I disagree with the lottery notion.
There are two important differences:
In a lottery you know exactly what your odds of winning are and what the (best) possible outcomes are.
In the App Store on the other hand, the odds are more or less unknown (which is why this post is interesting in the first place, I guess).
They are also dependent on a variety of factors, including your marketing success, quality of the game, etc.
As an independent app developer it's difficult if not impossible to get a grip on those numbers.
On the other hand, if you are Kim Kardashian there are probably some calculations you can do that give you an idea about how well your game is going to do
(FYI: There is a Kim Kardashian game. Also a person named Kim Kardashian)
The second difference to a lottery is, that in the App Store you do not have an upper bound for your success.
It could be anything form zero (most likely) to flappy-bird-crazy and beyond.
So do these differences matter after all?
Yes, because they dictate what kind of game you have to make, or in other words what kind of risks you are able to take:
While major publishers have to stick to "mee-too" variations of game concepts that are known to work, you as a hobbyist can try out radical ideas. Things that are "never going to work".
You face a limited amount of loss (the time it takes to make the game) but face a (virtually) unbound gain.
This also means that the 1-week variety is much more promising, just not the "mee-too" ones.
In a lottery you know exactly what your odds of winning are and what the (best) possible outcomes are. In the App Store on the other hand, the odds are more or less unknown (which is why this post is interesting in the first place, I guess).
They are also dependent on a variety of factors, including your marketing success, quality of the game, etc. As an independent app developer it's difficult if not impossible to get a grip on those numbers. On the other hand, if you are Kim Kardashian there are probably some calculations you can do that give you an idea about how well your game is going to do (FYI: There is a Kim Kardashian game. Also a person named Kim Kardashian)
The second difference to a lottery is, that in the App Store you do not have an upper bound for your success. It could be anything form zero (most likely) to flappy-bird-crazy and beyond.
So do these differences matter after all?
Yes, because they dictate what kind of game you have to make, or in other words what kind of risks you are able to take: While major publishers have to stick to "mee-too" variations of game concepts that are known to work, you as a hobbyist can try out radical ideas. Things that are "never going to work". You face a limited amount of loss (the time it takes to make the game) but face a (virtually) unbound gain. This also means that the 1-week variety is much more promising, just not the "mee-too" ones.