My firm belief?
Art is the limit.
your game is only as good as it is graphically. The better your art, the more you will earn.
No, you don't need amazing HD assets. Pixel art is perfectly acceptable. Whatever your style, whatever the level of detail.
It needs to be consistent: from UI design down to characters, scenery and animations. Things need a style and need to all stay with it.
Art also needs to be complete. That means a full UI. Backgrounds. Characters. Effects. Animations. Text fonts.
Finally, it needs to be appealing. That green rectangle you have as your player might do some really cool things. But are people going to want to look at it for any length of time?
There is a lot of art that needs to go into a game, no matter how simple. Even the most simple of pixel art needs decent looking animations.
Either be talented. Or have the money to hire talent.
That talent can be the HD or Pixel level graphics and anywhere in-between. But you can't cut corners here. If art feels out of place/inconsistent, lacking/empty or aesthetically unapealing then you have just lost customers and lost money.
You cant judge a book by its cover, but you sure as $%^&* can judge a game in an app store that way. Have decent screen shots, real preferably, if faked, better be feasable or possible with real assets, and a nice cover page.
In my experience, art will cost you $200-$1500 for the majority of game assets. Small game.
Not even a ton of assets.
We are talking 10 or less people.
1-2 backgrounds.
variety of items and other assets
Cross the barrier of art, and earnings are infinite.
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The money you make also has a ton to deal with the social aspect of your game.
Twitter and facebook are very important tools.
Let your players share their hi-scores and tell their friends.
Also, ask them to rate your game. how you ask is VERY important.
i suggest asking if they like the game.
if they say YES. Proceed to ask them to rate the game.
if they say NO. Do not ask them to rate the game. Probably make it so you never ask them again.
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Advertising VS paid App!
Which earns more?
Advertising earns more as a total earnings. (generally)
However, per user. If a person buys the game. You generally earn more from that person than if free with advertisements.
A free advertisement version. And a Pro no-ads version is usually a good idea.
I suggest making that "Pro" version include additional content.
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Finally.
Create your advertising accounts well in advance before you even are ready to launch.
It took me months to get approved and ready to go even though I had a complete working game.
And there is little point putting your game in the stores without it earning money.
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An afterthought here.
When are you ready to publish?
Some people will place ANYTHING in a store. They live by it. They have that first game prototype they ever made available for people to see and judge.
I dont recommend being that person.
I say wait. Allow yourself a solid product. You as a company have an image. That first launch does not need to be spectacular. But it should be a full product. Something you are proud of.
An example of what NOT to do.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... tton&hl=en
Although, with android users I do see a tendency to download the worst apps simply for that "Internet Troll" aspect. Make the worst game ever to exist, it may very well become one of the best selling games of all times these days.
Less so with IOS. But still a problem.