How my game achieved success without promotion

It seems, that you might have a nice “problem” at hand, i.e figuring out how to make money with this game or how to leverage the customer base for your next one.

What would be interesting is, how many of the people that downloaded the game are engaged with it. Just simple measures like
- played the game for more than 30 minutes in total
- opened the game more than 10 times
- are playing the game after 1 month

 

Well done, I love a good success story in contrast to the usual rain of fire. Can't say it's surprising or new though, many examples of visually impressive games being picked up by the press and gamers alike.

The issue generally is biting off more than you can chew. Although again, congrats.!

 

One way this is important is if you want to grow using ads, which AxPetre tried (repeated below). An LTV of 0.3¢ and a CPI of 10¢ are not a good combination. You need the Life Time Value of a user to be higher than the Cost Per Install if you are going to use ads. And 10¢ per install is really good, exceptional even.

AxPetre has shared some really good info. The only issue I have is the suggestion of what works for him would work for every one. 'The saying "If you build it they will come" is actually true' is not true unless that market is underserved. Much of the mobile market is the opposite, but there are exceptions, such as the market for this app.

I'm currently working on a casual puzzle game. Feedback suggests it is something different and polished that there is a market for. But I am under no illusions that the casual puzzle market is starved of content and people will come just because I have built it.

 

I'm not sure I can get that data without having to add more intrusive permissions in my game, such as getting the user's identity / account or device's id.

These are some of the data that I have currently:

A. Unity Analytics - Monthly average users (MAU): 580,000;

B1. Unity Analytics - Daily average users (DAU): 33,000 (during working days) and 40,000 (during weekends);
B2. Chartboost Analytics - Unique users per day: 32,000 (during working days) and 38,000 (during weekends);

C1. Unity Analytics - Total session per day: 51,000 (during working days) and 64,000 (during weekends);
C2. Chartboost Analytics - Bootups per day: 140,000 (during working days) and 180,000 (during weekends);

D. Unity Analytics - Total daily play time per active user: 1340 seconds (during working days) and 1440 seconds (during weekends);

E1. Unity Analytics - Day 1 retention: 23%;
E2. Google Play Console - Day 1 retention: 51%;

F1. Unity Analytics - Day 7 retention: 4.9%;
F2. Google Play Console - Day 7 retention: 34%;

G1. Unity Analytics - Day 30 retention: 1.1%;
G2. Google Play Console - Day 30 retention: 20%.

Note: I don't know why there are such big differences between the data reported by Unity Analytics and other analytics (C1 vs C2, E1 vs E2, F1 vs F2, G1 vs G2).

 

Those retention figures differ massively. The commonly quoted targets are 40 : 20 : 10 for D1 : D7 : D30. One set of data shows well under that, the other well over. I would be checking the data collection points closely if it was my app.

 

You make 1/4 million dollars every year? What do you spend your money on? You could buy a house every year and by the time you retire you could own a whole street.

 

No no no. Buy all the houses, then just let them sit there until there is so many people that the houses are worth a fortune. Then sell them. More money! Bwahahaha


Isn't it sick that this is a common and acceptable practice? Sorry, way OT.

 

Well I also live in Sweden so if I try to take the money out of the company I'm taxed 70%

But yeah running your own IT company in Sweden is really high paid. And very low risk, no costs etc

 

It's possible that Unity Analytics also takes into account user's interaction with the app in the retention figures, whereas the Google Play Console might only takes into account whether the app is is still installed on the user's device, even if the user hasn't started the app in a long time.

 

I forgot to say congrats in my earlier post. Really well done and I think that getting millions of downloads is a success measure by itself, no matter if you make money with it or not. It must for sure be personally rewarding.

I also like that you share openly your experiences and your opinions.

I think getting a grip on the analytics will be very useful for you. Your sample size is quite big and I think you can get some good insights, even without tracking individual users. Do you track anything that correlates to time played? (Like score, level, area uncovered...)

Even looking at your numbers in a pessimistic way signals good potential to monetize (maybe something to do rather sooner than later, if you ask me - while it’s hot)

Good luck

 

Thank you.

Not yet, but I think I could obtain the averages for all the users without having to add more permissions.

Good luck to you too.

 

Ok, so based on some of the great questions asked here and your answers to them:

1. Have you heard the saying "strike while the iron is hot"?

You're sitting on a demonstrably monetisable asset with obvious opportunities. A bunch of your customers are asking you to sell them more stuff, and you're saying you've got "other plans for now". That sounds crazy to me. It makes me ask what you could possibly have that's better to do than growing your success? (There are loads of valid answers to that and I don't know your circumstances, so that's not criticism.)

I would be so pumped in that scenario that I couldn't sit still until I'd done something about it. Plenty of people have set up their own DLC systems. Or there are services which will do a heck of a lot of the work for you. Or you can hire someone in to handle it - and since your product is showing genuine value then you could even validly offer the so-often-frowned-upon revenue share. Or for something more radical, have you considered selling the game to someone who's already in that business? That's not a trivial thing to do, of course.

Since you've got such a specific target audience you've also potentially got an excellent avenue for more niche monetisation methods. For instance, rather than using 3rd party networks, have you considered selling niche targeted advertising space? This isn't random products being targeted with mass market games and hoping a 3rd party algorithm will match ads to individuals by chance. You know precisely the interests of your audience. If ad income is your thing, I'd have a go at selling ad space the old fashioned way.

Or, do you have a donate button? I've seen games before that have their own internal "Kickstarter" type thing where fans can donate money (or encourage friends to buy, but that's not relevant here) towards features to get added to future updates. If you can commit to budgeted features this could be a way to go.

Regardless of which road you take there are a bunch of issues to sort out (more on that in a moment), but that's not unusual and it's not a big deal, and there are people who do that stuff as a day job, and to them you've already done the hard part - find a game that attracts a big audience that can be built upon.



2. You've got an awesome valuable asset with potential to be even better without much additional work.

You mention not getting more detailed analytics because of permissions. I haven't Androided in quite some time, but if you're running Unity Analytics I'm pretty sure that it already has unique IDs per install? Isn't that all it needs to do a lot of the stuff people are asking about here? I see no reason that it would need to access device or personal info for stuff like average play time and repeat session counting, or to track event funnels that lead to ad views.

On that note, I would really want to dig into what's going on with the people who are voluntarily watching your videos. This isn't just because you want more of it to happen. It's also because they're your best customers, and you want to give them the best service and experience possible. And you can't do either of those things very well if you're guessing about what's going on at their end.

Alternatively, if you really don't want to use automated systems for that stuff, have you got something like a feedback / request / contact form easily accessible from your game? A link to your website with a Google Form is all it takes, and then you can at least identify if there are common things your players want. (Note that vocal community members don't necessarily represent the broader community's wishes, of course.)

 

Fair enough, and good tips they are.

And have you tried banner ads? How intrusive would they be in your game? Like other's have mentioned, you might be sitting on a gold mine. I'm not sure what else is taking your time, but I don't know what could be more important than getting more money out of this game, considering how much it could be.

 

Here are my priorities (in order of their importance to me):
1. Earn enough to keep making games (doing it already);
2. Make good game(s) to be proud of (doing it now, but more games planned for next year);
3. Maintain control over every aspect of development and be self-reliant as much as possible (doing it now);
4. Keep the game(s) updated and improved (in progress);
5. Maximize revenue (considering it).
As you can see maximizing the revenue is NOT A PRIORITY FOR ME.

Absolutely not. I have received emails with such requests and I always ignore them.

A few users have actually contacted me to ask if they can support the game financially, but I declined because I wish to be self-reliant and not beholden to anyone (I can imagine people donating 20$ and then asking me to do this, that, and the other in return for their "generosity"). I have my own plans and vision and I don't wish to be sidetracked by the wishes of others.

Let me make things clear: the ads in my game are "optional" in the sense that you can play most of the game without having to watch any ads, but if you wish to unlock every single feature, then you need more in-game currency than cannot be acquired by doing missions alone, so that additional currency can be obtained by watching ads. So users are not watching my ads "voluntarily" or "out of the goodness of their hearts", but because they need more in-game currency to unlock more stuff.

I haven't and now it's too late for that (in this game at least) because I would have to redesign a lot of the UI to make room for them, plus the long time users who are accustomed to not seeing banners would probably react negatively to them and would "reward" my game with some bad ratings and reviews.

 

Congratulations! That's a fantastic success compared to the vast majority.

I think the reason it seems like people are "all over this with a fine-tooth comb" pointing out this thing and that thing to improve the revenue is because of (a) although the revenue is fine for you they'd like to see that it can be increased enough to allow anyone to be able to live and continue making games and the current amount doesn't do that and (b) because they know this may very well be a fluke thing. And this is important for you to consider... this may be your greatest success. It is very possible you can do the same thing all over again with another game (or even with this one) and end up with a very different result of just a fraction of the users.

One thing I notice is you seem to have a very good business mind. Although originally presented as having achieved success without any promotion that does not accurately do justice to the strategy involved and your knowledge in the area.

The benefits of choosing this niche target in itself would be equal to a lot of promotional activities done for games in other genres for example. And you also seem to have knowledge of using names, tags/keywords etc to help with targeted organic traffic. It is likely there are other things you have done along these lines the majority never think of. And all of these things along with making a very good game combined to achieve the current result.

Anyway you've obviously done awesome and as much as I think it is unlikely I do hope these kind of numbers for users are indeed the norm for all of your games. Wish you the best of luck with it all. Exciting times ahead!

 

A good topic. Thanks for this story

 

After reaching 2.8 millions, would you mind sharing the daily downloada coming without advertising, and do you think you could relay on that or you would like to do some advertising campaign or something?
Also I think you should do something for those who want to pay for your game, consumables or special or something, you will know better than me of course!

 

Yes, for now, I think I can avoid advertising.

Eventually I intend do something like that.

 

Thank you for the post, very inspiring! and 10k is alot . Congrats man, google play is a jungle. Dont lazy around the forum GO AND ADD THOSE IN-APP REPURCHASES. pUMP Up those numers

 

Thanks for sharing such an useful post. This has definitely inspired me. It's about building something that people will love to play.

 

I'm wondering what the process would be on Steam to make a similarly successful game: you can't really release a game that just runs on advertising, so the "free game" plan doesn't work there (unless you don't want to make any money); and the market is smaller and more demanding than the mobile market. At one time just being on Steam brought in instant viral attention to a game, but now it's flooded with games. So how do we succeed on Steam without either a big marketing campaign or existing social media presence?

 

These can only help a good game progress towards success - the game has to be good for these efforts to help.

Depends on personal definition of success. Just getting a bug-free product out is a success. 500 downloads at 4.99 could be considered success for one while 10k at 19.99 could be seen as a failure to another.
Some consider providing an experience for others success, while others are focused on ROI.

For a similarly successful game on steam compared to this mobile game = luck, and a lot of "who you know" and a full-time, dedicated marketing/advertising effort as soon as the game is visually appealing - and a good game.
This is all speculation as I have no steam experience as a developer -

 

Mobile is weird.

 

Make something that is better than literally all direct competition in the eyes of all players, and focus on marketing yourself and your story in a way that gets you an army of zealous fans, who will trashtalk other games in the genre and recommend in reviews of those games that people play your game instead. There's so much spite and frustration in steam's userbase that's just waiting to get "weaponized". The problem is that no one can "just make" "the best game ever".

In other words the answer to your question imho is: most likely we just won't be able to succeed on steam...

 

How much of a factor are Steam achievements etc - by "factor" I mean how useful are they for getting people to buy the game (either because they help spread the word or because some players buy games for the achievements)?

 

Hello Alex, great game actually! How is iOS release of your app going? Is it successful?

 

Not quite as successful, so far.
After 3 months since release on iOS, it currently gets between 300 and 400 installs a day, while on Android after 3 months it was getting between 12,000 and 16,000 installs a day.
However, I haven't added any gameplay video in the App Store listing for my game, didn't optimized the keywords, didn't added translations for the game's description, and only made a single update since release, so all of these facts are probably diminishing the game's potential for organic discovery on the store.

 

@AxPetre how rapidly did the download rate for your app grow? I know that most apps that become successful have exponentially growing download rates that eventually start to plateau.

Specifically, how did it do in the first few weeks of release? I've released a game and after 2.5 weeks I barely have 20 downloads and I'm wondering if it's even worth it to continue working on it. I know I'll probably never achieve the same level of success but if your numbers are even anywhere near mine then maybe I can have a little hope for this game becoming more than forgotten.

 

Very nice article.
Well done @AxPetre

you read my mind on most points ;p
But you have pointed out few interesting aspects as well. Thx for sharing.

 

In the first month it was pretty bad. See post #68 where you can see the downloads graph, and for the first month it's almost a flat line.

But there is another problem if your game is published on Google Play: since June this year, they have modified the algorithm for populating the "Similar Apps" lists, which have harmed the organic discovery, and severely decreased the downloads rate for almost all games, including mine. So, if my game would have been released now, it would probably fared much worse than it did one year ago.

 

Can I ask why it's only Android when (to me) you can simply export as iOS? (I am a noob so potentially a noob question)

 

>since June this year, they have modified the algorithm for populating the "Similar Apps" lists, which have harmed the
>organic discovery, and severely decreased the downloads rate for almost all games, including mine

Can you tell how your daily downloads now (after the Google Play change) compare to what was before? I suspect it went down to 20% from what it was (based to what happened to many other apps in simulators).

 

@FirstTimeCreator You have already 3 thread of your own discussing same. In my opinion is quite inappropriate to hijack somebody thread, to inject own. You are presenting work in progress. Is not even related to OP thread topic, as it doesn't describe final, nor successful product. Future is irrelevant here.

Edit:
Person post has been deleted.

 

Cool post from 2017.

My tips would be:

• Make a PC game.
• Make something that will look good on "let's plays" on YouTube.
• Make it bug free
• Make it fun
• Make it interesting
• Get feedback
• Ignore feedback and go with our original instinct.

That's all.

 

I agree.
I would add , beta or early access paid versions can ruin some games because of bugs or when they are missing important features.

 

Great article, I'm at the MVP (minimum viable product) stage of my PC game, just released a couple of weeks back, so much competition to get noticed though, have to change the name soon though as at least 12 other "Zombie Hunter" games around just on itch.io, mind you I made £2 so far for my c.400+ hours of effort! hahaha!

Cost to develop so far (apart from my time/effort) £0, all free assets used! )

 

I am really great for your advice