The story of a bad start - the option "All myself"

Some time ago, this article on the launch of the game flashed on Habré. In it, the author shares her experience in creating the first game and publishing it through the publisher. At that time, my game was already released and was in GooglePlay for about a month. True, I chose a standalone version of the publication without any help from the publishers. And since I had absolutely no experience in this area, I made a whole series of mistakes, which, in my opinion, reduced so small results. I would like to tell you about these errors, as well as detailed statistics for the current moment ...

Goals

I always wanted to make games. This is probably many people dream of. I wrote a lot of applied software, but I couldn’t get together and make the game (the maximum I managed at that time was to write and conduct a few field roles). But free time won, and I sat down to write a game. I never wrote Java, especially under Android, there is no experience with gamedev either. There is only a great desire, a few ideas and a little bit of experience with graphics, sound and video. Therefore, I set the following goals:

Understand Java for Android.
Create a developer account on GooglePlay and learn how to publish applications.
It is highly desirable to discard the direct cash development costs.
Gain experience developing games to make the following better.

To implement my plan, I chose one of the simplest ideas on the game from my piggy bank, took Eclipse , took AndEngine , Google under my arm , and started working.
')

Monetization

Realizing that with such a baggage of experience, skills and knowledge, I will immediately create a “masterpiece”, I decided not to share potential huge profits with anyone, but to take everything myself. I made the game in two versions:

Free with admob ads to see how it works.
Paid without ads, because I could just do it.

There are no in-game purchases, functionally both versions are absolutely the same.
As I expected, the bulk of the money comes from the free version, although there is very little advertising in it and it is completely unobtrusive. From the paid version, I did not expect anything at all, but she still brought a crazy $ 20.

check in

Signing up on GooglePlay was fun too and was not without adventures. I made the payment by using a Yandex.Money virtual card. I specially got a card with the sum equal to a payment. But it turned out to pay only on the third attempt. In this case, the first two cards turned out to be blocked, as Google threw authorization into the bank, but did not withdraw the amount to the end. Negotiations did not lead to anything good. It only remained to wait. The money from these cards came back to me two months later. The rest of the registration process was more or less clear: registration of the account is clear , and after that we register as a seller according to this instruction .

Release

I published the game in the following stores (in order of publication):

And also posted information on the game on these resources here (in order of publication):

And here I made, perhaps, the most important mistake. I did not do this on one day, but stretched it out for a month and a half, because I was gradually looking for shops and resources, and was registering. Especially a lot of time was spent on entering the Chinese stores, as it was before doing this localization using the Chinese method .
Speaking of Chinese stores. In some of them, at the time of my registration, the game was already published by someone else, but after I sent them some screenshots from the mail with their letter, as well as from the Google Play console, where the same email address was visible, the Chinese peretetili already existing publications to my account.
Another mistake was that the title picture was not very long. I did it much later. True, almost immediately after this, Google changed the design, and now the title pictures are not displayed at all. And this is a shame.
I did some of the graphics in the game myself, and gave some to freelancing. (Do not count for advertising, but all orders were implemented through Freelance , with other sites somehow did not work out with such a modest budget). I also took screenshots for publication myself, and they absolutely did not involve users in installing the game (error number 3).
One of the first screenshots

The last version of the screenshots, in my opinion, is significantly better.

The latest screenshots

Statistics

The table below shows how many downloads the stores report and how many views the forums show.

The shops
Google play	8241
Yandex Store	21
Amazon mobile app	21
Opera Apps	263
Gizmo	297
Slideme	4140 + 1 review
Getjar	(now updated and no data access available)
Appia	7
AppsLib	401
T-Store	197
Mobango	683
Wandoujia	Upd: 10 (since 08/09/2013)
Hiapk	193
Soc.io	61
Baidu	6
Forums
W3bsit3-dns.com	6555
GameDev.ru	?
GameDev.net	164
AndroidForums	161
Mobilism	558
Mobile phone talk	505
Touch arcade	185
Droid gamers	258
Android Market	108
Android for everyone	70
Fan-android	nineteen
Trashbox	?
Reddit	?

Below is the download data from the Google Play console. First, the schedule of all installations:
Total installations (users)

And here is the graph of active installations:
Active installs (users)

And this is the data for three months on AdMob advertising. The sums of value do not shine, but drip slightly. It seemed to me that on Friday and Saturday advertising revenue is noticeably less. And at the end of June and the beginning of July there was a drop in the level of income from advertising, and somewhere from the middle of July the income began to grow again.

May

Notes and interesting moments

The first big push the game received after the publication on w3bsit3-dns.com in the framework of the support of domestic developers. This influx pushed the game to the second page in the section gaining popularity. BUT! It is possible that attention to the post at w3bsit3-dns.com also attracted a slight embarrassment. The fact is that the first versions of screenshots were made with the pre-release version, and on the very first screen there was a clear grammatical mistake (attentive readers probably noticed it in the screenshot and in this article). And this mistake in a compartment with a slightly provocative (as it turned out) description caused a lively controversy in the comments between “Nightmare! I would be ashamed to lay it out "and" Before criticizing, do something yourself first. "

results

Let's go through the goals that were set at the very beginning:

From Java to Android, I figured it out. Now I, at least, not scared. I'm going to switch to another branch of the AndEngine engine called AnchorCenter.
I now have a Google developer account and can easily publish new games.
Bounce to zero direct costs are very good chances. With the current total revenue from the paid version and advertising in the amount of about $ 75, it turns out that half of the costs have already beaten off. True, so far virtually, since the minimum amount of payments from Google is $ 100.
The experience of developing a small game appeared. The following games will be better. At least they will have a better start.

PS: The question remains: "Should I continue to mess with such a child?" For me, the answer is clear - "Yes." There are things that I have not tried. And this is a very good base for training. The following training will be:

Network game via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Integration with social networks.

Upd: Habraeffekt

As promised, I post the results after the publication of the article. I think that I have waited enough time. The assumptions were fully justified - there was no particular surge in downloads.

Active downloads after the article

The red dot marks the day the article was published. There was a slight rise, but then everything returned to the previous level. On advertising revenues, this effect did not affect at all.

Still managed to pass an audit on wandoujia.com. Information on downloads entered in the table.

All downloaded many thanks. Special thanks to those who expressed comments and suggestions on Google Play in the comments.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/188374/

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