Google Play revenue - experience from others

Hi,

We work hard, spent year in development, make a great models, worlds, gameplay, and finally when we realize game, it have up to now only 200 free downloads and 1 pay download. :sad::sad::sad::sad:

We are so depressed and unsatisfied, especially game have great idea and gameplay. We running out of budget and we do not have money for promotion.

We have FB, YT and few days ago realized that TW is second word for marketing, in two days we have 400 followers and we hope we increase our revenue in next months.


Lot of people who try, told us that our game is great (I can't said which game is), but our team running of budget and expected sallaries ...

Please, if this read anyone with experince, consolate us - what will going on? Is it same with lot of other games?

Beacuse we read lot of stories (Hill Climb, Temple Runner and so...) where revenue goes up on day of publishing!

How is your experience with downloads over 1,2,3 months and so...
Thanks a lot!

 

Generally revenues go down after day 1 if you haven't got any traction which you don't.

You are crazy to not say which game because you might get some downloads from saying.

Your problems could be as simple as bad game, bad, description, bad screenshots, no marketing etc etc. If you are hoping it will turn around to pay salaries that is very unlikely sorry.

A conversion rate of 0.5% from free to paid isn't uncommon.

400 fb followers and 200 downloads doesn't make much sense.

 

Yeah seems like you made a game no one wanted I guess. Sometimes it happens, people pou-pou minecraft clones, not another zombie game or another runner but those are what sell.

You either have to bring something new to the table or be able to produce something that stands above the rest of the other games -- competing against the best of that genre. Of course if you try something too off the wall there might not be any market for it and thats the risk

 

Well if you'd like 201 downloads post your game up here, I'll try it out and do my best to give you some honest feedback.

 

This is a possibility.. or it's just a new game and no one discovered it yet. I don't have much mobile publishing experience (none for games) but from a playing perspective it's kind of a crapshoot whose games I or my wife find. We just poke around sometimes and try things. Hill Climb Racer, as simple as it is, is actually my favorite mobile game that I've played on both Android and Windows Phone 8.

 

The first week is critical because you are featured in the "new releases" section. If you don't get any traction in the first week, it is doubtful the game will succeed without some changes.

The bad numbers you are getting could be for any reason: bad icon, bad screenshots, bad description, or people just don't dig the concept. I would suggest you do give the name of the game and link so people can offer some suggestions, what is there to lose?

Also, take a look at the top grossing section in google play. People voted with their money and the results are clear: the most successful model is free to play with in app purchase (micro transactions).

Since you had such a bad launch, perhaps you might want to consider pulling out, fixing whatever the problem is, and launching again.

I wish I could offer more specific advice, but without knowing what game you are talking about it is not possible.

 

Yeah I guess you have nothing to lose at this point. I would start collecting some analytic data and see whats going wrong -- where are people bailing on the game -- do you know -- maybe you need to tweak the gameplay to make the first level easier or whatever. But without getting traffic from somewhere your app is DOA.

Unless you had a really good demo but even thats only 5% so with 200 downloads its not good enough.

 

Can you post a link of your game here? I might give you a feedback.

 

Got a link of your App on iTunes or Google Market place?

 

I've said this many, many times.

You have to make a game that people want to see, it doesn't matter how great you think your game is, if people don't want it, you won't succeed unless you have the budget to convince people they want your game (i.e marketing)

I've released about 5 games so far and the 2 games that I identified a hole in the market filled that hole are bringing me enough income to keep working full time at this. Other games were a space shoot, endless top down racing game a zombie shooter. They failed and the reason they failed is because no one wants them, I made them to see if i could.

Think long and hard about your game and why you are making it. Is it for the players or for yourself?

 

what were the top that worked?

 

Simulations

 

Do you mind posting which ones? I wouldn't mind having a look.

 

There's no formula to become successful in the mobile martket, it's more or less luck. Instead of complaining, see it as a delay to your eventual success.

Keep in mind you're not alone trying to make the next candy crush saga, the competition is high!

 

Im my experience publish in android alone (no marketing or sites reviews) you born dead. You can have no single download for weeks for a free version. You can't find your game even searching for its name. Sad :/

The "new releases" for me is a lie. We launch our game and only thing that we see in "new relases" category are the more rentable games updates (like candy crush).

The change was when we launch in app store. They new release works and give you a try in the first pages. That initial exposition created a "know" of the game that boost the android downloads.

Today, the android version is doing even better than ios for the premium version.

 

Your feedback is very helpfull to us. Unfortunatelly, I couldn't give the of the game, but I promise I give my best if game suceed to post to you all details. Also, must to say, during development phase, there is a lot of helpfull comments we find on this forum. Thank you all!

 

whats the difference between your free download version and the paid download version? ad free? other features? maybe its not compelling enough to upgrade from free to paid. are you at least getting ad revenue from the free version? and why can't you give the name of your game? you have a whole bunch of people here willing to try it out and maybe even get a few paid downloads if we like it. if it's some kind of contract or agreement that you can't give out the name then maybe that's half your problem...

 

+1

You have a marketing opportunity and you are throwing it away. You are doomed to fail with this attitude. The more people that hear about your game the better, especially if it is actually good.

 

I second this one. Marketing is king. If you were developing a game for a year and in the process did not do anything to market your product then you've done a big no-no. There are plenty of online post-mortems that feature great insights from existing game developers from which you can easily comb out some invaluable info. If you started spreading the word half-way through development you would have probably been late already. And now, when the game is out, you're not spreading the word. As The Raider said... you're doomed to fail.

 

Yes marketing is what you need to focus on or make the game that people are getting for free cost at least a little(since people are enjoying it). I generally do not work with apps ,but plan to in the future.

 

This is actually a rather interesting point. I remember reading an interview with the Gungho CEO (they made the enormously successful Puzzle Dragon), and they said they've been making mobile games for a long time, and after going through everything they've done, they themselves couldn't really figure out why the game did so well. They compared to their other titles, they're all made from the same general process, same level of quality, but somehow the one title caught on. He went so far as to say it was all luck as to whether a title succeeds or not. From what I can tell, he's not entirely wrong either.

 

So you released a mobile game along with the thousands of other mobile games that get submitted every day, and you didn't do any marketing whatsoever?
Now you are asking for our help and advice but you can't tell us the game?

We can't help you with that attitude.

My 2 cents, you didn't do any marketing. Did you expect for your game to be submitted and just millions started downloading it?
If you can budget to spend a year making a game, add another 10% to your next budget for marketing and getting a proper game PR company to handle the release, press and timing for you.

Either that or remove the game from the store, and re-launch it as another title with some PR.

 

King has a somewhat similar approach. They release small games once a month. If they get popular, they develop it a little further. If it still grows, they get serious about it. They had about 100 games on their site when Candy Crush took off. They keep at it until something sticks.

There is some luck for sure, right game at the right time. But I would say that the luck part comes mostly comes down to timing. It's a fickle and fast moving market that can change/shift in months or weeks. Unfortunately making a game takes much longer. You launch a good game when there aren't many other games, or overkill on one type of game, you could do well. If your game launches at the same time as some huge hits, or when a bunch of similar games do, it can tank. These things are nearly impossible to predict, so ultimately, it is sort of luck.

Still, it is rare that crappy games benefit from this kind of luck (at least not for long). Luck is one component, but it still has to be a good and fun game. That's certainly a part of King's success. They made a ton of small pretty decent games. With over a 100 decent quality games, luck was bound to land in their favor at some point.

 

I never thought of it that way, but you're right. If you spend 5... 6 months making a game, you should also invest in marketing.

What sort of advertisements do you recommend... and how much can you expect to invest for reasonable results? Can you do anything with...... I don't know, $1000 ?

 

There are loads of ways. If you're short on cash, you can do it yourself, there are loads of press release services out there, and you can manually spend a few weeks building some hype and getting the name of the game out on all the app websites and forums.

But you're better off paying a PR company that specialises in game marketing and launches. They know the industry, they have contacts and they know what to write and when. For $500 - $3500 you can get some decent PR and marketing done which can have a big impact. The more people that see your game, the more people will have a chance of writing about it, or in the best case scenario, it going viral. It takes only one big twitter name in the game industry to see a preview of your game and next thing it's being retweeted by a few thousand people.

What you want is the snowball effect. No marketing = no snow to start with.

But at the end of the day, if your game is just another clone, poorly executed, or just a plain old average done before title, no amount of marketing is going to make it a viable financial success.

 

What would you suggest in the 500 range?

 

I'd contact a few PR companies and see what they can offer for the price. Google for 'Game PR' or 'Game Marketing Services'