Back in early 2006, the Media Development Authority of Singapore, launched a program called INVIGORATE, a mobile game development initiative targeted at Singapore-based companies and teams. One specific target is a startup mobile game development studio.
With the maturity of 3G and now 3.5G mobile networks and with mobile phones getting smarter with every new model, creating mobiles games could be a lucrative venture for the tech savvy work at home entrepreneur. (.Singapore-based companies and teams can be home-based as well)
Demter's Trism Mobile Game For iPhone
In fact, a popular iPhone game, Trism, which became a hit in August 2008, has made its creator, Steve Demeter, a neat passive income of tens of thousands of dollars. Steve Demter, created Trism in his spare time, and made $250,000 in its first two months on Apple’s “App Store” — enough to entice him to quit his job as an ATM software designer and start his own game development studio.
But you don’t need a studio to make big money with mobile games. Independent developers, like Ethan Nicholos, working as a one-man team, created iShoot, which, climb to No. 1 on Apple’s list of most popular paid applications. In just two weeks, iShoot netted Nicholas almost $400,000 in profits… and the application is still selling even today. That mountain of money has prompted Nicholas too to quit his day job at Sun Microsystems to pursue game development full time. The move was a decisive one for Nicholas. And his response to those who ridiculed his move to leave his lucrative day job was in the true spirit of a self-made businessman: This is why you will never be rich.
Another iPhone game success story is Tap Tap Revenge, The game, which is available for free on the App Store, has been downloaded over two million times. Tapulous, the developer of the game, recently started inserting advertisements in the game. With a strategy that has become increasingly popular during the broadband era, the company gave away their product for free, and then figured out how to generate revenue later (much like Google did with Gmail). The passive income from the advertisers would make the government handouts to the average Singaporeans laughable.
Fret not if you not have the skills at mobile game development yet, go get a Diploma in Games Design and Development from the Singapore Polytechnic.
Isn’t this what the Singapore government wants us to do, go back to school in this current global recession?
Singapore also happens to be a fertile live testing ground for mobile games, because of the up to date mobile networks and the availability of the latest mobile phone models as soon as they get off the production lines. So if the iPhone does not impress you, develop a game for a Motorola Razr or a Samsung Innov8.
To get your creative juice flowing here are some mobile game ideas:
- Mobile adventure games
- Mobile community, “Sim-style” games
- Games that allow two or more users to compete with each other over Bluetooth
Or via a network. - Mobile games making full use of extended phone features such as the camera.
- Location-aware mobile games.
The work at home mobile game development studio can be a lucrative venture for some enterprising individuals in Singapore, given the easy access to broadband connections, the high quality mobile networks, and the latest mobile phone models. Working at home developing mobiles games need not be a one-man effort either, online collaboration/conference software make team work a breeze minus the traveling time on the crowded MRT.
