Maintaining revenue

Hello, I am new young game developer, recently published my first game/app ever (4 weeks ago) it is a high quality game.

Currently having 1.600.000 downloads (67% active) and 150-200k daily installs.

My current daily revenue is above: $removed

(banner, interstitials + rarely video interstitials, generally my ads are rather not intrusive)

I am really high in top free charts, in few European countries even first, also quite high in top free overall categories, but obviously here is my concern…

One month in the market is slowly passing, so obviously I will notice drop in all statistics, I would like to ask some questions, how to maintain stable revenue stream (obviously expecting such amounts is rather not practical, but still some tips might be useful)

Cheers.

your game construction city is unique. Upload 1-2 variants. Follow what Rovio/Diseny is doing. Read some appreneur book (one I can recommend is by Chad Mureta)

One way is obviously to rotate money back into advertising of your game and gain more downloads. With the numbers you got, you will only fall out of “top new free” lists but will remain in “top free” list if that is where you positioned yourself already.

I wouldn’t upload more variants if I were you - you will be competing with yourself then and your current game might drop in the lists. When you have such popular game it isn’t in my opinion worth it. That opinion is based on a fact that most good earners here earn most of their revenue from one or two games only.

I think I just will need to wait till they will kick me out from top new categories, and see how big impact it will generace (negative obviously) and based on conclusions, will need to make proper moves, thanks for responses by the way.

Maybe some time later issue an “App 2” - or a variant of your app with new theme etc. That seems to be a common way - sure this won’t happen every month (to keep one of your apps in top new free) but it gives you ability to keep your game “fresh” perhaps (I am assuming Google has some method which makes stagnant apps slowly fade away - or perhaps from the pressure of new apps coming up all the time).

This earlier (2009) set of responses:
iphone - What are your experiences selling on the Android Market? - Stack Overflow

suggest that apps which were doing great slowly slide - now this was 2009 and people are saying they slid out out top lists over time and revenue dropping - however current Google Play maybe different. I have seen apps in various sub-categories seem to retain their position. So Google DOES seem to value the “maturity” of an app as well (which maybe one of the things they may have discussed internally - how to ensure that strong developers continue to get revenue to justify long-term commitment).

For games (as opposed to utility apps etc. which may have better value with time as they become well known - like Titanium Backup etc.) - for games there maybe more attrition as they have to share in new downloads - plus games tend to target a user base which is seeking novelty - so I suspect with games there maybe a pressure to keep updating the app. Would be interesting to know how your app proceeds and how/if-any attrition is seen over months.

Thanks for sharing.

I always update adding new levels when I see a game stagnating. Sometimes works wonders.

If possible, I would focus on adding more content to said game. The first Angry birds game only featured 100 levels or so. They built and built upon that as their success blossomed and today there are almost countless levels across the series.

Naturally I don’t just mean ‘add more levels’, but maybe introduce alternate game modes or new features that extend the lifetime of the game for users. You more loyal ones will soak the content up greatly.

Add some IAP to your game.

I was thinking about adding IAP, but failed with ideas before publishing my first game, though in sequel I will do it for sure, as its another great stream of revenue.

I would add more levels once or twice and then move to the next hit. You clearly got what it takes to make awesome games, and could reinvest some of the earnings to promote your next game.
Congratulations :slight_smile:

Yes without sequels developers are loosing out on the niche created by first version (specially games). I think Temple Run 2 has brought more downloads than Temple Run. Poor Fruit Ninja didn’t had any sequel and hence is dying out.
Temple Run: 50,000,000 - 100,000,000
Temple Run 2: 100,000,000 - 500,000,000

Do check the market regularly because first hand research is the best.

The game looks really good man, congrats. My new game just expired from the top new free category about a week ago, but I’m still top 300 in the “top free” games and I’m not getting anywhere near those download numbers and my game has a 4.53 average rating. It was #6 in the brain & puzzle category at one point, but I make more money from Kindle Fire paid sales on amazon than I do from advertising on GP. I must be doing something wrong, anybody have any tips? What is the best bang-for-your-buck with generating more downloads of a quality game? What types of advertising actually work for promoting games?

Congrats! It is awesome when your first game is a hit!!!

As someone who went though this sort of thing over a year ago… there is no way to keep an app up there. EVENTUALLY it will fall. Even Angry Birds did. So will Candy Crush…

You need to plan for it. Figure out your next game and put revenues towards developing that. On average, 1 in 4 games is a hit. Plan on that!

Having said that… the ‘long tail’ effect means you will continue to get revenue for a long time…

In first 2 weeks my avarage rating was 4.86, but since my game appeared really high in categories in Poland (my country) I was flooded with bad ratings from polish people (most of then knew I was polish) flaming me because of lack of polish language - like “what a shame, app is good but you are not supporting own country” (lol) most of my 1 * rating actually comes from Poland :slight_smile:

Typical Polish. :smiley: We like complaining and picking holes.

May i ask you how much did you spent on initial promotion of your game? Did you used AppBrain? For those kind of figures i assume a lot

No money involved in promotion, as it was to dangerous for me as its my first game, and since I am 19 years old, I am not suitable person to spend thousands on advertisement.

Congrats Matthew! These downloads and income are well deserved. I tried out the game and i am hooked. :slight_smile:

So i have a couple of question for you if you dont mind. Seeing this as your first app it really is doing superb. This means you were doing something right on the marketing side. I have seen so many good and polished games out there that only have few thousand downloads. So if you did not invest money on marketing then how did you spread the word about your game. Was it only forums and review sites or did you just uploaded it without marketing and it just exploded? Also curious about your first days. Were they low or did you see high download rate from the start.

Again congrats on doing so great! I gave you 5 stars.

Great game, congrats Matthew :slight_smile:

Had seen it a while ago (when you released it I think) on AndEngine forum.

Best luck