Reskinning Apps For Beginners

 We have people ask us all the time, “Can I still find success reskinning Apps or Games?”.  The short answer is, It Depends. What does it depend on? Let’s find out below.  

It depends largely on your definition of App Reskinning.  The concept of taking something someone else has built and modifying it to make it better in some way has always been around and will always be around.  

So, if your definition of App Reskinning is to find a quality template and modify it to make it uniquely yours and also to improve upon the original ideas, then App Reskinning is absolutely still alive and always will be.

If however your definition is to just find a template of something that has been successful, changing a few graphics, and pushing that to the store, then you will have a really difficult time finding any success.

Is Reskinning Apps Legal?

If you acquire a valid license from the original author of the source code, and you use graphics that you also own the rights to, then certainly it is legal.  Apple and Google Play have added rules to cut down on the amount of spam that is in the App Stores, so if the only change you make to your template is a few graphics changes, then you may very well get your App rejected when it gets reviewed.  However, this is not a legal issue, it is just a violation of App Store rules.

Is Reskinning Apps Profitable?

It certainly still can be.  If your App or Game idea is solid and you have done your research to confirm that there is an Audience for it, then their is no reason it should not be profitable.  In fact, you have a much better chance of success by starting from a template and improving, than you do building from scratch, especially if you are just starting out in this industry.

Getting Started Down The Right Path

With any new business that you want to start, time to market is a critical aspect.  From an App Business perspective, it is extremely important that you get your first App or Game into the market as quickly as possible.  

You are not very likely to have great success with your initial release of your first App or Game.  However, if you pay attention to everything you did to get that App released, and you pay attention to all of the data that you can obtain from releasing that App, the learning experiences you gain, dramatically increase your chances for success with your future releases.  

We have seen people that are of the belief that their first game has to be perfect and they spend months or years developing it. before they even try to release it to the store. If you are starting out as a new business, you simply do not have this luxury.  You need to get your first App into the stores quickly to start learning all of those valuable lessons it is going to teach you.

Start With An App Template

Obviously, with everything else being equal, creating a new game or new app from scratch is the best way to go because you want to be unique, you want to put out something that is totally yours.  The problem with this though is that it takes too long and cost too much.

So, you need a Unique App built with Quality, and you need it quickly.  The way to achieve all of this is by starting with an App Template. This way, you can take advantage of all of the good things that have been built into a template, modify it to fit your niche, and improve it to include key functions that either your audience has asked for, or the original developer did not include.

Research Your Audience

We have mentioned a few times now about “Niche Specific Functions” and implementing things your Audience has asked for.  Most people think these only apply to Apps and not games. However, if you are going to succeed in making your game unique and truly yours, you have to cater it towards a specific niche.  

For example, If you are a math teacher, maybe you can change a popular Soccer game to incorporate geometry aspects into it, making the game fun and educational.  Or if you are Field Hockey fan, maybe you modify the Soccer game to become a Field Hockey game, but certain aspects you have to change to fit into the Field Hockey niche.

You also should be doing your research on other games that are in the marketplace and are doing well.  Make sure you play those and write down what aspects about the game make it exciting for you. Maybe it’s challenging? Or comical? Or educational?  Make sure you are studying other small games that are similar to what you are going to build. It will not help you to study AAA titles as they may be successful because of their huge budgets and not so much because of the unique aspects of their game.  

For all of the games you study, you want to find out what made that game successful, and implement all of those good things into your new game.  You also will want to read all user reviews left for those games and identify what the users are asking for that the game does not currently offer.  Identify what the users like and what they dislike.

You are starting from a template, so you just need to modify the template to include those key items you discovered as part of your research.  You want to make sure that you incorporate the good things and improve the bad things when you are working on your template.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you definitely cannot reskin apps the way that you could when the App Store was in its infancy.  You cannot just find a template, change a few graphics, and upload it to the store and expect to have success.

What you can do however, is to find a quality template, use that as a starting point to build a unique app or a game that satisfies what your Niche audience is looking for.  

If you are building a game, make sure that you are building something unique.  Either it's in a niche that no one else has addressed yet, or it has some unique gameplay characteristics that other similar games do not have.  You must find some way to distinguish your game from everything else that's already out there.

If you are building an app, your ultimate goal should be to make someone's life better.  You should have a list of problems and pain points that your audience is having, and make sure that your app addresses those pain ​​points.

Next Steps

If reading through all of this has made you interested in reskinning an App or a Game, we do have some templates available.  You can check those here. If you do not find a template that you are looking for, just reach out to us from the Contact page and let us know what you are looking for.  We may have it or else we can refer you to someone that does.  

If you have already built an App or a game and you are not getting the downloads you think you should be getting, check out this post where we have listed out some key tips that you can implement right away.

If you have any questions about reskinning or about anything in the App Industry, please leave us a comment below and we will certainly get you answers to your questions.