Money and App Store

Statistics for indie developer

By Emeric Thoa

My translation
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Intro

When I said goodbye to working at a large gaming company and founded my gaming studio, it was interesting to estimate how much money you could expect to make as an indie developer. Having worked at Ubisoft in the development of console AAA games, I had some thoughts. But they were already irrelevant for my new indie life. Twenty million budgets in dollars, teams of 20 thousand people, sales of $ 70 per copy ... I understood that for indie everything was much different, but information about how different it was was very insufficient.

Angry Birds soared to Olympus, Plants vs. Zombies was already an exemplary model of success, Doodle Jump was a good example of success at the time when I started, Cut the Rope sold for a million copies a week. But, except for the cases that I call the jackpots, there were very few public data on the network with statistics. This meant that the financial expectations of the first SQUIDS project were shrouded in obscurity. Since then, I have been collecting statistics, and in this article I want to share information with fellow indie developers who are at the stage I was at one and a half years ago.

Myths App Store

I will provide the post-mortems and statistics characteristic for the industry, and the substantive place of our project SQUIDS in the overall picture. But first, I’ll debunk a few myths about the App Store in terms of money.

Myth # 1: iPhones and iPads are so numerous that any decent game will make you rich.

An elementary mistake is often observed when you and your business partner in indie business discuss statistics over a cup of coffee. “Well, ok, there are 200 million users in AppStore. Reach at least 0.1% of them with your game at $ 1 and you already have $ 200k! ”

Remarks:

• The mass of iOS users does not have a credit card associated with the account. Think there are more kids and teens with iPods. They download only free apps.

• 88% of downloadable games are free. When Angry Birds are said to have 200 million installations, note that this is - including the trimmed and free versions. (The freemium model is not considered here, but do not mislead yourself, thinking that the freemium model is easier to implement)

• Do not forget about the commission of Apple 30%. $ 200k = $ 140k for the developer.

The user base can be huge, but many users never buy anything on the App Store, so do not be fooled by the “potential” and remain rational.

Myth # 2: Make a game on the iPhone fast and cheap

If you compare with Assassin's Creed or Red Dead Redemption, then it is. iPhone game will not delay at $ 50M and 4 years of development. (The game on the console, too, should not, in theory.) But, if you are doing something more than a clone of Doodle Jump, this is a significant amount of work. If you decide to take the path of cost cutting, you will have a minimally small team, say, of two people, and by the time (full time) the development of at least something good will take, AT LEAST, six months.

Sketch iOS game budget:

• 2 salaries x 6 months
• Freelancer zvukovik
• A trip to a conference of the GDC type, to meet with journalists
• Iron (new computer, hard drive, iPad)
• Licenses for used software, developers also need to live for something
• Site, paid Dropbox account (for example)
• Will you do the testing yourself? Well then, ok ...

In general, your desire to make a living by developing games can not be taken seriously if you do not have at least $ 40k in the budget. (And this is a very low bar. Today, to become competitive in the App Store, your budget must be at least $ 100k.)

Myth # 3: Updates to the game will lead to an increase in sales in the long term (the myth is also known as the “tale of the Angry Birds”)

This is, with a high degree of probability, the story that most of the "initiates" have heard, and about which there are constantly rumors at various meetings and conferences. You say that you have taken a significant step towards becoming yourself as an indie developer on iOS, in response, you usually get a friendly slap on the shoulder and say “Yes, uncle, but you understand, for a mobile, everything is very different from the traditional gaming industry. Even if you miss the first launch, you just keep releasing updates - and as a result, your game will still fly up to the level of the sky pretzels. You will earn a lot of money six months after launch, and in the first week you may not even earn a comparable amount. Look at the Angry Birds, comrades. ”

Yes, it could have had some significance some more years ago, but now it is irrelevant - unless you start the process. If you miss your launch, but continue to improve and promote your game, perhaps the results will please, this is true. But you are not planning to start a run, are you? In the App Store there is a “first run effect”, you can also call it “priming”, and now, much more present than it has ever been in the past.

A successful first launch, backed up with special means of promotion, such as a Apple feature, or other means of promotion, or a victory in some significant competition, or obtaining favorable and influential reviews are the factors for increasing sales. Content updates will not give a significant boost (of course, if they are not crash fixes). Content updates such as new levels are good for retaining the user base, but they do not increase the user base. This does not mean in any way that you should refuse to update content at all, but do not place excessive hopes on them.

Myth # 4: To make available to a wide audience a good enough post on reddit or a decent viral promotional video

Do you already have a good game? Then the key success factor for you is that your game is simply paid attention to on the App Store. Another tale about which you have heard a lot of times (and in which, in fact, I would like to believe): you are able to interest huge communities only through a cool post on some forum or only on a cool and at the same time cheap to produce video clip. Now, I clearly understand that this is just a waste of time and resources. It is impossible to develop from scratch or influence in any way on any significant community, except in cases where you have already been a significant figure in this community for a long period of time. And the viral videos are even more susceptible to the “jackpot syndrome” than the actual applications themselves, which these videos would supposedly promote. There is no reason to assume that the video will receive 12 million views, as well as that the movie will receive 300 views (the last statement is much more likely).
Understand something as simple as diffusion: attracting the attention of your target audience will be a long-term and difficult battle for you. You should fight for it, starting from the very first day of development, and ending in a year after the first launch.

Myth # 5: Apple is completely random

Some indies believe that Apple is a factor of luck. I do not think so. Clearly, Apple's functionaries are quite honest people, they are fictitiously exclusively games that they like and that they consider quality products for their platform. But, like any publisher, they have their own party policy on this matter and they, of course, try to take all the risks into account.

• Fictory games that match the main intended audience (i.e., a good product in the field of education for the iPad is more likely to be proficient than the 2412th Temple Run clone)

• Features of the game, which potentially cover a larger range of devices and use their latest features (if you can use the features of the new iOS 6 - flag in your hands)

• Fictory games from proven developers / publishers (if you already have a published game with millions of sales on iOS - you have great chances)

• Fictery games from people who are personally acquainted and known (even in 2012, real-life relationships give confidence in virtual life)

Infinity Blade 2 was not accidentally pro black when launching: the game was from a well-known publisher, a sequel to the hit, pro black as the iPhone 4 app, and, Chair / Epic held backstage talks with Apple repeatedly.

On a more appropriate scale regarding indie, the same trends have shown themselves with the release of Jetpack Joyride, from Fruit Ninja developers. Similar to Tiny Tower (Pocket Frog developers). Even Bumpy Road (Cosmo Spin developers) confirm these considerations.

The bottom line: if you are indie without the support of a well-known publisher, if this is your first title and he does not use new features of iPhone 5, then you will not be proficient. The good news is that if your game is REALLY squeezing the App Store feature is not accidental. This means that theoretically, the developer can reach the Apple feature.

So what?

Already realizing that the App Store is not a goldmine that you just have to go and dig out, yet there are opportunities for earning a living by the occupation that you like - the way indie developer. Let's look at successful players on this platform.

Blockbusters

In the same way as in the world of consoles, some titles are simply huge enough to be beyond success. Most are developed by small teams, but released on the capacities of very large publishers, thus providing Apple's feature, extensive PR support and media coverage. Here are some examples with statistics:

Infinity blade

Developer Chair publisher Epic. $ 10M for 7 months, 40% of them due to iAP, as reported by Epic. In January 2012, the Infinity Blade franchise (1 + 2) overcame the $ 30M revenue threshold in total.

Cut the rope

Zeptolab developer, Chillingo publisher. They did everything they could to cover Angry Birds like a bull sheep (they even made a better game), but “only” grabbed 3 million sales in 6 weeks.

Jetpack joyride

developer Halfbrick, widely known for Fruit Ninja. 350K weekly downloads, and this was, as you know, the beginning of a very impressive long-term success.

Order & Chaos

Gameloft developer (WoW inspired). Earned $ 1M in 20 days, price $ 6.99, about 7,000 downloads per day, not counting iAPs.

These examples are what many consider - if the work is done qualitatively - a game on the App Store will bring a lot of money. There is no doubt that all these games bring financial profit, but even if $ 1M for 20 days is certainly a lot of money, I can bet that the development of Order and Chaos cost the developer more than the net income received. These games are called Call of Duty and Skyrim and WoW on the App Store, but they don’t even make enough money to cover development costs.
At the same time, there are games that served as an example of the success of indie developers and may well be considered blockbusters. Unlike jackpots, their success was quite predictable long before the release:

World of goo

• iPad version released 2 years after perceived rather critical versions on PC and WiiWare
• The price for the release was $ 10, then it was reduced to $ 5, as a result, the total sales increased compared to the price of $ 10
• Apple feature. 125K sales for the first month (this is only an iPad!). For comparison, for the best month on WiiWare 68K copies sold and 97K on Steam.
• Has conquered the bar in a million downloads on the App Store (iOS + Mac)

Tiny tower

• Freemium, from successful developers Pocket Frogs
• 1 million downloads in 4 days
• 2.6% of users spent money on iAP

The heist

• 500K sold in the first week
• At launch, there was already a supposed user base of 500K, each of which received a newsletter with a message about the launch of the game
• Not really the issue under discussion, but the same developers also released the successful camera + application, which collected 3 million sales. Also, the developers discovered and shared information that # 3 in Top Paid US means approximately $ 30K per day. From here we take the lesson that being in the Top 10 gives about $ 15K per day.

That is, yes, it is possible to break the bank in the App Store, but if you started from scratch, you probably will not reach such sales figures. There is an exception - you will reach if you have a jackpot game.

Jackpots

Meet the real winners of the regatta, or rather the App Store lottery: jackpots, hoping for a decent return, but not such an INCREDIBLE success. Of course, the brightest sample is Angry Birds, although Doodle Jump and Fruit Ninja are not less impressive jackpots.

Here are two more examples:

Tinny wings

developer Andreas Illiger. Sales - more than 3 million. First place in the US for more than two weeks. Indie's dream: great game, great critics, outstanding commercial success. One developer only within 7 months of work. Greatly done from start to finish, but try to slope it, and I can bet with you that you will never become top-1. This is a case in point jackpot.

Trainyard

Puzzle game (puzzle). Made a mad dash to the first place for a short time and gave reason for dreams to all who are “in business”. The developer himself wrote a super post mortem, in which he said that at the beginning everything was not so promising. Also cited interesting data: the first place in Top Paid US is about $ 40-50K per day.

Observations on the French App Store for almost 2 years: Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Doodle Jump, and their sequels did not leave the top 25. What this means for the developer is that even Tiny Wings and Trainyard did not manage to keep their place in the top 25 despite outstanding success, and not a single game, counting from 2010, failed to accomplish such a feat. Awesome success can theoretically, of course, manifest once again, but it is believed that the fundamental "App Store" brands have already been created. An opportunity for beginners to ascend to Olympus can only be the use of a new technology or a significant feature from the new Apple device. Perhaps the next super title will be the title that Siri will use (haha).

Reality

Let's go back to the harsh reality. In this reality, in which you and I, and the rest of indie, as well as other developers who are not published by the publisher from the top 5. Here are some statistics:

Hard lines

First week:
• 14 reviews, all positive
• 22 user reviews, all by 5 stars
• 452 sales in 8 days, for a total of $ 292
After that, they got the Apple feature (not Game of the Week, but just New & Noteworthy).
More interesting facts:
• New & Noteworthy increased sales to 6500 in 10 days
• 82,000 downloads on the first day of promotion in the Free App A Day, 500 sales, when we returned back to the paid application after 5 days of promotion. Without promotion, regular sales were about 50 per day.
• By Christmas 2011, including downloads during the promotion, when they were free, Hard Line had 258K downloads.

Portaball

• 4,000 sales ($ 0.99) from September 2010 to August 2011. Record sales in one day: 160 at the start
• 56K downloads for when the game was offered for free

Punch a hole

• Review Touch Arcade and PocketGamer
• 249 sales in the first week after launch
• 2-3 sales per day after the first week of launch

Wooords

• Review TouchArcade
• Feature Newy & Noteworthy on iPad. About 1,400 sales per day in the first two days
• Peak # 21 overall in US iPad
• For the first 20 days, sales were at around 700 per day, later dropped to 100 per day

Dapple

• Development budget $ 32K, initial price at launch $ 4.99
• Review Kotaku
• The peak of downloads was on the launch day, then the downloads dropped to less than 10 per day. 131 copies sold in first 24 days

Fishmoto

$ 182 total for the first 20 days

Flower garden

Earn $ 21K for 8 months from April 2009 to January 2010
• added iAPs and the free version, which made it possible to achieve an income of $ 30K in one month
• Average income $ 1500 per week

Big mountain snowboarding

Released in December 2009 without marketing / PR support
• $ 50 per day for the first week after launch, then sales decreased
• New & Noteworthy freezing spurred sales to $ 80 per day, then sales back fell to $ 10
• The launch on the iPad gave a small increase in sales, which soon fell again
• Added advertising: gives about $ 4 per day (out of 44,918 views, 946 targeted, conversion of about 2%)
• Android version earns $ 5 per day

Ow my balls

• 14K copies sold per year, total $ 10k earned
• At the peak were Top # 1 free during the promotion, when the application was temporarily free, with 233,124 downloads in one day. Conquered the milestone of 1.1 million downloads.
• The day after a successful free app promotion received $ 600.

QuizQuizQuiz

• Apple crafted
• Earned about $ 70k, most for $ 0.99
• Mostly successful in Europe, only 9% in the USA
• 23% of users are users of pirated versions, as of August 2010

Findings from post mortems:

• Apple features a significant increase in downloads.
• Reviews of large sites, such as Touch Arcade, have a great positive effect.
• Reviews of sites like the Free App a Day can entail an incredible amount of downloads that do not turn into a huge amount of sales in consequence (the impact on the reputation of your game is still hazy)
• Free games can even reduce your financial performance, since you have only acquired many users who are not your target audience financially

Conclusion

Dapple's Owen Goss developer has published interesting results from a survey of other developers about the income of the igrodelov in the App Store. The data is completely correlated with expectations during the founding of The Game Bakers studio.



1) The more games you have made, the more you earn from each individual game. Experience matters.



2) 80% of developers get 3% of profits.

Only 20% of developers manage to make a living by developing their games, 1% of them have earned a very decent car.

Addition

Worthy analysis of the data of Owen Goss from Dave Eddy (Dave Addey): 19% of applications earn $ 24k. 80% $ 300. It is quite similar to reality.

What about SQUIDS?

Take risks in order to eliminate the factor of chance.

SQUIDS strategy can be described as super bold. We agreed to spend more on development than Angry Birds, and earn relatively less. That was the concept.

We also agreed to incur greater costs than Tiny Wings with the intention to earn less than they did. It was clear from the start. There was a desire to eliminate the lottery factor, chance.

The plan was simple:

• A quality game with a large audience reach (it is clear that this will be expensive, but it will give a competitive advantage compared to the average iOS game for $ 0.99).

• Target audience in the class of casual midkor. The target audience of casual games, yet wishing to get something better and with more work than the Angry Birds. A new generation of iPhone games.

• A community, a large fan base that really helps build a brand. Release at a reduced price, despite wide audience coverage.

• Cross-platform. The game is of high quality, so there are chances to make it cross-platform and release on iOS, PC, Mac, Android, PSN, XBLA, etc. etc.

This is followed by two other models that do not fit into the blockbuster category or the jackpots category. Although we did not base our strategy on these models at the time, I confess, the below-mentioned comrades were going in exactly the direction in which I wanted to go with The Game Bakers. They had quite informative games that were initially aimed at a niche target audience, as a result, they got a much larger audience coverage.

Big Small War Rubicon Development Game

Used almost a similar strategy. Made a very high-quality game with a wide coverage, released on iOS. Niche is a turn-based war game. When choosing the setting and title, these developers decided to take less risks compared to our game (small toy soldiers supposedly fit better into the mainstream than octopus). As a result, the developers quite skillfully positioned and presented their brand. A version on Android was launched with great success, taking a place on the mobile market, which Nintendo refused with claims with its title Advance Wars.

• Released in March 2011, earned $ 150k in revenue by August

• Development costs about $ 100k

• The feeder in “New & Noteworthy” gave $ 6,000 per day, but the pace quickly declined to less than $ 1,000 per day

Sword & Sworcery Capybara Games and Superbrothers

Capybara and Superbrothers did it right. Everything is just as it seems, contrary to the expectations of users from what they are accustomed to be considered a “normal game”. And they made a hit. A year before the release, a teaser was released that focused on the niche of fans of the retro quest point-and-click, initially set a high price ($ 4.99), iAPs were not provided, the release was only on the iPad. Budget $ 200k. There were big risks of a general nature in connection with the context of the game. As if they were indie developers on a PC platform, confusing the App Store with Steam. But nevertheless, they sold more than 300K copies in 6 months, received many awards, both in nominations for commercial success, and for the very concept and content of the game. Rispekt.

SQUIDS statistics

Addition to all previously mentioned post-mortems:

• SQUIDS - development time - 10 months, released October 11, 2011. The period for collecting statistical data is 92 days on the App Store.

• The core team, we have 6 employees, is geographically scattered around the world, but has a central office in France. We were helped by several freelancers (voice acting, animation, storyline), and we collaborated with a QA company.

• The SQUIDS iOS version budget was over $ 100K.

• A lot of effort has been made in marketing and PiAr, including visiting GamesCom in Germany and PAX in Seattle, two trailers, hired APA representatives and a community manager. Total marketing / PiA budget amounted to about $ 30k.

• With the launch of more than 200 websites and blogs posted reviews SQUIDS. Almost all the reviews were excellent, with the exception of three, which, by accident, were among the most iconic (Touch Arcade, Edge and Slide to Play). The reviewers from Touch Arcade and Edge liked our game, but it seemed to them that there was a problem with the design of our in-game purchases (in-app purchase).

• 84% of users gave us 5 stars in the rating (1373 five-star reviews out of 1634 reviews in total). Of all the 1634 reviews, only one was complaining about the iAP model.

• The checkout in New & Noteworthy lasted 2 weeks. The most profitable day exceeded $ 6,000 at $ 0.99.

• SQUIDS occupied the # 1 position among paid applications in France for 7 days. That meant about 1,700 downloads per day. The best position in the USA was # 33, which in general brought a bit more than # 1 in France. SQUIDS was the # 1 RPG category in 51 countries, including the USA.

• SQUIDS for the first month brought a total income of about $ 75k, with about 100k downloads, then dropped out of the top positions during the massive promotions dedicated to Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

• iAPs gave about 10% of revenue. Conceived were to allow players to get stars that were in-game currency without replaying levels already passed. There was no intention to make iAPs the basis for monetizing the application.

• The update (universal version) was launched on December 2nd, simultaneously with the launch of Infinity Blade 2. (No panic!) Although we went around IB2 on the iPad in France, this had little effect on sales and brought about $ 1500 per week to launch the update.

• Localization into 7 languages ​​(English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian)

• Received excellent support from fans who continue to write great reviews and send interesting e-mails, for which they are especially grateful.

Outro

Even if the App Store is not a goldmine that can turn any game developer into a billionaire, yet this is a revolutionary phenomenon in the industry. This allowed very small teams to make great games relatively inexpensive and to monetize them quite simply, with the potential to attract millions of players. Never before has such activity and such impressive creativity of indie developers been noticed.

SQUIDS will be released on PC, Mac, and Android in the near future, it was conceived from the very beginning of development. There is an opinion that the cross-platform is the very move that gives an indie developer a chance to turn into a real studio in the future.

As for money: despite the fact that SQUIDS did not make developers rich, revenues from the iOS version almost covered the development costs, and there is hope that the subsequent release on other platforms will make the title profitable and allow developing a sequel to it.

As for the studio, it’s not about the sudden acquisition of untold wealth, it’s just about how to make games that we personally like, excluding dependence on external factors.