My story thus far (3 apps, 1 dollar earned) - What should I do?

Android Income Reports
21

Hey man, nice results, interesting to read, happy for you! I have pretty similar story with my game, it is already 2 months on the play store, but income is not good for me. What is your opinion, if I do some work on it, can I get something? I thought that if you don’t get popularity in the first month in “top new”, than you can’t get popularity in the future. My game is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.electricfoal.crystalriddle
Thanks for help, good luck to you!

22

5,000 - 10,000 installs is good- I have similar results. I have around 3400 active installs arm for all my games (3 games total). Maybe show more ads? :slight_smile:
Did you google translate your descriptions to many languages/upload to many stores?

23

I show ads only on exit, maybe should change this behaviour. I translated to ~8 languages, but than I got strange keywords in USA (according to appannie). Maybe I misunderstood something and translating can do the trick. Now I am thinking about new game on libgdx, which gives me cross-platform or upgrading and promoting this one. If your income is increasing, than it is possible to get something even after first month? Interesting, but hard business btw :slight_smile:

24

Ahh there’s your issue - good places for interstitial (full screen) ads are after the game over/next level screen appears (don’t place them during the actual gameplay). Also you have a lot of space at the top - maybe a banner ad there.

A lesson I learnt: find similar games that have many downloads/are very popular, and see what they are doing. How are they doing the screenshots, what sorts of graphics do they have, what name/description do they have, where are they placing their ads, is there any other monetization, etc - don’t be inventive or reinvent the wheel when there are already countless people who are making the big $$, who one can just try to emulate - once you are making the $$$ and have hired indians/chinese/malaysians/etc (I have heard there the cost of living is low, so even 400$ is considered a good salary for a unity3d programmer) to do the next similar/reskinned games, then one can begin to experiment and create new/unique stuff (I am still nowhere near that stage)

EDIT: Had a look at your game’s page again - you’re from Odessa? I’m from Kiev (but moved to lithuania a few months back) :slight_smile: small world

25

When I launched it - I had interstitials after every 4th level, user session was 2min, I removed interstitials between levels and now sessions are 6-7 mins. Also I already have banner at the bottom. We need more players, than ads will bring some money I think, but it’s hard to promote now, because of huge competition.

26

Yes, before making an app one should search for similar apps and scroll down and down the list of apps. If the new apps are getting 50-100 downloads per year (and the apps themselves are of decent quality), then there is no sense in making such an app - the research has already been done for you by those who submitted those apps. On the other hand, there is also a HUGE amount of users and app stores, and the trick is finding which types of apps have high traffic and not too much competition. For instance, pony/unicorn games (such as the ones I made) have a lot of competition, but even if you scroll down many pages those apps are still getting very many downloads since there are so many people furiously searching for pony apps.

27

yep, finding your own niche makes things good for us, indies. Still don’t know, is it possible to make this as primary income source, daily regular job is boring :slight_smile:

28

Well, this is what I’m currently trying to do :slight_smile: I think there are some steps:

  1. Job
  2. Job + some small income from apps - I’m here
  3. Job + a Lot of income from apps (more than one’s salary)
  4. Income just from apps as a solo entrepreneur
  5. Hire people to do the routine/mundane stuff such as programming/art/testing/uploading
  6. Hire managers (so you aren’t in the office 24/7 worrying about whether or not that Icon looks good or not)
  7. Enjoy skydiving, travel to distant lands
29

Sound nice :slight_smile: The question is how long mobile market will exist, maybe it’s better to aim for larger market. Because when I’ll get to the step 7, what if google play will explode or something like this

30

Well,say in 1 year everyone throws away their mobile phones cause some new product is better - sure, you will have to adapt but the skills that you will have by then will help you. Furthermore - I currently work as a Unity3d developer for making mobile games - if that market explodes, my job is gone anyway.
Larger Market? Everyone and their grandma is getting a mobile phone/tablet these days- that’s like saying “selling food isn’t profitable, I need a larger market” - the only issue is competition/finding a profitable location. If you have a company, you can invest in research into other fields- what if everyone will be using VR/ the Oculus Rift - with enough income from mobile apps, one could devote a few people to make content specifically for that.
Also, there is still a market for typewriters.

31

yeah, with programming skills it is easy to find a job nowadays. btw, oculus is very interesting, I was impressed by this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db-7J5OaSag

EDIT: только что прочитал, что ты из Киева :slight_smile: мир тесен, я из Одессы

32

You can make some decent revenue with App-Brain

33

Just wanted to say congrats! How does your income look this month?

34

Thanks sofafountan! This month admob = $192.39 (improvement from the previous month)
Just released a new game yesterday - “Hamster Run: 3D Dash” - it’s similar to the other games but with a hamster :slight_smile:
I’ve decided to ditch chartboost for my new games since it doesn’t bring much at all
Will update my new game later (add more levels, and other cool stuff :slight_smile: )
I’ve also finally submitted the document to register as a sole entrepreneur so I can finally receive the money & pay taxes

35

Days gone when publish a app/game and money will start pouring.

these days publishing a app is just 20% of whole process.
rest 80% is advertisement and research.
search forum thread for results.
hope it helps

36

I`m also new at this mobile developing. How did you manage marketing/advertising? Did you spend any on it?

37

Love your story !!!
can you explain your marketing for get thoses Downloads numbers ?

38

Sure!

  1. Find and make a game similar to already popular games without too much competition
  2. make sure you don’t have 100’s of similar competing apps - scroll down, down, down in search - do you see similar apps to what you are planning with 50-100 downloads? If so, go to #1. You will be there at the bottom as well.
  3. When publishing, look at the icons/screenshots of competing apps - when designing an icon, I find it is helpful to take a screenshot of the google play search results and paste your icon there as a preview- if it looks plain/bad/not “outstanding” when compared to the surrounding apps, improve it till it is as good.
  4. look at descriptions of similar popular apps and use similar words/style.
  5. google-translate your descriptions to 20-30 languages (for search results this is very good, of course, the translation itself will suck)
  6. publish a few updates, separated by 1-2 weeks
39

Thanks for the Tips ! Very helpful

:cool:

40

What do updates consist of (e.g. new APK upload, alter description, alter screenshots)? It can be much simpler to just change the description but I’m not sure if google counts that as an actual update.