[waru]

Still working on that, but making a really fun game seems more important than anything else, since popular iPhone games spread quickly by word of mouth and social networks.

[hboon]

If you believe that, include making it easy to spread by word of mouth and social networks a part of the product.

[rmc]

making a really fun game seems more important than anything else

Really? That's a very rosy-eyed view of the gaming world. "If you build it, they will come"?

[waru]

Do you know any small indie games that succeeded because of an amazing marketing strategy and NOT because of word-of-mouth/social media and the fact that their game is really, really fun?

[rmc]

Social media is a marketing strategy. For popular start up game, I'd offer Nashville.

[rmc]

The should obviously be "Farmville". Damn you autocorrect.

[bmelton]

I think you're being a tad critical.

In all fairness, having a really fun game IS more important than anything else. Definitely more important than marketing at this stage, where the game is not yet developed.

It's hard to make money marketing a game that doesn't exist.