Amazed by the power of Unity for indie dev, but disappointed...

My name is Jeff Mills. I'm a developer at Red Fly Studio in Austin, Texas. We recently shipped a title I built virtually single-handedly in Unity. I have been very impressed with the power of that tech for quick, small-team development. In the case of Elenints (which we've released for iOS, Android and a free demo online at www.elenints.com) I started from a blank project and had a working prototype up within a few days. The complete development cycle was less than four months, start-to-finish with only a little outside support distributing the title to the App Store / Google Play.

I would encourage anyone with a game idea to download Unity and put their ideas onto the screen. http://unity3d.com/unity/download/

But as exciting as it was to take my idea from concept to full title so quickly, I've run into a bit of a let-down when I look at the download stats for my game. I had (perhaps naively) assumed that if you make a good game, people will play it. And indeed, everyone I know who played the game loved it. Granted, they were mostly friends and therefore a little biased. But a few people have managed to discover the game amidst the glut of titles on the App Store and Google Play Marketplace, and Elenints has received pretty universal praise by all those who have played (at least those who decided to post about it online). 

So I'm left in confusion. I guess I missed a step:

1. Make fun game.

2. <something>

3. Profit!

Note that I don't really expect to get rich from making games like this, but I do wish more people would play the game I worked so hard to develop. The game is free to download or play on the web. We offer a dollar upgrade that unlocks some extra play modes, but the freebies are a blast on their own. I didn't expect a million people to play my game, but I'd hoped for more than 100. 

I suspect that this community in particular can appreciate my confusion and disappointment, we who pour our hearts and souls and pixels into a passionate project only to have it globally ignored. What is that magic middle step? How do games show up on the App Store / Google Play recommendation pages? There aren't many games on the Most Popular page from big-name publishers, so I doubt their advancement results from an expensive marketing campaign. What is the trick to start the word-of-mouth grassroots campaign that results in thousands of people giving your game a try?

I'm just getting into iOS development. From all I've read, it seems that to get into the top list in the App Store, you have to have lots of downloads for your game in a short period of time. One way to do this is to have review sites review your game. It'll get attention on their site and you can put a quote from their review into your App Store game description.

Can you see how many people have viewed your game vs how many people downloaded your game? Your App Store game description has to be very good for people to feel compelled to download your game.

Another big thing is that you have to make enough of a difference between the free and pay versions of your game so that people are willing to buy the game, but you can't cripple your free version to where if feels like an incomplete game.

Note: I haven't actually released a single app to the App Store. I haven't even made my first iOS game yet. Everything I said above is based on a couple days of researching.

Marketing your game

First of all, like Shelby said, you missed marketing. Granted, I have not released a game or marketed one, but if no one knows about your game, no one will download it.