Unity iOS / iPhone Apps sales (Updated thread)

So, pumita started a thread a while ago with a really interesting question that surely many developers, both new and not so much, have asked themselves. How many sales have you accomplished whit your Unity powered App?

I understand that many may consider to be information as "sensitive", but some developers had already shared lots of info, so, I see no harm on you ppl contributing with your experience.


Please. Share the stats on your title. Even if your sales aren't something to brag about. This is not a thread to see of much money you make, but rather how much succeed Unity Apps get! So, if you've a free App, let your info bellow and I'll update this list as soon as I can.

Those already on the list, it will be awesome if you can provide updated information, specifying sales/downloads of the first 30 days and total sales/downloads.

Game: No, Human
Release Date: Aug 24th, 2010
Sales: 17'000
Units per day average: 53
Units per day average of last month : 8;
Current Price: $2.99 (almost all sales were at $1.99)
Last updated: Jul 11, 2011

Game: Gatsby's Golf
Release Date: Dec, 2010
Sales: 504
Current Price: $0.99
Units Per Day: 3


Game: DOG Pile
Release Date: April 14, 2011
Sales: (iPhone) 645 + (iPad) 327
Free: (iPhone) 5240 + (iPad) 7737
Current Price: $0.99
Units Per Day: 13


Game: TITUS: politics is not a game
Release Date: June 13, 2011
Sales: 600
Units per day average: 75
Units per day: 81 (last update)
Current Price: $1,99
Last updated: Jun 21, 2011

Game: Crazy Snowboard
Released: Oct 2008
Sales: 403,481+
Units per day average: 600
Current Price: $0.99

Game: Battleheart
Release Date: Jan 31st, 2011
Sales: 400,000+
Units per day average: 1200
Units per day: unknow
Current Price: $2.99
Last updated: Feb 21, 2011

Game: FishMoto
Release Date: Jun 17, 2011
Sales: 160 (50 first day only, no marketing)
Units per day average: 8.88
Units per day: 1
Current Price: $1.99
Last update: Jul 08, 2011

Game: Wisp: Eira's tale
Release Date: Jun 15, 2011
Sales: 2889 (first week: 958)
Units per day average: 180 (first week: 137)
Units per day: 240
Current Price: $2.99 (first week at $0.99)
Last update: Jul 08, 2011

Detailed sales data:
06/15 Downloads: 430 ($0,99)
06/16 Downloads: 266 ($0,99)
06/17 Downloads: 111 ($0,99)
06/18 Downloads: 64 ($0,99)
06/19 Downloads: 41 ($0,99)
06/20 Downloads: 35 ($0,99)
06/21 Downloads: 37 ($2.99)
06/22 Downloads: 64 ($2.99)


Game: Jimmy Pataya
Release Date: May 2, 2010
Sales: 5036
Units per day average: 251
Current Price: $0,99
Last updated: May 22, 2010

Game: 1on1 Action Hockey HD
Release Date: Aug 6, 2010
Sales: 1000
Units per day average: 15
Current Price: $0,99
Last updated: 14 Oct, 2010

Game: Lucky Cats 3D and Lucky Cats +
Release Date: May 22, 2010
Sales: 400 (combined)
Units per day average: 2
Current Price: $2,99
Last updated: 18 Oct, 2010

Game: Domino's Adventure
Release Date: Apr 29, 2010
Sales: 1600
Units per day average: 46
Current Price: $0,99
Last updated: Jun 3, 2010

Game: Newton's Dice 3D
Release Date: Apr 30, 2010
Sales: 4500 (3600 in the first month)
Units per day average: 86
Current Price: $1,99
Last updated: Jun 22, 2010

Game: Daredevil Dave: Motorcycle Stuntman!
Release Date: May 11, 2010
Sales: 8248 (only first 6 days)
Units per day average: 1380 (only first 6 days)
Current Price: $1,99
Last updated: May 20, 2010

Game: Giant Moto
Release Date: April 10, 2010
Sales: 10000
Units per day average: 435 (23 first days)
Current Price: $0,99
Last updated: May 05, 2010

Game: Zombieville
Release Date: Feb 10, 2009
Sales: 1.5 millon (and counting!!)
Units per day average: 1744
Units per day: 1250 (last update)
Current Price: $1,99
Last updated: Jun 20, 2011


Game: OMG Pirates!
Release Date: Aug 12, 2009
Sales: 200,000
Units per day average: 300
Units per day: 100 (last update)
Current Price: $1,99
Last updated: Jun 20, 2011

Game: Cinemarama
HD version - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cinem...529076256?mt=8
iphone version - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cinem...545618071?mt=8
Downloads:4000 free downloads for both
Sales: 244 inapps - $167

Game: Knights
25,000 Free Downloads
405 Paid Downloads
Inapps:
235- 1000Gold: $.99
61- 1500Gold: $9.99
50- 5000Gold: $4.99

Game: Real Steel
Release Date: Sep 21, 2011
Main App Sales: 150,000+
In-App Sales: 60,000+ (priced at $0.99)
Units per day: currently - 1000+
Current Main App Price: $2.99
Last update: Jan 26, 2011

 

Here is our stats so far.

Game: Wisp: Eira's tale
Release Date: June 15, 2011
Sales: 807
Units per day: (first three days) 430 + 266 + 111
Current Price: $0.99
Last update: June 19, 2011

Great initiative, but even more stats would be great, for example what days produce the most downloads etc. By knowing this we could figure out what day to release a game for more exposure etc.

 

Hi Magnus, thanks for sharing your stats!!

I agree that it would be better to add more stats. Personally, I think that every single piece of information is useful, like development time, marketing strategy (and costs), sales peaks, sales per platform, reason to choose the release date, etc, etc.

 

Impressive! Were you getting review codes out before release? FishMoto did about 50 the first day but I hadn't contacted anyone to review it yet (been doing that today/last night) so visibility is still relatively unknown.

edit: Ah, I see you also had an Android version beforehand

 

Hi Jtown, that's 50 sales the first day of release and no marketing at all? That's pretty good I think.
I'm adding you to the list if you don't mind. Don't forget to update this regularly.

One think I would like to know also is how fast sales drop down. It's well know that you sale a lot (more, actually) on the first days and then it comes down. Of course it depends on your marketing and how good/addictive your game is, but it's still a good think to know to have as a reference.

Magnus, I think that your sales started pretty good actually. It would be amazing if those numbers keeps up for at least a month.

 

I'm fine being on the list but if you don't mind waiting a bit I'll provide a much more detailed summary in 2-3 weeks

I plan to write about sales data and marketing efforts on my company's website. I'll probably do the first report a week or so after I get the lite version on the App Store so I have more to talk about.

edit: Thought I'd share this: http://www.thundergameworks.com/ranking.tgw (nothing to do with me or my games, and not a Unity game) -- Devs behind Trenches share rank/sales on a day to day basis.

 

Geezus! that game is selling a lot! I know that those stats include both games (Stenches and Trenches) but still, even if half of that sales belong to the first released game, that means like 400 sales per day and that's a year and a half after release! They've passed the 2M mark in january this year :|

Thanks for sharing!

 

Here's some current data from us:

Game: Battleheart
Release Date: Jan 31st, 2011
Sales: 400,000+
Units per day: ~1200
Current Price: $2.99
Last updated: Feb 21, 2011

Zombieville's up to about 1.5 million, and selling about 1250 a day. OMG is close to 200,000 total, and around 100 a day. Counting all of our paid and free apps, we've had about 5 million installs.

 

Your stats are nothing but amazing, just like your games. I must say that I came to Unity after playing Zombieville.
Also, I was kind of actually counting on your contribution to this thread. I've been following this forum as a guest for some time now and I've seen that you've always share your knowledge and experience with other users, and I personally find that pretty awesome, becouse you could just keep that to yourself, like other developers do.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to say "thanks", 'couse I've learned a lot from you

By the way, it's a shame that OMG never really took off like your other Apps, I've actually enjoyed it more that Zombieville, but that's just me

PS: I've made some changes to the stats. Now there's a "Units per day average" witch is the resulting division of days on sale/sales, and "Units per day" that shows the actual daily sales on the last update.
Also, in case you haven't noted, there's a link to the iTunes store of each App.

 

Wow! Fantastic!

Yea, MikaMobile has helped me quite a lot!!

 

Heh, I've actually been a little less "sharing" more recently after seeing some developers shamelessly rip off my games in style and function. Some Zombieville clones have made me think twice about helping my competition.

As for OMG's lukewarm reception, I don't think it's entirely unjustified. Its awfully short, with little incentive to replay it, no customization options, and a brutal difficulty curve. Not a list of ideal traits for a mobile game.

 

Galaxy Bowl debuted the same weekend as FishMoto (no other relation though I feel a weird kinship with it for some reason!)

iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/galaxy-bowl/id441222559?mt=8&ls=1

My first day sales were 35. The debut was higher than Android's, but not by much. Android sales are still trucking along and I hope iOS does the same, but this is my first iOS app and the rapid drop of sales once the app is off the new release list makes me feel a little dubious about the future. Also no marketing or previous presence in the app store. Just, bam, here you go, here's my app!

Will dig up itunes link which I forgot to add in the original notice too.

I'm working on a free ad-supported version for Android. I'll add that to iOS too if I notice a positive benefit. App on Android is highly rated so I'm hopeful Apple peeps will like it too.

 

Mika, I wouldn't call a game that has moved 200,000 units "lukewarm". I think it's a matter of perspective considering your other smash games.

 

You shouldn't feel that way. I've seen at least 12 complete rip-off of Zombieville, two of them where made with Unity (at least), but none of them manage to get out of being just a clone and I REALLY think that those clones helped you a lot. Just search on google for some of those rip-off (no need to throw names I think) and you'll see that you've got instant, free good publicity. It's like a viral campaign. In fact, you should start fake companies and make rip-off of your own game!!!. Seriously, there's not a single review that doesn't mention Zombieville as the original, irreplaceable game that inspire all those clones. If I were you, I would be thankful for those copies, becouse they keep Zombieville legacy alive.

Think it that way

You know. I really hope with all my heart that my first game get the same lukewarm reception that OMG got.
However, I do understand what you mean, but I also think that you're a little hard with your own game. I think that OMG! is the logical evolution of Zombieville's gameplay, (better graphics, combos, power-ups, booses, more slayes, etc) but if you ask me, right now, I think that OMG! is more targeted to hardcore gamers while Zombieville is more for casual gamers (based on the simplicity of the controls and the gameplay itself) and I think that the Iphone platform consist of about 80% of casual gamers and 20% of the rest. If your look at the most successful games (Angry Birs, Fruit Ninja, Tiny Wings, Cut The Rope, etc), the gameplay premise is based on simplicity. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I think

 

Game: Crazy Snowboard
Released: Oct 2008
Sales: 400,000+
Units per day average: 600
Current Price: $0.99



Paid units of Crazy Snowboard from Oct 2008 - June 2011

The good news is that if you keep updating, improving, and marketing sales don't have to drop off to nothing.

 

I'm worried once my app falls off the new release list, that'll be it. I guess I was expecting the Apple app store to match or better the Android one. I'm coming from an Android background with a fair amount of success over there, so maybe it's just because I'm new here. Have any of these great successful apps been successful without Apple stepping in? I wonder how critical that is to success?

 

Amazing stats. I knew that your game was doing well, but not "that" well!! Keep it up!

That's a really good advice. To not stop improving your App and maintain a marketing campaign as long as posible.

PS: There's some really nice articles on your site! Going to bookmarks
I would love to see how some of your other apps are doing on the Itunes. Also, are you releasing all of your Apps on multiple platforms like Android and MAC?

 

Encouraging

 

Style? well the style and animation of it harks back to many prior flash games - like Dad and me, that cute alien game etc on newgrounds... although not on the appstore.

I've thought about ripping off zombieville myself. It's sound business sense. What stops me isn't respect for you (I do have respect for you as an inspirational peer though) it is the fact that I can't bring myself to just throw out some rubbish out there that isn't a clear improvement on the original. If it was a clear improvement then there's nothing wrong with that.

Cheap clones just piss me off though - insulting if you ask me. I've my own games to get on with though, and would much prefer to do those instead. Zombies are a popular choice for a teen massmarket game however...

But any sane person with an ounce of honesty would admit openly, that they'd be tempted to rip off something that clearly would pay the bills. I think though people are discounting just how high quality your games are. The animation alone would be a shocking amount of work for a single developer to tackle. Then there is the art to deal with and everything else.

I think the brand of mika mobile can't be ignored either, I know you don't typically mention it as a major selling point, but I think its certainly got a fair bit of weight behind it when people come to purchase a game without a demo version.

I hope I can reach a quarter of your sales

 

Yes we had sent out quite a few and got quite a lot of reviews the same day and the day after. But now it's dropping fast except in sweden. As for android it has been up for about 1½ month and iOS sales beat those sales in one day lol.


Wisp Sales update:+64 and +41

 

There is no doubt Apple featuring your app will help, but it is not essential (and in reverse, just because your app is featured doesn't mean it will sell).

If you've had success in the Android market and your marketing plan is more than "hoping for an Apple feature" you'll do fine.

 

Simon,

What would recommend for a marketing plan? I have a great selling app on Android and when they introduced a link to advertise the application, I jumped right on it. I spent a few hundred dollars on ads and it was completely ineffective. There were hundreds of thousands of impressions of course and over a short time, but no apparent increase in sales at all. I have no idea who actually earns money advertising, but I thought an app that already sells great without external advertising would only increase with more visibility. I was discouraged to learn it wasn't true.

Now, I've used Adwords and similar advertising in the past and it worked great, at first. After a few months as more and more companies signed up, Adwords became completely unprofitable. Now I don't really even consider it. I hadn't tried mobile advertising though, so I thought I'd give this a shot.

Anyway, I think the best thing a developer can do is just try and make a great game / product. What's the second best though?

 

The appstore is a little fairer than it was a few weeks ago. Pay-per-Install behaviour was rife, where apps would pay you if you bought an installed a game. The developer could invest 50k and hit the top 25 then go on to make half a million or nothing. But it did weight things heavily in favour of whoever had money.

 

I got for a couple of month like 1-2 sales a day on lucky cats 3D. But as i said earlier, i never expected a boardgame to make Billions ;-)

I anyways don´t have the time to develop games right now. But since i got into the topic (Unity and iOs development in general) i make my money by developing stuff for advertising agencys. Stuff that i would have done in Flash 2 Years ago.

So for anybody interested in how to make money: If you have the skills, doing your own app and hoping for sales is not the only way. There are plenty of big companies out there, all having the wish to constantly come up with new "livestyle" apps. And of course somebody needs to create those iAd adds to.
That kind of work is of course not as nice as coming up with your own idea and have the chance to make it big time, but on the other hand, its well paid and you know excactly what you earn, no matter if that app gets downloaded a single time or not.

 

Hey do you know where we can find info on how rankings are figured on the app store? I think I read it's no longer simply how many units are downloaded, but that it also includes revenue and player activity. Just want as much info as I can get

Do you do these jobs in Unity?

 

Many bloggers reported that apple changed the ranking by favouring usage statistics instead and so forth, but thats actually not true. They did make changes though and these was the lesser-populated categories get a heavier weighting in comparison to games for the overall category. Presumably this is to make the overall category a healthier mix instead of seeing several pages of angry birds.

So no change overall for people making games.

However they did one thing that will have an impact on the games rankings, and this is they removed apps and banned apps which reward people for downloading a different app. These were used by developers to artificially inflate the downloads of an app to artificially represent it higher in the appstore.

As far as I know their ranking is pretty much entirely based on how many downloads you're getting over a 7 day weighted mean. They probably fudge in usage (by looking at gamecenter stats for example) and ratings.

In short unless you do what you always have to do: make a great quality app, and present it very well, you're not going to get far.

For the cheaper quality games, its always going to be luck but I haven't really seen a superstar quality app flop that badly yet.

A lot of advice is "its luck" - well it is very much luck if your product isn't top end quality.

 

Little disappointed by this. I think this is a key part of why the price of 99c is so dominant.

 

Yes, I'm happy to sell ads, but I would never buy any!!

Yup, you are spot on - #1 is to make a great game. #2 is to market it. Being small indy devs we can't really afford to throw money at marketing. Here are some guerilla marketing tips:

- Spend time writing a good press release (http://www.gamersnexus.net/features/gg/557-writing-a-good-video-game-press-release)
- Get a PR company (e.g. http://indiedeveloperconsulting.com ) to distribute it (~$100), but also send it (+ promo codes) yourself to big sites like TouchArcade.com and 148apps.com, etc
- Make a dedicated promotional website for the game
- Make a good gameplay and promo video and add it to youtube
- Get active in the TouchArcade.com forums and add an iTunes link to your game in your signature (add it to your signature here too!)
- Lots of twittering and facebook posting (+ include links in your app so other people can post)
- Run a contest to build awareness (give out promo codes, iTunes vouchers, maybe an iPod)
- Make a Lite version of your game
- Keep updating your game with new content and features (game center, retina, levels, etc)
- Do a banner exchange with fellow indy devs ( http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/82048-Advertise-your-Android-Game-in-Crazy-Snowboard-for-Free )
- Consider making a full free version of your game supported by IAP
- Use freeappaday.com (or similar) to give your game away for a few days and get it in the hands of players who will become your promoters
- Last resort, go with a publisher to do the marketing for you.

I'm sure you guys out there have some other useful tips too!

 

Game: TITUS: politics is not a game
Release Date: June 13, 2011
Sales: 600
Units per day average: 75
Units per day: 81 (last update)
Current Price: $1,99
Last updated: Jun 21, 2011



We had good coverage from all important sites (including TouchArcade) but our game is a bit of a niche game...

 

Wisp: eiras tale
06/15 Initial release, Price 0,99 Downloads:430
06/16 Downloads: 266
06/17 Downloads: 111
06/18 Downloads: 64
06/19 Downloads: 41
06/20 Downloads: 35
06/21 Downloads: 37 Price change to 2.99
06/22 Downloads: 64

 

Updated main topic with "Wisp Eiras Tale" sales numbers and details and "TITUS: Politics is not a game" (great concept by the way!)

Keep the data coming guys, hope to be contributing to this in a month or two

 

Okay here is mine.

Gatsby Golf units per month at tier1
Dec - 38
Jan - 111
Feb - 29
March - 21
April - 88
May - 217

I will upadte it every few months why not...
June - 55
July - 130

 

I'll add some numbers to this list for a game "Dog Pile" I released a few months ago. Pretty brutal sales, considering those people that play it seem to like it and we were featured in What's Hot and New and Noteworthy and had lots of reviews. Maybe it was the name? The content? I guess we'll never know...

We also probably spend close to $1500 on ads on TouchArcade, Facebook, AdMob and BuySellAds.

Dog Pile
Release Date: April 14, 2011
Sales: (iPhone) 645 + (iPad) 327
Free: (iPhone) 5240 + (iPad) 7737
Current Price: $0.99
Units Per Day: 13

We also had IAP for all versions, but the numbers aren't worth mentioning.

 

I tested out ads on a product that sells really well on its own. The ads made absolutely no difference. I wonder if ad-buying is some giant bubble that's about to pop? Who in the world benefits for ad purchases? Selling ads, sure, that's great. Eventually people will stop buying them if they don't get any measurable result though.

 

Ads are for those that can invest enough to get some significant exposure on a widely appealing product to drive sales. I'm willing to bet that indies neither have the budget to get the required exposure nor needfully do they have a game thats that generally appealing that the views they generate are worth it.

Your own cross app advertising is always the strongest advertising though, EA didn't invest over 300M in playfish due to their games, more due to the number of users that cross advertising their iOS titles can reach "for free"

 

Personally I never click ads, but once I made a game with ads in it I was shocked at how many clicks they get. I guess some people out there click on ads. Maybe it's all on accident...? I have no idea. So building off that, I figured we may as well try some ads. After spending 2-3 months making a game, I didn't want to have any regrets that I didn't do enough to promote it for launch so we spent some cash, just in case.

But you're correct. They didn't do squat. Even the TouchArcade ad which was 75% of our total budget didn't seem to do anything, and was easier to track since it came out a month after launch. Maybe a little blip in it's first few days but nothing really obvious.

 

Wisp update again
Sales have gone up!!
Average downloads per day is now 207.
We had a big dip in the sales but then all of a sudden it went up quite nicely.

Details for last days:

 

http://overpoweredgames.com/?p=203

FishMoto sales update

 

Amazing article my friend. You should not stop developing on your spare time, it's still a great way of making your resume more interesting and learning even more the platform

I find myself doing my own game on my "almost non-existent" free time, and I've to say that I'm more exited about the project itself than on the earnings, and people who have heared about the game and have seen the concept images, just can't wait to play it and I really believe that it is an improvement on the genre and to games in general, becouse it's an interesting, never before done mix of concepts (which doesn't guarantee me anything) but even then, I'm still going to keep on, even when my estimations says that It's going to take, at least, 6 months of develoment.

I'm updating the thread right now with the new numbers. Keep it coming

 

Great article and you have understood what you did wrong. As for marketing you need to spend at least the same amount of time doing that as developing the game.

 

Wisp update again. Sales have gone down ;(

 

Do you have any idea whatsoever about those sales peaks? Have you googled your game those days to see if you've got reviewed on some iPhone game website or something like that? It's really bugging me

 

Yeah I'm curious about this, too

 

No idea what happened but we did have a few reviews that came that week so most likely it's those. Now it's gone down again though.

 

What tips do you guys have for going about getting your games reviewed? This is an amazing thread, and I hope this is the right place to ask this. I've got a game coming out really soon and I'd really love to have some reviewers take a look at it

 

If you are looking for reviews send emails to everyone you can find, There are some things to remember when doing it though. Do NOT send a bulk mail. Make them personal, you can start with a premade one and just change some small things in each one so it fits the site etc your emailing. Also for marketing if your doing it yourself, you should spend at least as much time doing marketing related things as you do developing your game.

 

Game: No, Human
Release Date: Aug 24th, 2010
Sales: 17'000
Units per day average: 53
Units per day average of last month : 8;
Current Price: $2.99 (almost all sales were at $1.99)
Last updated: Oct 18th, 2010

 

That's certainly a mistake I've made already. I've put very little time into marketing my game (although the game is very polished now because of it). I'm hoping to make up for lost time by getting in contact with reviewers now. Do people normally get in contact with them before the game is launched? And are people able to redeem promo codes even if the game isn't available yet (but has been uploaded and approved)? Thanks!

 

I'll look into getting updated information for Jimmy Pataya

 

Get in touch with them now but don't release your game yet they can still download it if they use a promo code. but DON'T send out promo codes in your first mail to them, unless it's a big site and they ask for one. Make them able to write up some stuff about your game and set a release date so they release their reviews at the same day, so it would be better for you to delay the release until they are ready also.

You could also try to get an exclusive review with some big site so they are first.

Also write a press release and use gamepress.com or if it's gamespress.com to send it out. You can just email it to them and it's free.