We did O.K. Our first ever game was a quick game called Shark vs Chopper, that one took us about 2 weeks to build and made only a few hundred dollars. Our next title Drop the Chicken we spent about 2 years building and so far it's had just over 4 million paid downloads, we've also set it free a few times for a day which scored about another million and a half downloads. We went for a paid model, and didn't have any inapps. Our next game is Drop The Chicken 2 and for this one we will be including some InApps but staying with the paid model. We have release a few other games now since our first and from experience if you don't have a massive budget for marketing then the freemium model is too hard to compete in at the moment, you need tens of thousands of downloads a day to stay in the charts for freemium and only a few dozen or hundred to stay in the paid charts. Hope this helps.
Very helpful information about paid apps. From 1st hand information free apps take about 100,000 downloads a day to rise to a respectable level in the charts. If you don't have the budget to get it there you just may not make it. Now that you have a game with over a million paid downloads are you considering put out some free games using your existing game to promote them?
We took the idealistic route: Dev time on our debut Sinless took more than two years. Also being a niche game targetted at old-school adventuregame enthusiasts and the cyberpunk genre with little to no hand holding we automatically locked ourselves out of the mainstream market- during beta tests casual players had trouble getting past the tutorial/intro. Despite positive feedback from cutomers and local review site AntyApps (http://antyapps.pl/sinless/) we still have a very long way to go before the game starts turning in a profit if at all. Despite that we don't regret this in the slightest, creating the game was a great adventure within its self Lesson learned though, we are already working on a simple causal-mainstream game now. Hopefully all will turn out well in time and we will have enough funds to finish the Sinless trilogy. Wishing all the best of luck!
So far, my first app was the only app to have made any significant income. Somewhere slightly north of $55k for a silly bacon-themed fart app over the past few years. It's slowed way down lately, but still pulls in $500-$600 per month. When I released the paid version first, it was total crickets. Maybe $10 per month, tops. But the free version with ads has really caught on. I've tried several games, but so far have had only limited success. It seems like the games I'm passionate about, and really poor time and energy into them, just don't take off for some reason. It's not as easy as it looks. Why the fart app took off, I can't quite say. I know people love crude/strange humor, and that's the angle I was trying to go with -- honestly never thought I'd make much of anything -- I was just hoping to at least recoup the cost of my time... maybe $900 at best. Although I'm very glad for the success I have had, I'm still trying to figure out the "magic formula" so I can keep repeating it -- I'll let you know when I do!
Timing is a part of it. When a market is less crowded, generally this equals more downloads for an app. And Apple/Google place a huge emphasis on # of downloads for rankings, making it extremely difficult for new apps to gain traction. Having a top quality product nowadays without strong marketing and/or an Apple feature is like having a mediocre product 2-3 years ago, and having a mediocre product nowadays is nearly a sure chance of failure. There is no magic formula to success, but there are definitely ways you can increase your odds of having a successful app, such as strong networking, releasing your great game under a reputable publisher, etc. If you're like me and don't have much time for networking and attending events then a publisher might be a better route as they do all that for you. But before you even pitch to a publisher, a writer from Touch Arcade, Pocket Gamer etc etc : make sure you have a good game. Look at the top games on the App store and see if your app truly can compare in the same level. If not, then maybe you have a good idea but you need to spend more time polishing it. I'm speaking from first hand experience here. I'd love to attend GDC next month to show off my new game... but it's not even in pre-alpha stage (hardly a working prototype) and I'd just make myself look like an amateur if I showed it off right now. Know when your game is good enough and make the effort to give it a push. People randomly discovering it on the app store is pretty slim to none these days, even w/ the best ASO, so you really gotta look into some grassroots marketing methods and push hard to get some press.
Im about to find out. Our media campaign launches in 3 days. Ive done just about everything against the advice of others: 1) Large scope for first game 2) Lots of polish before first release 3) And best of all Im going premium! Youd think I was trying to live in 2008!
Good luck. There is still a market for premium games if the product is polished and unique. Look at monument valley and the room(although both were shortish experiences). People may say they are exceptions, but they are exceptional products.
Indeed there is a market for premium games, it's just very hard to gain traction. Your initial push may be successful, or at least mildly successful, but maintaining a rank where people continue to discover it beyond that push is the tough part. It's a lot easier to keep a revenue stream incoming from free, unless you have continued marketing support. But hey, nothing wrong w/ going w/ your gut on this one. Best of luck to you! What's the game? Got a link?
Our first game made a profit. We got featured by Apple, and had some strong sales during that period, since then sales slowed significantly. However: - We only made a profit if you don't account for the time we put in. If calculated to an hourly rate we would be nowhere near minimum wage. - It's only our first game as an indie, we both have years of industry experience. A lot went well for our first title, but I'm glad I didn't go all-in and quit the day job.
I'll have a link in about two days. Yes, in researching I have read plenty to say non-fremium games are dead or practically there. And FWIW, our second title (we are prototyping now) is probably more likely to have IAPs and more closely resemble fremium.
You would be nuts to go in with the current environment unless you have funding. Having a job to go with takes so much pressure off and allows creative expression (rather than create loads of short apps to try and eck out a profit).
You need to be clear if you are looking for paid or unpaid because targeted mobile ad's are the quickest way.
I even haven't got good number of downloads I published my first game few months ago but not getting more than a thousand downloads a month. I lost all my money
how would you guys categorize these downloads per day? How many downloads would a medicore app get per day? 0-50 50-100 100-500 500+ 1000+ 5000+
^Downloads Per Day: 5000+ == not possible 1000+ == not possible 500+ == not possible 100-500 == not possible 50-100 == not possible 25-50 == seems rather high 10-25 == whoa, did you get featured somewhere? 5-10 == initial release, providing false hope 0-5 == here we go (but only if your app is free)
