Zodiapp: Or Why I Never Want to Develop a Freemium Game Again
Matt Gravelle and Nick Miller

This mini post-mortem will, in a nutshell, explain why we never want to work on a Freemium game again.

Freemium mobile games are often attributed making large sums of money. At the time of writing this, 199 of the 200 top grossing iOS apps are Freemium in some form! So when Graveck teamed up with their old buddies from Freeverse to build a Zodiac themed freemium game, it seemed like a winning combination. It wasn’t. After 3+ years of development, countless soft launches, and heavy iterations Zodiapp lived in the app store for only a month before it was deemed dead.

Graveck was officially Founded by Matt Gravelle and Jonathan Czeck in 2005. We entered the industry professionally with Big Bang Brain Games, the first boxed retail product developed by the Unity 3D engine (back when retail game sales was still a thing). Since then we’ve created a mixture of independent and work-for-hire games, seeing releases for big-name clients such as Disney and independent releases such as Skee-Ball and Strata. We also have some exciting things on the horizon that we may touch on in the presentation!

Plug My Thing!

In addition to informal verbal plugs, we’ll also show your trailer, user group, recruitment page, promo video, demo reel, etc. Grab the appropriate ticket – first come, first served.

Guidelines:

• Short and sweet. 3 minutes max!
• Related to games, gaming and or game development in some way. (Exceptions can be made, but please consult us first.)
• 1 short URL, Zero setup (Media is streamable from fast/reliable site like YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
• Your Contact info is on page or in video.
• You were a part of this project, are attending the meeting, and will introduce it.
• Meet us in the auditorium at least 5-10 minutes early, so we can load your page.

Agenda (approximate)

6:00 Pizza and drinks (thanks to the Nerdery!) and socialize.
6:30 Meeting starts. Announcements and Plug My Thing!
6:45 Member Project
7:30 Main Presentation

We’ll be heading to Joe Sensers in Bloomington after the event. Come socialize with other local developers.

Many, many thanks to The Nerdery for hosting the IGDA Twin Cities events over the years.

This event is open to the public. An IGDA Membership not required.