General statistics of the independent developer - Johnny-K (continued)

Once upon a time, more than a year and a half ago, one good man, Vadim Starygin, took and posted my statistics for 2009 on Habré . In 2009, my life as an independent developer of games has not ended, since it has acquired new achievements, which I will talk about in the continuation of the statistics.

So:

14. In February 2010, launched a flash game Cover Orange 2 . The game went very well, since then it has been played more than 65 million times. The game was zayuzana music from the "Village of Fools" (the TV magazine "Kalambur"). She was pissed off by many, but for the most part they were Russian people who already had time to get tired of the melody, in general, people like it, the music suits the game very well. The music was started with the permission of the copyright owner (now it is Sailor from “The Village”, he is Vadim Nabokov; it was interesting to get acquainted with the dude from the TV), I have a certificate.

15. At the same time, together with the sponsor of the game, they launched an editor for its levels. The editor was tied to the portal sponsor bubblebox.com, so far on the gameplay Cover Orange Level Editor is in the top of this portal. By itself, the editor for the game, as an idea, is not new, this has already been done, there is not very much profit from it, and people don’t like to just make some levels for physical puzzles. To love, they launched a contest of these same levels with a prize fund of 4 thousand dollars (half I paid). Still not visible profit? It will be soon.
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16. At the end of March, when the results of the competition were announced (we had to choose from more than 4000 levels), and the winners were congratulated and gifted, from the selected 80 selected levels we made the Players Pack . From the Cover Orange 2 pack, the levels differed only in levels and chips with switching the skin of the game (you can play the same level both in the children's-rustic style and in the post-apocalyptic grubby, and you can switch right in the game), however, only new levels of puzzles were required, which made the pack very successful (played more than 40 million times). That's profit. As a result, the sponsor paid me 25 thousand dollars for the level pack (as well as for Cover Orange 2, by the way). The level editor, I must say, was also bought for half of this price.

17. In the spring, mobile publishers contacted me. FDG Entertainment . They offered to transfer the game Cover Orange 2 to iOS. Of course, I agreed, but when they found out that I was the creator of the game Ragdoll Cannon , they offered to launch it on iOS first. I pointed them to the game Ragdoll Blaster, which was made by some very bad people in 2009, having completely copied Ragdoll Cannon. The Germans agreed, they say, yes, they did not do well the villains, stole the idea with roots, and even raised more than two million dollars on it. When I found out the order of numbers, my roof went, anger was rampant, but empty. Having burned off, I decided to make a feint with my ears and release two games “in one box” at once. As a result, in the summer of 2010, the Physics Gamebox was released . The application included two games: Ragdoll Cannon and Roly-Poly Cannon.



I do not recommend, by the way, to download, a few minutes ago the publisher reported that there are drops of this game after updating the device to iOS 5.

18. The same summer, flash versions of games included in the Physics Gamebox were released (sponsored, of course, by the same bubblebox.com): Ragdoll Cannon 3 and Roly-Poly Cannon 3 . Both games promoted the Physics Gamebox, slipping a link to the AppStore application under the player’s nose. For the first pancake, it turned out very good. In AppStore, the game earned 115 thousand dollars at the moment (so many buyers brought). Not much, of course, not two million, but Ragdoll Blaster has already taken its own, Ragdoll Cannon was just his clone (although, as is already clear, everything, in fact, is vice versa). So, my advice to you: be careful, do not throw ideas around, although they are not subject to copyright, they bring money, but if you use your ears, it’s not for you.

19. I didn’t want to stop at what I’ve achieved, because Cover Orange was in stock. For three months I programmed it on iOS, we made 80 levels, realized that it was cool and in November released Cover Orange for iPad . I even started a simple trailer . For several days, we were in the first place of the Russian top, for the same time, we got into the top 20 of the US paid apps for the iPad (in the top of the games were in 8th place). It went. Apple quite willingly featured us, blogs were happy to write about which game was cool.

20. In December 2010, Cover Orange came out under the iPhone . The game came out at a very unfortunate time - AppStor was packed with Christmas apps, winter themes and other things, which didn't want to take the summer game. Yes, and Apple treated the version for iPhone extremely dismissively - until now, we have not received even a little significant promo from them. In a quick way to make a light version with a Christmas theme did not work, although we did it, it was too late to launch in January. The iPhone version failed at the start.

21. But failure is not a reason to throw support for the game. The players demanded new levels, we ourselves, of course, made them, but we wanted more and in a short time. And then I remembered the level editor. In December, I launched my own contest among the readers of my blog . The prizes were iPhone 4, iPad, iPod 4 or their cash counterparts. A lot of people responded, the levels began to come in batches, in connection with which I decided to add prizes (iPod nano and shuffle), and then also consolation rewards. In total, they sent almost 500 levels, they were made by 50 participants. Good levels were enough for five or six updates of the game, which, of course, brought benefits. In addition, a little later, we released the second Players Pack , it was sponsored (notdoppler.com already, bubblebox.com changed the owner, and we didn’t agree with him), which, as we know, is also money (the second level pack came out in March 2011 of the year, at the moment they have already played almost 20 million times, and in total, the Cover Orange flash games have been played more than 170 million times).

22. In February, they released a special version of the Cover Orange Valentine's Gift (now not in AppStore). The main hero, an orange, came up with an orange girl, hearts fell from the sky and all that. In the tops lifted, but soon again fell to the bottom.

23. At the end of March 2011, publishers fouled up with some kind of advertising campaign for the iPhone version (they somehow made a free version of Cover Orange), after which the game sneaked into 30-40 places of the American paid top. Revenue figures began to grow. In general, I must say about the ratings. They were (and are) beautiful:



Five full stars with so many voters - this is very cool!

24. Flash I did not abandon, with my team (and there are three of us, by the way, you can check out our simple office) two more games were released: Ragdoll Cannon 4 and Roly-Poly Cannon: Bloody Monsters Pack . Yes, we mercilessly exploited old ideas, but people liked it. In addition, the skill grew, each new game was better than the previous one. And the money paid.

25. In June 2011, we launched Cover Orange for Mac OS . Went weakly, to tell, as it were, nothing. We will think, invent what to do with the game further.

26. In August, launched the third contest. This time there were fewer sent levels, there were few participants (summer, I guess), but there will be a pack of levels and good updates.

27. In August, the publishers invented a new promo, after which Cover Orange for iPhone abruptly soared into the paid top US. Moreover, we climbed to the THIRD place, where we hung for several days:



Apple, however, still did not zaferit us. Well, okay, most importantly, we were there!

28. In early August, I inserted into the game the opportunity to perform microtransactions. The new update gave the player three "helmets". “Helmet” is an opportunity to complete a level without solving his puzzle. People liked it, because sometimes they had to get stuck on some level, but they wanted to play further. As a result, when a player was spending all three helmets, he could buy them. 5 pieces cost 99 cents, 15 - 1.99. Since then, people have brought 120 thousand dollars for their helmets, which, of course, is cool.

29. In September, launched another flash game. Roly-Poly Eliminator 2 .

30. Well, actually, that's all. It remains only a little about the numbers-money. All my games on appstore, and there are two of them: Physics Gamebox and Cover Orange (I think all versions of the game: for iPhone, for iPad and for Mac OS), earned more than one million dollars (I’ll remind you again - this was what the buyers brought in) . The flash games mentioned in this report have brought me more than 150 thousand dollars (without advertising, how many from it - I don’t know for sure, something in the region of 20-30 thousand).

Here is such a dry statistic.

I hope that the results will cheer you up by making someone need an injection of inspiration.

Am I pleased with the result? Honestly, it could be better. Although they hung in the American top, they did not hang there for long, they could have lasted longer (however, this is the fate of many applications, if, of course, you are not “birds” or “ropes”).
Nothing, with the second part of our game, everything should be much better. Yes, androids and wp connect. We will see. We work on.

Good luck to everyone and good ideas for good games.