloadable worldwide from the Play Store for about 0.50€ and has no ads.

while playing rome2 last night i was thinking about these numbers. they're really not that bad. hard core racing sim - 3 years - that's just about right. making $10K on your first indie title - do you have any idea how many people would LOVE to be able to do that?

and then the killer - gran turismo 4 clone for $0.50. they committed the ultimate sin of under pricing their product. i mean please! what kind of racing sim can only cost 50 cents? especially when its supposed to be the equivalent of a hard core $60 PC title? if you price too low, you're perceived as junk. i'm surprised they even moved 20,000 units.

what they ought to do is port it to the pc, assuming they really can compete with the likes of need for speed, gran turismo, etc. if they can't BEAT gran turismo at their own game, they should probably look to a different product category to compete in. someplace where they CAN win.