How to make money on Android games
I apologize for the heading in the style of “for Dummies”, but this is exactly what I want to talk about today - about monetization. In a few words about myself: I have been doing indie game development since 2010, at the moment I have about a dozen published games on the Play Store with a total number of downloads a little less than 20 million. I don’t like to talk about the financial side, but I understand that in the subject of money, without this in any way. At KDPV you can see my statistics for the last few days (at the time of this writing). In general, it was worse, but it was better! The numbers are not one of those that amaze the imagination, but, you see, pretty good ones. Especially, considering that I'm just an amateur, riveting games in the evenings.
In this topic, I will try to share the conclusions and developments that I made during this time. Just in case disclaimer: my opinion does not claim to truth and is based only on my subjective experience. I am always ready to learn from more experienced colleagues, so if I am mistaken about something, I ask in comments. And second: this is a look at game development from a business point of view; if you are not a developer, you may not like what I say.
Let's dot the “i” right away. I will not reveal to you the secrets of the philosopher's stone, I do not have an algorithm for how to do this and that to earn N dollars. Try, experiment, learn to promote your games (this is extremely important), follow the trends! I will not tell you how to make a popular game, I do not know. In many ways, here you can only rely on luck, but with due perseverance, luck will definitely smile! But when this happens, it is important to maximize the use of the moment, as I will discuss further. The only thing I would like to highlight here: really assess your strength. If you see that the implementation of some idea will take much more than a month of work - this is a signal to think again. What is it called “lazy startup”? This is a very good approach to game development. Quickly implement, quickly launch, and if we manage to find something interesting, we develop. So, for example, my idea of a shooting gallery with realistic shooting resulted in a whole trilogy of Shooting Club.
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Forget about making a paid app without “this annoying ad” and earn millions by selling it on Google Play! This is the worst way to monetize possible. I'm not saying that this is not realistic, even rules have exceptions, but hoping to become such an exception is not the best option, really! In my experience, I can say that sales do not exceed 10-20% of advertising revenues, even taking into account in-game sales, which go much easier. Do not focus on Top Grossing, occupied by free-to-play games. We have completely different weight categories, budgets, opportunities, and so on. If monetization using in-game sales works great for some giant, like “Clash of Clans”, this does not mean that this strategy will be the best for our small indie game. Therefore, sales of in-game products or premium versions of the game should be considered only as a source of additional income, no more. Although, it is undoubtedly necessary and useful to maximize the total profit. For us, singles and small teams, advertising is everything! I will dwell on this in more detail, but for now, a few more words about “inapps”.
Time "99 cents" has passed! Look at the store of the same "Dungeon Keeper", here prices start at $ 5. Of course, he was not scolded by just lazy, but nevertheless, this game very well shows the current trends in the market.
Here is another example from life: in my “Shooting Club 3” you can buy premium weapons for real money. Do you think no one will buy a golden Desert Eagle for 20 bucks in an average, not super popular game? By no means! Yes, there are few such purchases, but they are. I do not urge to raise all prices to some cosmic heights, inexpensive goods are also needed, but if a player wants to spend a relatively large amount in the game, we just have to give him that opportunity! Moreover, it costs us nothing.
I tried to work with different ad networks: Chartboost, Tapjoy, InMobi, many other smaller ones, the names of which I don’t even remember. And I'll tell you what: none of them are pulling at a Google AdMob competitor. Now I have only 2 sources of income, ads from AdMob and in-game sales, well, plus sales of “Shooting Club 2: GOLD” (they are not significant). You can combine several types of advertising in the game or use “medeation” (to show ads from another source, when there was no content in the main one), it is reasonable if you want to squeeze out some extra income, I don’t argue. I decided for myself that it was not worth the fuss with currency control (everything is official with me), and relations with Google had already taken shape and more or less settled down. It is also important to be able to observe the limits, after which, too aggressive monetization begins to work against you.
Now, with the transition to a new platform (advertising has become part of Google Play services), AdMob has opened up the possibility to use interstitial ads for all developers. Previously, such a privilege could only be obtained by personal invitation. What it is? Simply put, this is a full-screen banner. But unlike the usual, the generated profit, here is a completely different level! Let's look at the key indicators (based on my statistics, it is clear that they will differ for different games).
eCPM (revenue per thousand banner impressions, effective cost-per-thousand impressions) for Interstitial, on average, from 3 to 8 dollars, for regular banners - less than 50 cents. Feel the difference? Why all? Because the CTR (ratio of the number of clicks to the number of impressions, click-through rate), i.e. clickability, can reach 7 or even 8% for inter-page advertising, while for a banner, this indicator will be at 1% (at best ). In addition, the fee for one click here is higher, as far as I can tell. And even if you manage to achieve such a CTR for a standard banner, then there is a non-illusory chance to get banned for using illegal optimizations (such as placing banners next to controls, etc.). And for Interstitial, no special rules currently exist. In my last games, I completely refused banners and switched to showing only interstitial ads. Plus, there is also the fact that such monetization does not require planning, the allocation of special places for banners, because of which sometimes you have to sacrifice the convenience of the interface for the player.
That's all! I tried not to write in this topic absolutely obvious things, about which so much has been written. I hope, all this graphomania will be useful to you, I hope to see more motivating success stories on Habré in the future. I, however, try to grow above myself, saw the next shooting gallery (yes-yes), which will be a cut above all my previous handicrafts and continue to dream of making a really big hit. What do you want! Taking this opportunity, a screenshot from the alpha version:
In this topic, I will try to share the conclusions and developments that I made during this time. Just in case disclaimer: my opinion does not claim to truth and is based only on my subjective experience. I am always ready to learn from more experienced colleagues, so if I am mistaken about something, I ask in comments. And second: this is a look at game development from a business point of view; if you are not a developer, you may not like what I say.
Philosopher's Stone
Let's dot the “i” right away. I will not reveal to you the secrets of the philosopher's stone, I do not have an algorithm for how to do this and that to earn N dollars. Try, experiment, learn to promote your games (this is extremely important), follow the trends! I will not tell you how to make a popular game, I do not know. In many ways, here you can only rely on luck, but with due perseverance, luck will definitely smile! But when this happens, it is important to maximize the use of the moment, as I will discuss further. The only thing I would like to highlight here: really assess your strength. If you see that the implementation of some idea will take much more than a month of work - this is a signal to think again. What is it called “lazy startup”? This is a very good approach to game development. Quickly implement, quickly launch, and if we manage to find something interesting, we develop. So, for example, my idea of a shooting gallery with realistic shooting resulted in a whole trilogy of Shooting Club.
')
Sales vs Advertising
Forget about making a paid app without “this annoying ad” and earn millions by selling it on Google Play! This is the worst way to monetize possible. I'm not saying that this is not realistic, even rules have exceptions, but hoping to become such an exception is not the best option, really! In my experience, I can say that sales do not exceed 10-20% of advertising revenues, even taking into account in-game sales, which go much easier. Do not focus on Top Grossing, occupied by free-to-play games. We have completely different weight categories, budgets, opportunities, and so on. If monetization using in-game sales works great for some giant, like “Clash of Clans”, this does not mean that this strategy will be the best for our small indie game. Therefore, sales of in-game products or premium versions of the game should be considered only as a source of additional income, no more. Although, it is undoubtedly necessary and useful to maximize the total profit. For us, singles and small teams, advertising is everything! I will dwell on this in more detail, but for now, a few more words about “inapps”.
Do not be afraid to ask for more
Time "99 cents" has passed! Look at the store of the same "Dungeon Keeper", here prices start at $ 5. Of course, he was not scolded by just lazy, but nevertheless, this game very well shows the current trends in the market.
Here is another example from life: in my “Shooting Club 3” you can buy premium weapons for real money. Do you think no one will buy a golden Desert Eagle for 20 bucks in an average, not super popular game? By no means! Yes, there are few such purchases, but they are. I do not urge to raise all prices to some cosmic heights, inexpensive goods are also needed, but if a player wants to spend a relatively large amount in the game, we just have to give him that opportunity! Moreover, it costs us nothing.
Choosing an advertising network
I tried to work with different ad networks: Chartboost, Tapjoy, InMobi, many other smaller ones, the names of which I don’t even remember. And I'll tell you what: none of them are pulling at a Google AdMob competitor. Now I have only 2 sources of income, ads from AdMob and in-game sales, well, plus sales of “Shooting Club 2: GOLD” (they are not significant). You can combine several types of advertising in the game or use “medeation” (to show ads from another source, when there was no content in the main one), it is reasonable if you want to squeeze out some extra income, I don’t argue. I decided for myself that it was not worth the fuss with currency control (everything is official with me), and relations with Google had already taken shape and more or less settled down. It is also important to be able to observe the limits, after which, too aggressive monetization begins to work against you.
Are you still using banners?
Now, with the transition to a new platform (advertising has become part of Google Play services), AdMob has opened up the possibility to use interstitial ads for all developers. Previously, such a privilege could only be obtained by personal invitation. What it is? Simply put, this is a full-screen banner. But unlike the usual, the generated profit, here is a completely different level! Let's look at the key indicators (based on my statistics, it is clear that they will differ for different games).
eCPM (revenue per thousand banner impressions, effective cost-per-thousand impressions) for Interstitial, on average, from 3 to 8 dollars, for regular banners - less than 50 cents. Feel the difference? Why all? Because the CTR (ratio of the number of clicks to the number of impressions, click-through rate), i.e. clickability, can reach 7 or even 8% for inter-page advertising, while for a banner, this indicator will be at 1% (at best ). In addition, the fee for one click here is higher, as far as I can tell. And even if you manage to achieve such a CTR for a standard banner, then there is a non-illusory chance to get banned for using illegal optimizations (such as placing banners next to controls, etc.). And for Interstitial, no special rules currently exist. In my last games, I completely refused banners and switched to showing only interstitial ads. Plus, there is also the fact that such monetization does not require planning, the allocation of special places for banners, because of which sometimes you have to sacrifice the convenience of the interface for the player.
Conclusion
That's all! I tried not to write in this topic absolutely obvious things, about which so much has been written. I hope, all this graphomania will be useful to you, I hope to see more motivating success stories on Habré in the future. I, however, try to grow above myself, saw the next shooting gallery (yes-yes), which will be a cut above all my previous handicrafts and continue to dream of making a really big hit. What do you want! Taking this opportunity, a screenshot from the alpha version:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/228171/
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