It’s apparent that we’re standing on the precipice of a mobile gaming revolution that has already begun. With $115 million initial public offerings being rained down upon various game development companies, it’s no wonder that folks from all around the world – yours truly included – are researching the best ways to get good games into app stores that stand to become the next profit-making hits.

This writer isn’t alone: The Google AdWords Keyword Planner reports that 33,100 average monthly searches come into their gigantic search engine for the term “how to make an app,” with the grammatically incorrect “how to make a app” adding on 5,400 more monthly searches. Along with other variations that prove people want to learn to develop their own apps adding on thousands more searches per month in the arena of mobile app development, it is obvious that people are ready to learn how to create their own apps – at least in a drag-and-drop fashion.

How to make your own app game for free, or actually build a game app that ends up costing money in the end

The choices are far and wide for selections of app creators, a business industry that seems akin to the era when websites and blogs became popular, so content management systems like Blogger and WordPress made it easier for everyday average Joes to get their own sites published without knowing how to even spell HTML.

While some users simply want to make an app that represents their blog or company – so they can jump into the modern-day arena and not look like scrubs who are behind the times when it comes to 21^st century technology – others want to go deeper and use gaming app creators that help them publish games that can rival Flappy Bird, or become as big as FIFA 15.

Well, searching for an app maker turns up free options like Appy Pie’s new Game Builder, which promises you can “make an app, as easy as pie.” This writer used Appy Pie to throw together a quick basketball toss game using their choice of images and balls, but when it came time to get the code, the free option only allowed me to let them choose to design my HTML5 game for free.

When it came to the options I really wanted, like support for the Apple and Android markets and the ability to use my own developer account to upload my mobile app – along with the all-important ability to monetize it with ads – that required a choice of using their $7/month, $19/month or $33/month more advanced plans. As if a sign from heaven, I selected the basic $7 plan, which for some reason ended up being $12 monthly – the exact amount in my PayPal account. Lickety-split, the Android version of the game was ready to be downloaded – and that’s when I realized it required a $25 monthly gold membership to get the Apple code for the game. I bit, and within seconds I was able to visit their “My Games” section and choose “Go Live” in order to enter a description for my new game, and since I’d already paid the $99 per year it takes to get an Apple Developer account, I entered my credentials and waited for the game to go live.

Most app makers use this model of enticing hopefuls with promises of free game-making, and push the features that you really want via monthly membership plans. At this point, it’s just exciting enough to have my first game (prayerfully) on the way to getting accepted by the iTunes App Store, and a boatload of downloads on the way.