Is anyone making iOS games right now?

[oddball]

Thanks, I will check that out. Right now I'd say about 60% of my revenue comes from IAP's, the rest mostly from ads. I like IAP's because although I may have days of $0, I had a couple days last month for $70 alone from them. Not a lot but it all ads up. I'm working to get my apps to $1,000 a month, I think once I add once more that should be doable. Then I will work on building it to $2,500, and so on.

Like I said, I plan to add 10-15 in the 2014. I do all my calculations based on what I see as the worse case, 10 month break even point. Ideally, I want to see them payoff in 6 months. Reskinning seems to be around $1,000 depending on the app. I will just keep reinvesting the money back in to add more and more apps, hopefully it will be a cash cow sooner than later.

 

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[MattCour]

That's a good plan bro, just remember that some games will bomb even if you do all the research and think it will hit.. Think 80/20 rule, a few games will drive most of your rev in my experience..

 

[oddball]

I agree, but also, one thing I plan to do is monthly updates. I will start with solid games, after researching and studying the market for a couple years now I'd like to think I have a good idea on what works or doesn't. Updates help keep them fresh and users on them and if they are good games, should continue to bring the money in. Not looking for home runs, just singles and doubles here. But yes, some will fail.

 

[oddball]

What do you do for marketing?

 

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[Talisman]

I've seen too many good games in the appstore that look good, play well, and have had about 100 downloads. If they're lucky. And these are the free ones.

Unless you have a way of differentiating, or standing above, or have a big audience you can market to, or just SOMETHING that will give you an edge... you're just going to end up on the heap. Everyone and their dog wants to be a game dev, or make a game, or be a big hit in the games section. If that's your end game, you're in for a long painful (and ultimately unrewarding) slog. Cracking it in the mobile game dev area with a one man solo hit, is like saying you're going to be the next facebook - it's possible of course, but you might as well start buying lottery tickets - less work, more likely to succeed, and probably cheaper.

However. There's still plenty of money to be made in mobile apps, and also in selling shovels to the gold miners.

If you can find some problem in the mobile game dev industry that you can solve - you're going to make it big. If you focus on other areas and provide something awesome/valuable/helpful, you'll make money. There are plenty of yet untapped areas of mobile app dev that are waiting to give you your money, you just need to discover that need, and fill it.

There's no easy bullet. Whether it's apps ( the fad of yester-year ), or importing ( the current fad on here at least ) there's just nothing that's going to be an EASY win. Find where you can provide value. Whatever you're doing. And do it well.

 

[oddball]

Have you made/released apps?

 

[Talisman]

Yeah I currently have about a dozen in the appstore, but none that I've worked on in the last 6 months. None of them are games. The most successful is a utility that's made about $15k in the first 6 months. It still brings in a bit, and the rest just raise advertising revenue, which brings in around $100-150 each month.

In terms of work/effort, I spent about 5 days (@ 8-10 hours each day) on the utility that made the most cash, so it's a good ROI. Most of the others are based off a template which took me a couple of weeks to write.

The problem is that it's not really something I can outsource so I'm now looking elsewhere to provide value. But in terms of there being money in mobile apps - yeah absolutely there is (all these apps were released Oct 2012 -> April 2013, not back in 2010 or anything). I looked quite deeply at games as well, in doing my due diligence, which is where I came up with my conclusion / thoughts / opinion as I wrote above.

Hope that helps explain my perspective a bit more.

 

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[MattCour]

Talisman is absolutely right. Without huge $$$$ backing, it's almost impossible to compete in the Top Charts with games. But there is still money to be made on the smaller side like you're doing now Oddball.

As far as marketing, there isn't a ton of free stuff you can do. All new games appear In the New section of their category once they're released. So I start every title with an A so I'm one of the first games that appears. They still show them alphabetically which is crazy. I also focus on a kick a$$ icon, great screenshots and good keyword use in the title and metadata. Try www.sensortower.com if you haven't yet. Really badass KW spy tool!

 

[oddball]

The games are nice because if you don't pay a lot, you can get good deals. I played the games before I bought them and looked for improvements I could make, hopefully cheap. I am still working on making changes but I valued the apps on current status, so if I can make them better, I could probably sell them for more as well. Also, after getting the apps, I noticed some had horrible keywords, its like they didn't even try. So that is a little thing I can change to make an improvement.

Matt, I actually use a service just like that. The one I use is AppCodes. Do you know if one is better than the other? My efforts right now are in optimizing the apps for the xmas season, it is always the best time for me so hopefully it can work out. What I may try, is getting the numbers really high during Xmas/January, then dumping them right after on Apptopia.

 

[MattCour]

I started with Appcod.es but found Sensor Tower to be much more user friendly. More of a personal preference, but I know many people that also use it successfully.

 

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[oddball]

At almost 3x the price I wasn't sure.

 

[garyk1968]

Ive done 2 games and 4 utility type apps, started 3 years ago and then it was a case of build it, deploy it and generate some revenue. not now though. As others have said as far as a gold rush the train has left the station and people now make money selling the spades or how-to's rather than mining themselves.

There are so many apps its just hard to see the wood for the trees.

Of course you could always just get paid as an app dev as many businesses still *think* they need an app but have no idea how little it will actually add to their business.

Gary

 

[MattCour]

Gary,

I read an article recently that stated some of the major players are close to break even on the traffic they're buying. That's crazy!!! Candy Crush has 500 million downloads so far and I read they bring in around $850K per day... My really rough math means they're making $0.62 per download. God only knows how much they're paying for traffic!!

 

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[oddball]

How are your games coming?

I am currently releasing 3 right now, hopeing they will be out before xmas. Two are waiting for review and one is being finished up now and we are gonna cut it close, I read on Apple's site somewhere they are at a 95% completion rate 5 days before the Xmas break. All were where I purchased the source code and had them reskinned. I didn't pay much for the source code and reskinning is running me about $600-$1450 depending on the game. It was pretty easy to get them to start bidding against each other for the jobs and bring the price down. At first they seemed very firm and then as soon as you say "well, the other guy will go lower so thanks for your time," boom, they are open to negotiation. lol

I have a few things I am trying out which I hope will pay off. I want to make my money back by the end of January for each game, that is the first goal. I don't know how many people tell me not to do apps but I kept doing them, I'm starting to actually make some money consistently. It is still a lot of trial and error though.

 

[perdanny]

How are your games coming?

I am currently releasing 3 right now, hopeing they will be out before xmas. Two are waiting for review and one is being finished up now and we are gonna cut it close, I read on Apple's site somewhere they are at a 95% completion rate 5 days before the Xmas break. All were where I purchased the source code and had them reskinned. I didn't pay much for the source code and reskinning is running me about $600-$1450 depending on the game. It was pretty easy to get them to start bidding against each other for the jobs and bring the price down. At first they seemed very firm and then as soon as you say "well, the other guy will go lower so thanks for your time," boom, they are open to negotiation. lol

I have a few things I am trying out which I hope will pay off. I want to make my money back by the end of January for each game, that is the first goal. I don't know how many people tell me not to do apps but I kept doing them, I'm starting to actually make some money consistently. It is still a lot of trial and error though.

Good Job, are those iOS games only? when you say $600-$1450 you mean source code+assets? you wrote before you are monetizing mainly by IAP, did you ever integrated or improved an existing app shop or you use the one already been implemented by the original coder? thanks for sharing and good luck, let us know how its working for you.

 

[frieden70]

Gary,

I read an article recently that stated some of the major players are close to break even on the traffic they're buying. That's crazy!!! Candy Crush has 500 million downloads so far and I read they bring in around $850K per day... My really rough math means they're making $0.62 per download. God only knows how much they're paying for traffic!!

As with most companies that are doing UA, their goal is to break even on the front end with their traffic buying and then make more on the back end.

They are spending a shitload but that's because it converts like crazy and they are doing an IPO soon.

Here's a quick breakdown of most game developers CPI rates:

US Android traffic - 1.50-2.50
US iOS traffic - 2.50+

It obviously varies in the other markets but I think most people here are probably concerned with US users.

King (Candy Crush's development company) tends to be a bit higher than that.

The lifetime value of their users are also substantially higher than most games. I know people that have spent hundreds on that shit. Just google candy crush addiction and you'll see what I mean.

 

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