Are you considering developing a mobile game? If you want to be successful, you should avoid making the most common mistakes. Trying to build a game without figuring out the right approach is a recipe for disaster.

There are experienced developers like MyIsaak from Sweden, an expert in C# and Unity game development who frequently livestreams his Diablo III Board game development process.

The more you learn from professionals like him, who have gone through the processes, the faster you can avoid making the common game development mistakes.

Here are the top 5 game developments mistakes to avoid.

1. Ignoring the target group

Creating a game without properly studying your target group is a huge barrier that will keep it from being downloaded and played.

Who are you building the game for? What are their main interests? What activities do they like participating in? Can the target group afford the gaming app? Does your target audience use iOS or Android operating system?

Seeking answers to the above questions and others can assist in correctly identifying your target group. Consequently, you can design its functionalities around their preferences.

Just like an ice cream vendor is likely to set up shop at the beach during summer, you should focus on consumers whose behaviors are likely to motivate them to play your game.

For example, if you want to create a gun shooting game, you can target college-educated men in their 20s and 30s, while targeting other demographic groups secondarily.

2. Failure to study the competitors

To create a successful game that will increase positive reviews and retention, you should analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

Studying your competition will allow you to understand your capabilities to match or surpass the consumer demand for your mobile or web-based game.

If you fail to do it, you will miss the opportunity to fill the actual needs in the gaming industry and correct the mistakes made by the developers in your niche.

You should ask questions like “What is their target audience?” “How many downloads do their gaming app receive per month?” “What resources do they have?”.

Answering such questions will give you a good idea of the abilities of your competition, the feasibility of competing with them, and the kind of strategies to adopt to out-compete them.

Importantly, instead of copying the strategies of your competitors, develop a game that is unique and provides an added value to users.

3.  Design failure

When building a mobile or a web-based game, it’s essential that you employ a unique art style and visually appealing design—without any unnecessary sophistication. People are attracted to games based on the user interface design and intuitiveness.

So, instead of spending a lot of time trying to write elegant and complicated lines of code, take your time to provide a better design.

No one will download a game because its code is beautiful. People download games to play them. And, the design of the game plays a critical part in assisting them to make the download decision.

4. Trying to do everything

If you try to code, develop 3D models, create animations, do voice-overs—all by yourself—then you are likely to create an unsuccessful game.

The secret to succeeding is to complete tasks that align with your core competencies and outsource the rest of the work. Learn how to divide your work to other experts and save yourself the headaches.

You should also avoid trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead of trying to do everything by yourself, go for robust tools available out there that can make your life easier.

Trying to build something that is already provided in the open source community will consume a lot of your development time and make you feel frustrated.

Furthermore, do not be the beta tester of your own game. If you request someone else to do the beta testing, you’ll get useful outside perspective that will assist in discovering some hidden issues.

5. Having unrealistic expectations

Unrealistic expectations are very dangerous because they set your game development career up for failure. Do not put your expectations so high such that you force somethings to work your way.

For example, dreaming too big can make you include too many rewards in your game. As much as rewards are pivotal for improving engagement and keeping users motivated, gamers will not take you seriously if you incorporate rewards in every little achievement they make.

Instead, you should select specific rewards for specific checkpoints; this way, the players will feel that they’ve made major milestones.

Conclusion

The mistakes discussed in this article have made several game developers to be unsuccessful in their careers. So, be cautious and keep your head high so that you don’t fall into the same trap.

The best way to avoid making the common mistakes is through learning how to build games from the experts.

Who knows? You could develop the next big game in the industry.