Flickitty: Real World Part I Flickitty: Real World Part II This will be the last part. Flickitty remained Free throughout the entire day of Nov 28th, and reverted back to the original price of $0.99 at midnight. Worldwide, we had 8418 FREE downloads over a 24 hour period. 2692 of those downloads were from the USA. So how are these numbers significant? Overall we saw about 1000+ more downloads than the previous day, but the USA actually DROPPED. Recently, the USA accounts for HALF of all worldwide downloads for both the free and full versions. We had started to peak and plateau. This morning Flickitty appeared at about #193 in Top Paid Adventure. It is unlikely that it will rise, as Flickitty has pretty much exhausted its potential and doesn't have the standings, news nor reviews to bring it out. So how does Flickitty fair over all? Here are some serious numbers. Flickitty Free has 118,953 downloads worldwide, with 22,088 coming from the USA. Look at the second number really hard- we would be lucky to sell 2,208 copies in the USA which is only a 10% conversion. BEFORE the 3 day free promotion, Flickitty had 6,415 purchases worldwide with 4,320 from the USA Yes, after a month of release, Flickitty has sold a total of 4,320 copies in the USA, which amounts to about $3,024 to be shared between Dan East and I. On the positive side, we have about a 19% conversion from free to full. If numbers hold true, we would need about 511,000 USA downloads of the free version in order to get 100,000 USA purchases. We are nowhere near that mark. After the 3 day free promotion, we have 24,246 worldwide downloads, with 11,720 coming from the USA So was this 3 day promotion worthwhile, or was it App Store suicide?
Wow, this was a really interesting read. Thanks so much for sharing the info! It will be interesting to see what your numbers for paid are now. BTW, what were your numbers at before the FREE promo? Were they already low? I picked up the FREE version (thanks!) during your promo and will let you know my thoughts on them. I'll try and be concrete, since I know what you mean about the importance of getting tangible feedback! BTW, what is the diff between Flickitty Free and the full version?
I would like to see the numbers for the paid now too. I really wanna know if it was a good move. =) And thx again to share with us!
Are you happy with 4 times the number of players for your game? If not, you can probably wait a week and then drop the price to free again for another similar amount of downloads. This is what I have found with my games. What would your ideal outcome have been?
Our numbers were already dipping way too low. We had a problem about a two weeks before where our apps completely fell out of the store for an entire day and didn't recover. We need an average of 100 daily USA sales in order to sustain. Just before the 3 day free promotion, we had about 40 (maybe 50?) USA purchases. Over a 30 day period, we have seen an average of 144 USA purchases per day. The most we have seen is 596 purchases in the USA on a single day. These are the differences between the full and free versions as listed in the App Store: Flickitty Free Features: - 1 map (5+ in Full version) - 1 gravity type (3 in Full version) - 3 different tasks (19 in Full version) - 3 hats to collect (20+ in Full Version) The 1.05 update will be substantial and completely changes the entire game. It also includes an in-game map editor. But we won't count the changes for 1.05 at this time. I really don't think our problem is with Flickitty Free- we are seeing a 19% conversion to the full version. I'm happy that we were able to increase our user base. At this point, it is unlikely that we will see any more sales of Flickitty- I think we have exhausted our immediate resources. My ideal outcome would be to sustain 100 USA downloads a day. At that point I can continue to update Flickitty and work on other games. However, I won't be truly happy until we have 100,000+ players, regardless of actual sales. If we had 100,000+ players and I STILL only sold 100 copies a day, I'd be happy.
Looks like there is a problem with Flickitty's visibility. Perhaps small frequent updates ( couple of hats or quests) can bring the game to the "Recent Releases" section in appstore from time to time thus increasing the visibility of the game. It seems that with avalanche of new releases every day the game has a short window in which to capture the market. Otherwise it disappears into obscurity unless it drops in price or gets an update. Just underlines how important marketing is. Good luck guys.
Unfortunately the App Store has changed, and an update will no longer bring Flickitty into Recent Release status. We plan to keep releasing updates with new content and hats. However we can't keep doing it for free. We'll see how things go with the 1.05 update.
thankyou for sharing your info... do let us know how the sales are in subsequent weeks? I think this is good as it will give you more WORD_OF_MOUTH advertisement. Good luck friend
Sales resumed right where they left off, so the promotion has had a null effect so far. Sundays and Mondays are slow days anyway, but one would have expected at least a little boost. I'm extremely happy with what I learned through this process, and I am working on different ideas for the business side.
Hey thats total of 24K people that could potentially get an update which contains DLC unlockables Direct marketing right there!
Nice reading, you did a good job with this game. You now that you use the same music that i had selected for my upcoming game "somethin' weasel". Anyway keep posting this info, is really worthy.
i think it managed to be an unintended success as promotions go! the thread had its drama and that held it on the TA front page for a good couple of days. every now and then, maybe weeks down the line, you get a another reply to bump it up. many folk who nab a freebie like this may have been on the fence. hopefully some will post a positive review on the appstore and the sales still trickle thru. the figures you quote for total sales may not blow you away, but it represents a decent interest in a curious and awesome lookin game. remember tinman games quoting sales figures from one of their games, equally superb but had a total of about 12 sales. think this business is very hit n miss. people should be making games for experience and fun. if it turns into your bread and butter than thats a bonus.
Acidbottle, i agree with you, but i would add "making games for experience and fun and profits" the classic phrase: "doing ___ for fun and profits". If indie developers can make money, the quality of the games will improve over time. If not... well the quality will be pretty bad, and the smaller players will die.
This is great experience and it is fun; I am amazed that I can even make any money at all doing this. I'm used to working this way- my revenue streams come from various sources throughout the year. So it isn't like a quit my job to do this and I certainly didn't expect to get rich quick. As long as I own the copyright and rights to Flickitty, I can pretty much do whatever I want. I could take him to another platform or even work on a PC/Mac game. So I have intellectual property that holds some value. Scheming Weasel is such a great little song, I'd love to see how it works in your game. We used the faster version. Kevin MacLeod has such a huge library of music it was very hard to choose.
Haha actually, you're using the same music I used for Alphabet Blocks too. Yeah Kevin MacLeod's music is wonderful. I've used hist stuff for all 3 games I've released now.
