Militant Optimism Award: Ian Marsh

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Our post last year about Militant Optimism has proven one of the most popular and enduring here at Appy Place, and our first Militant Optimism Award, recognizing Privateer Press’ Matt Wilson continues to attract page views from far and wide.

While our previous Militant Optimism Award celebrated one of the leading lights of the hobby game industry, today’s recognition is for one of our own — independent iPhone developer Ian Marsh!

With Apps like Scoops, Hanoi, and Textropolis to his credit, Ian has been one of the App Store’s early success stories. While Ian’s Militant Optimism has long since seen him quit his day job to develop for the iPhone on a full-time basis, he has only recently transformed himself from a one-man-band into a three-man brand, entering business with his twin brother, David Marsh, and partner Brian Cronin, who as NimbleBit are developing the PC kart racer, Zero Gear.

Appy sat down with Ian to get his views on the App Store landscape of today and tomorrow, and also to get a little history lesson about the mobile games business …

APPY: Unlike a lot of us who are developing for mobile for the first time, you’ve actually had some experience in the bad old days of pre-iPhone mobile game development.

IAN: The single largest difference between traditional mobile phone development and iPhone development is the device fragmentation. It used to be that a few large publishers who had connections with all the major carriers decided what would be green lit. iPhone development is a big breath of fresh air. Two devices with near identical hardware, one single build to design and maintain. We can complain about Apple’s approval process, but at least we don’t have to deal with four separate companies.

APPY: So you were actually poking around this market even before the current iPhone gold rush.

IAN: Things looked much more promising with the iPhone. After the tingling subsided and my voice returned after watching the keynote where Steve unveiled the iPhone, I desperately wanted one.

APPY: Love at first sight?

IAN: I wanted to develop for it, I needed to develop for it! I knew a lucky few would be able to develop games for the iPhone but I assumed they would all be employed by a couple big name studios. When offered a real live SDK, I downloaded it and applied to be in the iPhone developer program. Never having written a line of Objective-C, or used Xcode, I decided to cut my teeth on a simple Towers of Hanoi game.

(Hanoi)

APPY: Why Hanoi?

IAN: The Towers of Hanoi is a classic logic puzzle used often in Computer Science in the teaching of algorithms. I chose it as a first project because it involved physical dragging of disks, which seemed great for the iPhone, and since the rules are very simple, it only requires a couple lines of logic programming.

About a week later I had a fully functioning game with great graphics, sounds, and everything! Developed completely on the SDK-included simulator. I desperately wanted to throw my creation on my iPhone and run down the street showing everyone I met, if only I would get accepted in the dev program!

APPY: We’ve tried that running-down-the-street method of public relations ourselves, with mixed results.

IAN: Unfortunately the odds of being accepted into the developer program began looking grimmer and grimmer as the weeks passed.

APPY: Sounds like the time for Militant Optimism.

IAN: Months later, the iPhone 2.0 update was released along with the App Store and Apple began accepting anyone with a credit card into the dev program. I could finally start some serious development! I was able to throw Hanoi up on the store a couple weeks after launch, and a week or so later it began its very unexpected climb up the charts to #1.

APPY: The full version of Hanoi came after the free version?

IAN: I did release Hanoi Plus in a completely backwards fashion since it was more of an afterthought than anything else. I never expected Hanoi to have any sort of success. I hastily put out Hanoi Plus which had some little extra features and quickly started making a little more money than my day job. At that point I decided I’d be kicking myself for the rest of my life if I didn’t try development full-time.

APPY: That’s when the Militant Optimist stakes his claim. Everyone has those moments when they sense an opportunity, but few people actually take them. How far in advance did you map things out? Have Threads, Hanoi, Scoops, Textropolis, and now Kyper followed any kind of evolutionary path in terms of underlying technology?

IAN: I certainly haven’t been organized enough to plan much out ahead of time. I tend to just start on the best and most exciting idea on the table when I finish a project. In terms of underlying technology, all of my games are pretty one-off. At the rate I’m learning, it’s better to start fresh on each project or else all my bad habits would start to be written in stone.

APPY: Tell us about Textropolis. The Ulm and I have been playing that game like mental patients.

IAN: Textropolis was actually born as a side project I developed at the mobile studio which was my first job out of college. I was addicted to Bookworm Adventures (STILL not available on the iPhone), and wanted to make a word game that was easily playable on a telephone number pad.

APPY: Good designs seem born of constraints.

IAN: The best solution seemed to be using an alphabet of 9 letters and mapping each letter to a number on the pad. I ended up with a cell phone game that was fun to play (a rarity) and was a hit in the office.

APPY: It does get under your skin. I made an ass of myself on Twitter last week by trumpeting my success in hitting four out of five stars in all the cities, only to have you pop up and ask if I was talking about gold stars, or silver. I didn’t even know that gold stars existed. I felt shame.

IAN: That first prototype never saw the light of day due to the studio going under and when I started developing for the iPhone I saw a chance for it to finally make it to the outside world.

APPY: Did you do all the word work for Textropolis on your own?

IAN: I started off generating word lists for each city using anagram generator java applets written in the 1990s. I didn’t add definitions until later in development when I realized I should be doing more with all the disk space I had available. I started by scraping definitions from the open dictionary, wiktionary.org. From there I went word by word, removing the extremely obscure or vulgar, and shortening the definitions where possible.

APPY: That’s a lot of handwork.

IAN: This process took me three solid days and I began losing my mind towards the end of it. I would certainly recommend sticking with a better organized and official dictionary to other developers. I ended up with small holes and inconsistencies in my word lists which have been pointed out to me by plenty of word buffs.

“I decided I’d be kicking myself for the rest of my life if I didn’t try development full-time.”

– Ian Marsh

APPY: Do you hear from a lot of fans? You seem very accessible.

IAN: All my marketing is word of mouth, game reviews, and posting on forums.

APPY: Yes, I’ve seen you be quite active at Touch Arcade and the Something Awful forums.

IAN: The forums have been great, the posters there aren’t afraid to tell you what they like or dislike. Overall they seem very supportive all the iPhone developers who post. I’ve given hundreds of promo codes out on forums and I like to think it helps to spread my game by word of mouth.

APPY: Promo codes are normally reserved for press to review your game. You’ve been giving them to gamers?

IAN: In this mile deep ocean of apps, you can’t make a cent if nobody knows your app exists. Any way to get any amount of eyeballs on your App or build any amount of buzz can be worth it. You’re not losing much of anything by giving away free copies if almost nobody is buying them in the first place.

APPY: Have you seen a sales bump from handing out codes?

IAN: I haven’t been able to draw any direct correspondence, but from my experience almost everyone enjoys my games once they actually have them in their hands. Giving away promo codes is the easiest way to get more people to experience my games and relate that experience to others. Even giving away thousands of copies, there is no way you’re going to saturate a market as big as the App Store.

APPY: Did promo codes play a role in Scoops’ success?

IAN: I’m sure the promo codes helped, but I think its approachable nature had more to do with it. Scoops is simple enough that after seeing a few seconds of gameplay over a friend’s shoulder you can instantly recognize what the game is and why its fun. I also think others are interested in what you’re doing on your phone when you’re yelling and waving it around.

APPY: How about advertising?

IAN: I’ve yet to pay for any advertising, and from what I’ve heard from most other developers it doesn’t seem to be worth it. An app recommendation from a friend or family member is 100x more compelling than a banner ad. Textropolis has received much more attention on blogs and review sites than Scoops ever did yet its sales pale in comparison.

APPY: Textropolis also got some spotlight time on the App Store.

IAN: Textropolis was featured as a Staff Favorite, and in What’s New in the Games section.

APPY: How about your other titles?

IAN: Hanoi was featured in What’s Hot, and climbed up to #1 on the Top Free charts and was netting upwards of 60k downloads a day. It just recently surpassed 1 million downloads. Hanoi Plus was picked as a Staff Favorite. Scoops was featured in What’s New, and was the #1 paid Kids game for months. Scoops’ icon also made cameos several Apple commercials, and was picked to be one of the demo applications installed on devices at Apple retail locations.

(Scoops)

APPY: That’s remarkable coverage for an indy developer. Any idea who actually gave your games the thumbs-up at Apple?

IAN: I have absolutely no knowledge of how they were chosen.

APPY: We’ve heard that from a lot of developers. The selection process at Apple is either very informal, or very secret.

IAN: I do know I’ve been lucky, since the only developers guaranteed to be featured are big name publishers. Another interesting fact I’ve noticed is that unless your app is featured in a section of iTunes visible on the device (What’s New and What’s Hot) there seems to be little to no impact on sales (at least for me).

APPY: What’s next for you?

IAN: I’ve switched over to flying NimbleBit’s flag, helping me to build a brand and hopefully get taken a little more seriously!

The game I’m currently working on with my brother is called Sky Burger, and it’s a spiritual sequel to Scoops. Players are asked to build a burger to order while ingredients fall from the sky. They’re paid for the accuracy of their burger building and can be promoted up the Sky Burger corporate ladder, enabling them to build taller and taller burgers.

APPY: And what do you think is next for the iPhone App market as a whole?

IAN: The market changes every day that more and more Apps are released. In the beginning there was gap where everyone was playing catch up, learning how to develop for the iPhone and there was only a couple hundred Apps in competition. If Super Monkey Ball released today instead of at launch, I doubt it would sell 25% of the units that it has so far, especially at the original $9.99 price point.

APPY: Given how much the market has changed, how would you suggest beginning devs approach the App Store?

IAN: Unless there are significant changes in Apple policy it’s only going to get more crowded and even harder to stand out. If I were just entering the market today, and didn’t have any name recognition or previous successes to build on, I would be tempted to work with a publisher. Since most of them enjoy a favored relationship with Apple, nearly all of their Apps are guaranteed to be featured, which ensures profit on the crowded App Store.

APPY: Any closing advice for your iPhone development brothers?

IAN: My only suggestions are to think different, make lots of friends, have a passion for what you’re developing, and don’t do it for the money.

APPY: D’oh! That last part blows our business plan to smithereens.

But as I’m sure Ian would happily note, he has nothing against making money. He’s saying to follow your heart, and the money will follow you. It’s one of the maxims of the Militant Optimist, and for this observation and others, we’re delighted to recognize Ian Marsh of NimbleBit with this Militant Optimist Award!

(Ian Marsh, Militant Optimist!)

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Tags: App, App Store, Apple, Apps, Appy Entertainment, games, Hanoi, Ian Marsh, iPhone, iPod, militant optimism, NimbleBit, Scoops, Sky Burger, software development, startup, Textropolis, Threads

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