How much are you earning from reskinned apps/games?

I am considering the idea of buying finished apps/games, re-skinning them and posting them to Google Play, but I am not sure if that would be worth my time. Obviously there are a lot of variables, but I am trying to figure out approximately how much can I expect to earn for each reskinned app.

you can get a ban for repetitive content

Oh, I thought I could only get in trouble for that if I copy some of the big apps - angry birds or something. :eek:

Nope man, sorry. There is info about it in policy. I got baned for repetitive content few times…:frowning:

If your apps got banned a few times that would = a suspended developer account, has yours been banned and have you created a new one?

of course…

Have you successfully created a new developer account without being tracked? could you share some tips on Google not finding out about the second dev account?

There is plenty of information on this subject in the forum. Use the search.

App re-skinnig days are over. I have an acc with 5 re-skinned apps and it’s going nowhere. It’s the same for other people I know who released re-skinned apps. Even that Carter guy who sells source code (he started when this was very hot) for iOS got flamed by his buyers that they can’t make any money. So he released a new 2.5k or 5k USD (can’t remember exactly how much) course on how to market your apps, heh. :slight_smile: He’s not making any money from apps for a long, long time now, only by selling courses.

Sorry, but that’s the new reality.

It is really depends, it was too early to conclude app reskinning days are over. There are still many apps in top 100 chart are reskinned app.

I agree, but mostly there is one original, and 3 or so re-skinned “clones”, that are doing good. However, 100s or 1000s never get discovered or make money for the publisher. And those on the charts use heavy marketing - either white hat (extremely expensive) or black hat (very risky).

What was the content that you repeated ?

Guys reskinning is not dead. Its the keywords in title and description that make your app discoverable. Look at apps by Dexati in play store

Its hard for apps that are not unique to become a hit. But even if there are apps in the category if you innovate with your app, you will get users.

I just took a look at Dexati and I’m surprised to see so many installs even for the most generic apps. For these apps there is a pretty large number of 1-star ratings.

Could Dexati just spend a ton on marketing and people who download through their ads decide they didn’t like it after all? Any other theories could be quite interesting. :slight_smile:

Looking at them they are 4 year old apps.

The guy Dexati has another account named AndUtil. Every week 2-3 apps and games from these account reach top new category mainly because of cross promotion from older established apps. But the reskinned games I was mentioning include the “Unicorn Run”,“Angry Granny Run” and many other run games under dexati account. Same applies to talking cat, dog, elephant apps in that account.

Best example for reskins is outfit7 (https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Outfit7)

After Talking Tom, They made multiple apps that are in same model but picked up because of talking tom.

The reason they are successful is because they have one success and people follow them. Once you have couple of successful apps, you can develop more apps that will be successful.

If you see Candy Crush (https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=King) they follow same model.

After Candy Crush all their games are reskins (with more effort). These are Billion $ companies.

Who ever says Re-Skinning days are over might as well say that the days of iOS and Android APPs are over, which won’t be anytime soon as they are getting stronger each day. Yes there are many new, unique, Apps, but also there are many new and very much liked ReSkins. Why? simple, developers are still developing new apps and selling the source code. The day regulation is put on selling source code will be when reskins are over, and I don’t see that ever happening. How can it? If you want to sell a license to your source code, go for it, nothing can stop you.

chrisdaniel - you are right, even top developers are creating reskins of their own apps, especially Candy Crush. Change graphics, modify code a bit by changing features and layout, but retain the same overall feel and design of the application, and BOOM, you have another reskin that is making dough.

If the reskin is unique and people like it, you might as well call it a NEW app altogether, not a reskin (just sparked an argument :open_mouth: ). Your retaining the same feel and design (source code), but you are reaching different audiences, different niche markets. How many games are out there like Clash of Clans? hundreds. Many many developers are creating clash of clan like games and making money. In fact Clash of Clans was by no means the first. Basically we can call those a reskins? yeah source code is different (so really not a reskin I know) but lets face it the games have the same idea, same purpose, same layout to a point, heck even some of the buildings look similar so basically personally I call those nothing more then a highly modified source code reskin :slight_smile:

I know I am going to get blessed out for these opinions but one of my pet peeves are people who set out to discourage everyone. NOBODY makes it big unless they first try and don’t give up. Many don’t make it but those that do their best, give it their all, generally make it. Just when someone is telling you not to do something you won’t make any money from it, there are others who are doing that same thing at that very moment and succeeding.