What has been your most successful game?

I will be honest with you IOS is a scary marketplace. You really dont know what will catch on. Me and my partner worked 6 months to make RetroGameBox. That is alot of time developing on one project without knowing what to expect.
Still waiting on apple approval , I would be lying if I said I wasnt nervous.Our Goal is to be one of the very few million dollar success stories. At the very least 100,000 in sales would be great Lol. But we feel confident , and cant wait till our launch. Hurry apple this wait is killing us Haha.

 

Our first and only game so far, Lingua, has achieved what I call "critical success" over the past year or so, but it has not been a "financial success". We're very happy with the ratings and good reviews and many downloads, but it doesn't pay the bills. So success of course has several meanings.

We try not to disparage about the whole "financial success" problem just yet. If we complete 15 titles and find we're still eating squirrel and living in boxes, well then it will be time to throw in the towel and open a porn site instead

With each release I think you learn something new, and hopefully you have fun doing it. Hence success could also be measured by your own personal satisfaction of having done something cool & fun. By that measure, Lingua is already a runaway success Oh boy now I am babbling ...

 

Squirrels and boxes?! You’re lucky. I’ve lived the last three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. I have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down the mill for fourteen hours a day week in week out, for sixpence a week. When I get home, my Dad will thrash me to sleep with his belt!

 

Aha and I'll bet you walk without shoes too, through the snow, uphill both ways? Until your feet are nothing but bloody stubs? Ha!

 

Oviously!
But I’m happy, it used to be a lot worse: There used to be a hundred and fifty of us living in a shoebox in the middle of the road. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

 

You'd think that Monty Python skits would get old after 40+ years, but they are still funny as hell!

 

You try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

Four Yorkshiremen is one of my all time favorites.

 

Among 16 titles I did for iOS, Dalton - The Awesome! looks like the best of us, still, it needs more lover actually.

 

I don't wanna talk in details, but Daredevil Dave made me more money in 2010 than I made the last 4 years at my real job combined. I am pretty much designing now full time. If things get tough I can always go back to my other job.

I think Dave hit #8 all paid for a moment about a year ago. Now he hovers around 30 - 40th in the Racing category and has been steady for many months.

This is a big success for me. It is my first commercial game of any kind, though game design has been a long time hobby of mine. I was struggling to pay my rent a year ago. Not any more

I'm only posting to show that it is still possible to make money in the App Store, even for us little guys.

 

It's a cultural thing too. Monty Python humour is starting to show it's age in the UK (albeit less so than other programmes of the time), while it remains in it's prime in other countries. I hear Germany loves "Are You Being Served?" too, and to us it just seems dreadful how cheesy and cheap our humour was back then.

But uh... back to the topic...

 

Great Little War Game was our first and so far only iOS game. It's done pretty well in terms of both reviews and income. Not getting jack shit from the press though, and our piece on this hallowed site is still about the only big piece of exposure we had and it didn't last long.

With a team of 5 full time guys to pay, it's only just about broken even at this point, right when it's starting to plummet down the charts. Time will tell if it's a true success or a facewash, but I'm glad we did it either way. We'll be doing it again.

 

@schplurg - you give me lots of hope man! i quit everything else to make games... thanks!

 

It's the mascot of my secret not-secret group. You should know, since you're in it

I don't think many people actually have it anymore, it's just that the few who do tend to post a lot. Feel free to use it though, spread the joy

 

For me iFishing took 2 months to create and has generated $540,000 in sales, $20,000 in in-app purchases and $90,000 in ad revenue from the lite version.

Also iFishing Saltwater which is basically a reskin with some different fish and maps, took two weeks to make and has made $212,000. That is over the course of almost 3 years.

I have another 25 or so apps on the store but most make $10-$20 a day. Still trying to make another hit. I've also ported iFishing and a few other games to Android and now my daily Android sales are greater than my iPhone sales.

 

Thanks for posting. It's encouraging to hear a success story. I'm split between being impatient to release our first game and being hesitant. Would hate to release it and have no downloads after a month. I'm hoping the icon and screenshots will be eye catching enough while its in the new releases section. I'll find out soon enough...