How Mobile / IPhone / Android Apps can pay off

[theENIGMATRON]

Angry Birds is an unmitigated success, no questions there. The game has been downloaded a reported 30 million times across platforms, with 12 million coming from iOS purchases and 5 million downloads on Android devices. On iOS, the game costs 99 cents, and features no ads, not even in the free “trial” version. Given that Apple takes 30% of sales from the App Store, that leaves close to$8 million in revenue for Angry Birds developer Rovio.

Now, CEO (or “Mighty Eagle”) of Rovio, Peter Vesterbacka, has said, “By end of year, we project earnings of over $1 million per month with the ad-supported version of Angry Birds.” Google is getting a piece of that pie, regardless of the fact that the game is free in the Android Market, because the ads in Angry Birds are provided by Google-owned Admob.

As I said, Angry Birds is an unmitigated success. With Android tablets on the way, ad revenue still has room to grow. So, anyone still wondering if the free/ad-supported model can work?

[DJ-Daz]

I've just done a quick and dirty calculation on dead nation, counting the number or purchases in each country. They've made over £500,000 on Canada, UK, and America alone.
Not bad for 1 platform.
Of course the PS3 is a very different model and pricing structure to apple and android, but it's not a bad sum, and it's early yet, how many other people will buy it down the line? About another 10-15%?
Then there's the DLC on top of that...
Now how much more could have been taken if it was released on the Xbox too, and maybe a cut down version for the wii, although the controls would need to be changed.

I think as long as the games are good and not too niche, then any platform with micro transactions could be a big success.

[InfiniteStates]

The trouble for development houses with these market places is that they are unknown returns on investment... Developers need to guarantee a minimum income to cover rent, bills and wages. There's no denying a big game is a gold mine, but similarly a turkey is a cash sink.

It's not helped by the fickle nature of the market. You can make a great game and it sinks without trace, while you can make a turd that sells surprisingly well. If it was predictable everyone would be making money hand over fist.

It's a great business model for garage developers, where it's not your day job. But if it is, it's a very risky way to live.


P.S: I've been tidying my engine the last couple of days, so should be able to post a more comprehensive game shell if anyone's still interested in putting something out on iPhone.

[DJ-Daz]

Worth a full read:
iapps millionaires share their secrets...
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... ets-524586

[InfiniteStates]

Does Nicholas have any advice other than offering a free version to promote your paid apps? "How about 'stop producing so much shovelware'?" he asks. "One number one hit generates more money than one hundred bottom-of-the-barrel apps, so I'd prefer to see more people striving for number one and not polluting the iPhone with so much abominable crap."

A-fucking-men.