I was wondering if some devs with AppStore experience could discuss average sales made on their iPhone games? Nothing too specific, just a general average based on experience. For all questions below, let's assume "the game" that is referred to is a nicely polished game like Zombieville. For example, we all know that a largely successful game can sell a million plus copies, but what about a game that isn't incredibly successful? What if your game is a complete flop? Approx. how many copies can you expect to sell? With all the iPhone/iPod Touch owners browsing the AppStore, I would think it would be difficult for a game to sell fewer than 2,000-3,000 copies (unless it looks horrible or has a bad review average). How close to or far from the truth am I on that? Would an app that sells ~5,000 copies be considered a failure? A marginal success? If a dev had to pay licensing fees or had to invest $1,000 or $2,000 or even $3,000 into their game (for whatever reason), would that be a huge risk? If you made a polished and fun game, with clean graphics/animation that was well received by reviewers, how confident would you be that you would make your money back or turn a profit? Sorry for the long-winded post, this is just a topic that I've been interested in since the dawn of the AppStore
Somewhere between 0 and a million. Really, it varies so much from game to game, there's no way you can say "You can expect to earn x dollars." Lots of games earn little or nothing. Some of those are nicely polished. It all just depends. It's actually very easy, in fact typical, to sell fewer than 2-3 thousand. I guess you could say that's what you should expect, but you never know. My sales apparently put me in the top 3% (I think 5K sales would be in the top 5%), but I never would have predicted that. How well a game is reviewed has little bearing on sales. --Eric
Quite a bit less than 2000 is pretty normal, actually. Unless you get reviewed here or featured by apple, expect to sell a few hundred copies.
My game, Tides of War, sold about 500 copies with a 3-3.5 star rating. I didn't do a whole lot of advertising, it was never featured anywhere, and it probably could have used a bit more polish. Game launched at .99 and stayed there. I think my figure is probably average for a lot of games that don't hit it big. Because of how Apple pays you (must get over 250 sales in each territory to get any money from that territory), I only ever got paid for the US, which gave me like $190 (after Apple tax). Not really worth it in terms of money, but it was a fun project.
You could try searching on google for iphone game sales. This is a good source of data points to start. http://cavalcadegames.com/blog/iphone/epic-iphone-app-stats-roundup-1st-half-09/
$2 a day on average, trending towards $0 per day the last month or so. I've sold about $300 worth since February. Monthly updates are the only exposure I get that drives sales, but even then it's only 25-30 copies in the few days around an update - and that window of sales is getting smaller each month, because the volume of app submissions is just out of control. Once I get bumped off that recent releases front page, I cease to exist. Also, people avoid my game like the plague Damaged goods I guess.
also, apple has started alphabetizing the new release list, so unless your game starts with the letter a it never appears at the top of the list, and can actually start on the second or third page now.
It depends on what you're expecting to get out of it, and how well your previous apps did. I'd imagine 95% of the devs would kill for 5,000 copies, but the other 5% would consider it a complete and utter failure to sell so few.
There was a talk on iPhone game sales stats at the GDC (think it was one of the independent game festival talks). They mentioned the same numbers: 95% of the games stay below 5000 downloads (or was it even 5000$?). With Radio Flare we barely made it above 5000 (but we did), though we got featured, reviewed, nominated for the IGF etc. OTOH it's still selling. It's too early to say anything about Zombies vs. Sheep. But I have to agree: It is very hard to predict sales. You possibly shouldn't rely to much on the sales of a single title. At least that's what we're aiming for.
Exactly. Anyone with the plan of retiring on one app is going to be very disappointed. I only expect an app to sell for two months, and then assume its days are over. Luckily, I've gone past that mark on all my apps so far, but I'm still going in with that assumption on new apps.
I doubt that. The guys at Apple aren't total blockheads. While I agree that sales are mostly unpredictable, it's a good idea to generate as much momentum as possible at release. Just make sure at least some people know your game is out there. Maybe post some pre-release screenshots. Become as involved as possible with your app. After you've done all that, all you can do is wait. I guess I'll know a little more once I release my game, which could be anywhere between 2-6 months
Pop open the new list on your iPhone and see for yourself. Each day's list of apps is listed in alphabetical order. Yes, they really are that block-headed. Simply renaming one of my apps caused it to pop to the top of that list.
What he meant was that Apple alphabetizes all the apps that are released on a particular day. So for today, you may have an alphabetized list of 25 apps in a category, followed by yesterday's list of apps, and so on. It's been that way for many months now.
The app store generates a self-sustaining group of hugely visible hits that have a lot of inertia. The flip site is that you'll be lucky to sell 10 copies a day for a game that isn't on any of Apple's "top" lists. The vast majority of released games don't even sell 500 copies. Once you've missed that initial window of opportunity, you're pretty much limited to word of mouth and keyword searches. Some advice (do what I say, not what I've done - come out of the gate with as good an initial release as possible. Your first day sales, if you're not lucky, will be your largest single-day sales, so make the most of it. - don't wait until after your game comes out to promote it - make sure that your icon and screenshots are as attractive as possible; if you're aiming for mass appeal, people are fixated on graphics. Sound/music is nice, but people browsing your app in the app store won't hear it. - Most people only bother submitting reviews when deleting apps, so don't depend on user reviews to generate buzz. - use keywords that users might actually search for in your game title - time your release during a lull Keep in mind that the top lists are based on a floating window of downloads, not total downloads. And don't get tripped up by Apple's popularity metrics - free apps are rated on a different scale than non-free apps. Here's a quick snapshot of my relative (US) popularity for my apps that are available now: Evergreen games (i.e. popular card and board games), done well, can have a long shelf life. Unlike the typical console-style game, these aren't titles people buy, win, and discard. Evergreen games have a built-in audience, and you can carve out a niche if your game has something special, even in a crowded market. For better or worse, Card Shark Solitaire Deluxe sells better than all my other titles combined, around 100 buys a day. Hurdler is a really fun title with simple stylized graphics that has a new life thanks to Apple deciding to feature it in their "What we're Playing" section on itunes. Sniper Vs. Pirates is a quirky little action-packed microgaming title with distinctive graphics that people stumble across while searching for other games. Xiangqi (a chess variant) doesn't sell particularly well in the US store, but does well overseas. Karate Fighter (a Kung Fu Master remake) continues to sell 1-10 copies a day despite drifting off the top 25 lists some time ago.
How well does the development cost of the app correlate with the "successful 5%" I wonder? Sure there have been the runaway hits (with relatively low development costs) from indie devs, but those are extremely rare. For the remaining apps that are in that 5%, I'm willing to bet that they are from a big name company that has the financial clout to invest heavily in polished graphics and sound. I wonder what the average app in the top 5% cost to develop? Then again, the top 5% doesn't necessarily mean one of the apps in the top 10 list. Some of the $9.99 titles from companies like EA have probably netted them far more money (as opposed to total downloads) than the titles that move in an out of the top 10 list while on sale at 99 cents.
I'm well within the top 5%, and my games were ultra cheap. Currently, iPhone development is not my day job. I spent about $750 on my first game, including the cost of a Mac Mini, and $600 on my second, for sound/music. There are a lot of small time devs in the top 5% doing this on the side. Now of course, if this were our day jobs, the price would go up, as we'd have to count our time. So if we go that route, my first game cost about $20,000 (lots of time to learn Obj C, iPhone junk, etc.), and my second cost about $5,000.
Yeah, but you're one of those extreme rare cases If I remember correctly TanZen and Zentomino each made more than most people's annual salary. Throw some of that luck my way! That's not to say your games aren't great though....they're amazing. Plus you have great contests, hehe. But if I didn't know any better, I would have guessed those games were made for a niche market, and never would have thought they'd be as successful as they have become.
*chucking some luck at ya* Nah, I think it's rare for the other 95%, but in the 5% category, I think there are quite a few "three people or less" teams that have made a lot of money. Those big name games cost a lot to make, and can have a hard time breaking even. Hitting it big takes a certain amount of luck. However, you can dramatically increase your odds by having a quality app, with solid graphics, and the ability to market yourself on a budget. Thanks! My games are definitely not for everyone, although they do fit nicely with the casual gaming audience, which happens to be quite large. I'd say at least 50% of the top 100 games are casual games. But yes, I didn't think the first one would make any money. But then again, I was making it before the store opened, so nobody had any clue about anything back then.
App Sales vs Dev Effort There's probably a weak correlation but as others have noted, most apps sell very few copies regardless of the effort put into them. This is because App Store sales are distributed according to a power law distribution, while development effort more likely follows a normal distribution. To put this in concrete terms, say a hit app sells a million copies, which means about 1000x as many as the typical app. Do you think it took 1000x more time and effort to create? Probably not. The reason sales follow a power law is that the vast majority of sales come from the top lists, and the main criteria for getting on the top list is sales, creating a feedback loop. If Apple randomized the lists, sales would be more evenly distributed but they would have fewer 'rags-to-riches' examples to generate free publicity and entice new developers.
