This is not an income report and also will not fit well on my website, that’s why I wanted to share some of “starting wormpuncher” because it is some sort of experiment for me also. I am still a newbie
For the first, Worm Puncher was not a 1-day project, I may write an article for “creating worm puncher” in the future, but currently I am low on time (like always g)
This “diary” is for the purpose to get a look in what to expect when starting with a new game.
I spent a reasonable amount with creating marketing graphics like the Functional Image and the Icon of the app. I also added the google play marketing graphics, even when I do not know its actual (practical) purpose…
The next thing I did was some basic marketing. Announcing the new game in some forums.
I also started to create facebook fanpage and website project page in advance - I did not promote anything of it. You may go ahead and invite everyone you know to these groups … personally I don’t like to invite everyone I know xD
Sooo - while the above was also true for Robo Miner (I did promote that on more forums) Worm Puncher lacked the expected downloads.
My conclusion for that is the same, why admob currently lacks a good CPC and also Robo Miner has dropped in revenue … holidays. Summer Break concerns the whole industrial world as well as kids and their parents.
If I am right with that than that means, that the beginning of July is the worst time to release a new app/game xD
Also phones currently does not work outside in the sun
I also looked out at steam and recognized that there were no big releases - so maybe the big ones already know that summer is a bad month for release because userbase just has different goals (being outside or drunk, haha)
Curious about your opinions!
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and there we go… because for simplicity I used only(!) google play as store and only(!) admob for advertising.
Because the gameplay itself does last for ~30 seconds in a row, I decided to set the auto refresh to 30 seconds. As a bonus, admob gives me some sort of in-time evaluating about current usage by looking at impression count.
The impression count started low (and is still low) but there is an uptrend in it, so yes, it does get popular without any work - but very very slowly
I also was concerned about the CTR but today the CTR is over 4% … indeed, I am not sure if that is good or bad, I do not find, that the placement is intrusive in any way (bottom screen, always visible)
I followed the advice of user “mind” to place the ad near the location of interesting (changing) areas. In worm puncher that’s the time left - it is located at the bottom.
The reason is to get more attention of the user near the ad, maybe that works better, than I’ve expected! If this CTR is staying like that I will also update the placement in some other games of mine.
In concerns of the CPC Wormpuncher (0.02) is currently 1 ct less than robo miner (0.03) in the same period of time. Which is very interesting because it means, that there IS some sort influance from the app
By the way I have invested an unexpected high amount of time into getting scoreloop into wormpuncher - first time I’ve worked with them. There are many features of scoreloop which I want to include in the game. Like Challenges and Awards.
Unfortunately Awards (Archievements) does trigger some sort of virtual currency gain and with challenges you can spend those currency to do some sort of betting who is better.
I am not completely sure about it, but I think I could add this virtual currency with no other use than being able to make challenges with other users. Like in poker where you play for coins which are needed to play against other players … hopefully you can follow me. But as I told … I am not sure if I will do it that way mAybe I find the one or other additional reason for “coins” …