Don´t take it personal… we are not making the quality of your game the center of the discussion, i was pointing out that the thing that matters most is quality, if you dont have that, it does not matter how many downloads you buy.
Besides, in my opinion, the most useful information of this thread is precisely avradus1984´s message you just quoted, he is actually helping you (and all) a lot. Learn to be more receptive.
This is the game in question: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.wms.think.words
I ran campaigns in India, UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and USA.
Ok, let’s leave the quality of the game aside: it’s not a quality game and we both agree on that.
I am simply trying to point out that reaching 50 adventure in India is not a big deal and you are overestimating your achievement, an achievement earned by the number of paid installs and not by any special marketing methods you’ve used. Trust me, if you create an app that does nothing and then buy installs in India worth $80, you will get pretty much the same results.
So what you’ve achieved (#50 in India for adventure) doesn’t mean anything. In the end, all that matters is the number of downloads and the profit.
If you expect 8 more weeks to get your money back then think again! My guess is you will never earn back the money you invested in this game. You probably made no more than $10-$20 from it and you are thinking you will earn the same in the following weeks. Think again! With 30-50 downloads now you will end up with no more than 10-15 per day in 2 weeks. And with 20 daily users you will need an eternity to get your money back.
Sorry if I am being cruel! I am trying to wake you up and stop you from intoxicating this forum by posting links to this thread thinking that your advices are valuable.
“One Big Mistake*** (Not saving up enough budget to reach higher and deeper on the charts.)” > I believe this wasn’t a mistake from your part but a very good thing that happened because you would have lost the extra money. I do think that the money you invested was a reasonable amount to understand how marketing and ranking works.
Don’t get me wrong, I like your enthusiasm and I really wish you come back some day with a successful marketing story that will really help me and other users looking for ways to promote our apps.
Ok 1st you make it sound like I bragged about reaching top 50 in India. I never did I gave this advice out to help other developers learn how to reach higher rankings. I already posted the organic downloads that I got which is higher than paid installs. You say my advices are not valuable so getting to top 50 is not valuable hahaha you made my stomuch hurt with that statement. Thank you I had a hard laugh.
As far as profit I made money with games and apps the money I spent was profit from other games. This is week 3 in the 1st 2 weeks I made $30 , later on today I will find out what I made for this week. 8 weeks or maybe 12 weeks I will have made a profit. I only posted India stats , I got organic downloads from other countries too after I reached top 50 in India. I reached #219 in vietnam organically as an example. I didnt mention other countries because I wanted to stay focus and on topic.
Game quality once your in the top charts is what makes you game go higher organically once you made it to the top free section. My game was a simple game so it didn’t stick but a better made game would have climbed higher on the charts once it was visible. Let me repeat if you have a higher quality game or app it will reach higher and stay higher organically.
So basically your saying this advice is worthless I guess we have a difference of opinion then. But to me its more like experience developers don’t want new developers learning how they chart so fast. You rather me post information thats already been posted before like oh go on facebook and reddit blow up organically with super high quality downloads. Sorry I rather give developers the real deal about whats really going on in the appstores.
Thanks, game looks pretty sweet. I am from South Africa btw! How do you find the rates here?
I might be able to market my application here…
I ran campaigns with facebook for South Africa and the price was around $0.35 per install.
I see your game uses Giftiz. Did they approach you with a free promoting of your app for implementing their sdk. They did this for me recently. I implemented their sdk, but won’t get the promotion till august. I hope it’s worth it, what do you think of them?
I approached them, we worked together on my past few games.
They are responsive, easy to work with, have inventory mostly in France and Germany and they can provide around 2000 installs in the first few days.
Maybe the advice would be helpful for new developers. However, top 50 in specific game category in one country is actually not something hard to achieve, it can be done even without paid marketing. With features like in game sharing/social integration/notification, you could achieve that easily.
Yeah ok. Now for the update this is the start of the 4 week and my game is ranked #126 in category and #22 in top new free. It actually went lower in top new free but is climbing back up. The downloads are around 30-40 a day now and it should hold steady as long as I stay in top new free for adventure category.
Also downloads this past week for my other games jumped up. So in 3 weeks I have made $49 which is more than I thought I would by now. So I figure by the 8 week I should start turning over a profit . With my other games becoming more discoverable and other marketing that I have locked in, things are looking great.
Also as far as installs I have now a total of 1,917 installs
1,917 installs total
800 paid installs
1,117 organic installs
Also I got 2 reviews at 5 stars organically with last update. That means even though developers don’t like it users seem to like it , some users are enjoying it. The game has been updated 3 times, so updates are critical in keeping those who like your game. Real content updates like extra modes or theme’s not those bug fixes updates that don’t add anything to gameplay. That keeps the game on users devices longer because they are waiting for the next update!!
You’ve made $49 from this game alone since you released it?
Not directly I should have highlighted the part so you would understand better but let me explain further and in more detail. Before I released bomb attack max my other games weren’t getting much downloads after the 1st week. Now when Bomb Attack Max hit the Adventure new top free and I stared getting organic downloads , the downloads of my other apps increased 3x . So because of Bomb Attack Max my other games and apps got more downloads. Bomb attack Max alone got around $35 and the rest of my other games and apps got $14 .
But I count them all together because if it wasn’t for Bomb Attack Max , my other games would not have gotten 3x the downloads they are getting now. I have wallpapers,pop quiz, and other stuff that benefited from Bomb Attack Max blowing up a little. So Bomb Attack Max increased organic downloads of my other apps.
Here is payment proof !!
4th week and $16 made it this week.
$49
+$16
$ 65 so far so I figure in 3 more weeks I will start turning in a profit. Also for those who are interested in buying the source code PM me.
@Pixelpower wouldn’t you dissapear from the New Free chart on 9th Aug? When you do, won’t the installs per day start decreasing dramatically? So, you have only 12 days to turn in profit (If you don’t get into the Top Free chart)
No I had a look on that top new free adventure category and some of those games are way older than 30 days. The walking dead game ,minecraft wiki,etc. Squirrel Run is over a month old and is in the top 3 !! I probably will go lower on the list as I am slowly but I won’t be off the list anytime soon. Plus I have regular players so even when I am off the list I will still make AD money.
App Annie App Store Stats | Google Play Top App Charts India - Adventure (Games)
Just looked today and I am off the new free list. It’s funny because there are games older than mine that were on the list so I will have to work on figuring that out. I am ranked #103 on the main list in adventure category. So we will see what happens now.
Didn´t you spend $160-170?? (according to 2nd post)
Yes $130 +$30 for the art = $160. I made back $65 + whatever I get paid later on today. I also made $20 selling the source code which someone brought based on it being a high ranking game. I just started selling the source so I expect more sales in the future. There is more ways to generate revenue than just google play from a game or app.
Hitting the Top Lists can give you an initial download boost. you can keep spending money (and hopefully generate more money cause of organic downloads) to stay there or - and that’s important - your game is liked by the audience, so that it is shared in different other medias - actually THIS is what makes your app producing money. The Top Lists can just push you to the critical mass faster, but if the game is not “good enough” nobody will talk about it and so you end up having a small amount of organic downloads (only those will generate u money).
I just want to say, you cannot guaranty, that an app will make profit just because you market it (as long as you do not have som 100k budget) - it mostly depends on the game itself and if ppl like it or not.
Also important: You can have the best game ever … if noone knows about it, you will not make money neither 
So there is always a bit of balance