The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty)
I will freely admit, I’ve been avoiding writing this article. In fact, as I type this, I’m still not sure that it’s something that I want to do. However, again, I come back to that damn promise I made when I started this whole thing about being open and honest. Curse me and my big mouth! I also stated just over a week ago that I would write up on my numbers, so now I stand (sit typing) before you to reveal “The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty)”.
Dapple
If you’ve been reading the blog then you know that I released my first iPhone game, Dapple, to the App Store on Feb 13, 2009. The game sells for $4.99 in Canada and the U.S. and at corresponding prices throughout the world.
Dapple is a colour-matching puzzle game based around the idea of mixing paint colours to make new colours. I feel like the gameplay is innovative and new, but rests on top of a solidly proven genre. Critical reviews seem to support this hypothesis, many calling out the fact that they were expecting “just another match-3 game”, but instead found themselves completely hooked on a game with an innovative gameplay mechanic that works.
Costs
I did a presentation for the 360|iDev conference on creating an iPhone game. If you’ve read it, then you’ve seen my “conclusions” section that had some numbers. Dapple took me about 6 months to make and had a budget of roughly $32,000 USD. That budget includes: paying my contractors, business expenses incurred during the 6 months of development, and paying myself a very small salary (akin to what I made as a junior front-end programmer when I first started in the industry).
Royalties
Apple’s deal is this: for every sale, Apple keeps 30% and you get 70%. So for a sale of $4.99, I make $3.50. That’s made in the currency where the app was sold, so I make more money when someone from the U.S. buys my game than someone from Canada. If you’re in Canada, it’s actually cheaper for you to buy the game than for an American, since it only costs your $4.99 Canadian.
If you do the math, you can see that I need to sell about 9,150 units in the U.S. before I break even on Dapple.
Reviews
Again, if you’ve been reading the blog then you’ve seen the excellent reviews the game has been getting. People who play the game tend to really enjoy it. Every review I’ve had so far has been extremely positive. I even managed to get a review from Kotaku, which is a very large gaming blog. It was the Kotaku review that led many people to start asking me about sales numbers, assuming that I must have seen a massive increase in sales.
However, I haven’t had reviews yet from any of the “Big 3″ iPhone review sites (Touch Arcade, 148Apps, and AppVee). Those are the ones that I think might really affect sales.
Sales Data
This is what you’re here for: the numbers. Here’s a graph (done in AppViz) of revenue (the y-axis is dollars, not number of sales) I’ve made world-wide from sales of Dapple since it went live (all funds in Canadian Dollars):
Dapple Revenue Graph
I’ve marked four important data points:
First Sale – This was the first sale of the game, made maybe an hour after the game went live. I suspect this was purchased by an app cracker. Dapple was cracked and uploaded to pirate sites less than 5 hours after it went live. This was the only sale prior to that. So thanks, Mr./Mrs. Cracker, you were my first sale! On the topic of pirating/cracking: I have no idea how many pirated copies of Dapple are being played right now. I don’t track metrics like that, although I should perhaps start.
Launch Day – This was the first day Dapple was on sale. Many of these purchases would have been friends of mine buying the game. Many other sales will have come from my app being in the “New” apps list, as other devs tell me that appearing in any list on the App Store helps sales significantly. By the end of the third day my app wasn’t on the front page of newly released puzzle or family games anymore.
Kotaku Review – This was the day that the Kotaku review went live. The review had about 5,500 views on Kotaku.com (not including RSS readers). I had about 55 people click through to my website. I had about 12 sales that I can attribute to the Kotaku review. So a high profile review like one on Kotaku resulted in a ~0.3% conversion rate. Still, that’s 12 sales I probably wouldn’t have had, otherwise, so hooray!
360iDev Presentation – This was completely unexpected. I had a lot of people come up to me after my presentation and tell me that they had bought a copy of Dapple! I was thrilled that people were so supportive. The iPhone developer community really is an amazing and wonderful group of people. I really appreciate the fact that so many people bought my game. Thank you!
Overall Sales Data
Dapple has sold 131 copies worldwide in the 24 days since it launched. I realise that I’m dealing with a very limited amount of data here, so I’m not going to pretend like I can make any kind of long term projections about how sales will be in a month, six months, or a year. However, what you can see is how far from my goal of 9,150 I remain. So…
What’s Next?
I have some ideas up my sleeve that I’m not ready to talk about yet. Those things will have to wait for another day.
One thing I will mention is this: I submitted Dapple Lite to the App Store for review this morning. With a little luck it should be live by the end of the week. I think that at my $4.99 price-point a lot of people are hesitant to buy the game, even after reading a great review. I’m hoping that the Lite version will show people how great the game is and I hope that they will then buy Dapple. Once Dapple Lite has been available for a few weeks I’ll revisit the numbers and see if I can draw any conclusions about that.
In Conclusion
I hope that this article might serve as a counter-point to the articles that seem to go around the web about devs making hundreds of thousands of dollars off an iPhone app. Everyone within the dev community understands that the odds of that happening are very slim, yet those are the stories that people like to hear. As I said, I was hesitant to post anything about Dapple in a less than stellar light, but at the end of the day, if I were a publicly traded company, I’d have to make this kind of information available anyway. I hope that it might serve to help set realistic expectations for other developers.
I remain convinced that there is money to be made on the App Store, but I suspect we’ll see fewer and fewer stories about people getting suddenly very rich. My hope is that we’ll start seeing more developers putting out quality titles in the hopes of gradually growing a sustainable business.
Owen
[Update: 2009-03-11] – I’ve posted a follow-up to this article here: http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/11/the-slashdot-effect/
[Update: 2009-03-13] – Dapple is now On Sale – 40% Off! http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/12/dapple-sale-has-started-40-off/
[Update: 2009-04-27] – A complete follow-up article (a month later) called The Numbers Post: Part 2 can be found here: http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/04/27/the-numbers-post-part-2/
Nice post and honest as you said. The market is difficult to figure out, and I think if we knew the secret we’d be rolling in it.
I like the fact you priced your app according to what you think its worth. This also give you room to move with some discounts as well.
The pricing in the store will start to even out over coming months, and the value apps will start to take their place. I also think that the more you have the more you’ll get. It’s about brand and quality awareness for the people in it for the long haul.
The question is can we afford to live poor in the mean time.
Here’s cheers for putting it out there.
Cheers
K
Good post and look into how hard selling, even a great game like Dapple, can be on iTunes. I bet a lot of folks are having similar issues selling their apps on the site. I keep seeing discounted prices all the time in the Games section.
It’ll be interesting to see if the Lite version will result in more sales. I know a lot of folks on our live podcast were very interesting in trying out Dapple Lite before they buy.
I’m just wondering if you’ve considered branching out into Wiiware and Xbox 360 Community Games or Xbox Live Arcade for that matter. I’ve heard those have their unique challenges as well.
Cheers
-Leftybrown of The Married Gamers
I think a lot of the problem is that you missed the “gold rush”. I released most of my apps during that time and got quite a lot of sales, especially for my app Chess Player which I know was much less work than Dapple, but even then people were telling me that I underpriced that app.
Another issue is that you’re entering what looks like a saturated market on the App Store: color match games. Even though it is innovative, it just looks like another one which has that going against you. Yes, people will unfortunately judge an app by its “cover”.
I think in this particular case, a lite version could have huge potential. I’ll be curious to hear how it goes. Also, if you’re interested, I’m willing to share my sales figures with you, but I don’t have the guts to be totally open to everyone like you do on your blog. However, if attendees during my AppViz demo at my lecture were attentive, they would’ve seen it.
Kudos once again for the colorblind mode!!
This is pretty consistent to what I’ve been seeing as well. Shipping an update and getting on the “new” list helps a bit, someone writing about you can help but isn’t a guarantee even when the review is positive.
I agree that for Dapple, releasing a lite version could really boost sales. I’ll be very interested to hear how that plays out, and good luck!
[...] temperatures and also of coding great strategy games (probably not at the same time, though), has posted a very interesting, if not entirely happy post on his blog, where he lays out exactly how much he has made (or, more accurately, not made) [...]
[...] The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty) – "I hope that this article might serve as a counter-point to the articles that seem to go around the web about devs making hundreds of thousands of dollars off an iPhone app. Everyone within the dev community understands that the odds of that happening are very slim, yet those are the stories that people like to hear." [...]
$4.99 is too expensive for a genre game, no matter how innovative–you are shutting out 99% of the market. $0.99 is more realistic. I think your numbers reflect this. Price low to get volume.
The “Lite” version is a great idea. I’ve only paid for one app for my iTouch ( Appigo’s Todo list), and that was only after using the free Lite version for a couple of days.
I think giving away a free trial is going to really help you. People will download “just another colour match game” on impulse if it is free, find out that it’s more than that and upgrade. You want low barriers to entry to let people get hooked before having to pay out.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with iPhone development. As a shareware developer I have to say my experiences are somewhat similar, however one of my applications has been a steady long-tail earner that continues selling thanks to exposure from Google Adwords. However I am unsure whether that can work with an iPhone application as Apple appears to be the gatekeeper to all buyer traffic.
The best of luck to tweaking the marketing of your game. It is a needed investment that I think most developers under-budget for.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I also have an app on the store, and my story is similar to yours. Fortunately, I did dot invest as much time and money as you.
My app has also been cracked, and I keep track of the IDs of the users who downloaded the cracked app. I have not bothered to shut the service for them, although I could, since the app needs frequent updates from a web service that I host.
If I ever bother to make a new app, it will not be as feature rich as my current app, since there seems to be no place for apps priced over the 99c tier.
If I could give you one advice: try to limit the size of your app under the 10MB limit (currently it weights 13.1 MB). Otherwise, people will not be able to purchase your app when they only have a mobile connection (3G or EDGE).
Good luck!
If you had done the work yourself, instead of plucking down 35 grand, you would have had 100% profit. It’s not like this is a AAA game. Paying for graphics is about the only thing I would spend money on.
Personally, I would have spent more time doing most of the work myself (no salary), then used the money you saved to pay bloggers for more reviews. Marketing at this point is your only hope, or lowing the price to 2.99 or something.
I think you should have waited a bit longer and released the free and full version at the same time. I’m willing to bet you would have made many more sales this way.
I only say this because I myself have spent 6 month on a project, doing the work myself and never made a dime off one off my program(s)(not iphone related). I figured with the time I put in, I’d never make my money back anyway.
In the end, I still have a job, and my wife didn’t leave me because I didn’t blow our life savings.
Good luck
Brutal Honesty: I haven’t purchased your game, and at $4.99US it’s not going to happen.
And as for the lite version, it’ll just be more rubbish cluttering up the app store. Want more sales: Lower your price.
Not making enough money: Find a new vocation.
Toodles.
I agree with chuck about the “gold rush.” However, I also believe many developers treat it like gambling. They can see the huge number of apps already available, but they see dollar signs dancing in the sky and that everyone would want THEIR game because it is so great. So many young people today dream of creating games and becoming rich off it.
Great article. I’m finding the exact same issue with my newly released game Wordology. I plan to write a similar article next week with my numbers and even detail some of the development process.
I think it’s the rush to $0.99 that’s hurting us all. I priced Wordology at $2.99 in order to be able to make enough to pay my designers etc but so far haven’t made enough to cover the cost of the iPod touch I bought to test on, never mind pay any staff.
Very interesting and informative post. However, your assumption that it is cheaper to buy the game in Canada is a little skewed. If we were spending American dollars this would be true, but alas, we deal in Canadian currency. A buck is still a buck to the Canadian consumer. Sadly, it only translates to .78 for you.
well, that this appeared on slashdot might hrlp, good post!
Now that you’ve been slashdotted, I expect you’ll sell a hundred or two more. Thanks for being so open. It’s important for developers to realize that incredible success in any field is a matter of skill, timing and significant luck. Most good titles simply disappear in a sea of apathy and fierce competition.
Early to bed.
Early to rise.
Advertise! Advertise! Advertise!
Seriously. That’s what is missing. Take the earnings and advertise on the three big iphone review sites. The more you spend the more likely a review will occur.
I would raise the price ~$2 to cover advertising.
I appreciate the write-up. Though, I would think that you have the price going against you. As a previous commenter pointed out, at 4.99 – it just seems like an expensive color-match game. I anxiously await your results after you release your lite version.
-JP
[...] salary (akin to what I made as a junior front-end programmer when I first started in the industry).Streaming Colour Studios » Blog Archive » The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty) [...]
[...] salary (akin to what I made as a junior front-end programmer when I first started in the industry).Streaming Colour Studios » Blog Archive » The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty) [...]
I think this trend is going to be the best thing to happen to developers since the invention of the internet.
Game developers have been raped by companies creating pulp games at huge production costs and very little creativity.
Now it’s time to cut production times/costs to NOTHING and build from a small, good deliverable idea that can be built in weeks by one person.
At that point, if it’s successful selling enough copies to keep the guy going, he improves it and maybe hires a few contractors.
No more large up-front design on a piece of crap that you can’t identify as crap until you take it home and unwrap it.
Now you have reviews and recommendations, and I personally won’t buy a game without an excellent free demo.
There is no longer room for companies hiring dozens of programmers and CEOs won’t be getting rich off the work of others without a good deal of talent and creativity of their own.
I just can’t wait for the same thing to happen to the other entertainment industries–music, TV and movies. It’s happening slowly, but it’s happening.
Interesting. I think that perhaps the price was a tad too high for a game. I love games, but I also know their longevity is quite short. I would pay no more than $2 for a game I knew I would tire of within a month.
Also, I am learning another lesson here: if you can’t develop an app/game by yourself, then you probably won’t break even. Hiring others really hurt your bottom line!
Thanks for sharing!
I echo the feeling, my first game, Codewords, hasn’t been a barnburner either. But at least I can do all the work myself, so the cost is lower. My next game is a completely different target audience, so we’ll see how it goes.
I was similarly gutted when my first game (Roll Trio) was pirated inside of a couple of hours. However, given how you need to jailbreak the device to play pirated stuff I really don’t think you will lose many sales to piracy. I kind of view it as karma for my high school Amiga days too *cough*!
Anyway, if you want more sales and don’t mind losing your dignity you can always do like bootant and spam a new “update” of your game every single day! I live for the moment those guys are banned form the appstore, I really do.
Definitely agree that the price is a bit too high. Drop to three dollars, and I would expect that you’ll sell more units. However – here are some other ideas…
Regarding the cracking – One developer already figured out a way to validate “actual” buyers (via their UID). Why doesn’t Apple do this for you? It’s an app that supports “full window” browsing.
Another idea is to add advertisement syndication and give the app away.
Good luck, and thanks for the great post!
-Jim
Very nice post and very informative. I’ve been working on an app to compliment my website, halocharts.com, but after reading your post it may have to take a seat for a while. I’d be interested in your numbers in a day or two since your blog made the front page of slashdot. Thanks for the insight!
Dude, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but $5 for a colour matching game is about $5 too much given that I can find ~20 versions of this game to play, right now and online, right now using a simple Google search.
From what I’ve seen reading countless reviews in apps while I explored the competition is that there is very strong customer reaction against anything that isn’t $0.99. This is a very hard problem for us to solve. It’s too bad Apple didn’t make the minimum price $2.99.
I think a lite version is realistically your only way to get the message out to the masses that your game is worth $4.99. Sure you could get a review on Appvee, Touch Arcade or wherever else, but still the number of people that see that is very small compared to your potential market. More people will see your lite version while browsing than will see your review.
Great post.
The game looks a little like http://www.naturalchemist.com/
If you had a PC version, I would have bought it as soon as I started reading this post because it looks like the kind of game I’d enjoy. I checked the Games link, but you have just the iPhone version. So sad (for me).
Sorry to say dude, but go get a real job. Continue to program your games for fun, and Im sure you will see lot of ppl downloading. I just created a little very simple open source game for windows, linux and Sony PSP. The game is really really simple, my first experience with SDL and C++. The result? In about 1 month I got 2.000 downloads, and lots of reviews around the globe (in sites from usa, brazil, spain, germany and many other countrys). I got zero money from it, but that was not the point anyway. Good luck with your career.
[...] http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/09/the-numbers-post-aka-brutal-honesty/ [...]
I wrote a post on my blog that might help you: “11 Ways to Market Your iPhone and iPod Touch App”. You’re definitely doing the right thing by offering a “lite version”. We are moving towards the same strategy. Even a great review on a major blog will not create sustainable sales for you. Share your story, share what you’re about. Your blog post is probably helping your earnings as we speak (or write that is)…Selling yourself will help your app sell, too!
All excellent points. The main problem I see with the App Store right now is that it needs more filters now that there are so many applications available. To display the top 25 out of a list of 25000 apps is only 0.1% of the content. That’s true with new titles too. As soon as there are more than 25 apps introduced on a given day, you’re off the “new” list before you even get exposure.
I think the long-term solution lies in following the “personalized suggestions” work done by Amazon and Netflix, which only Apple can do, but would help upsell other products. When you view an app’s details it should have a “Others who bought this also liked these…” section at the bottom of the details page. They should make your “home” page when you launch the app store their suggestions based on cumulative suggestions from other products you’ve already bought, not just the featured list the way they do today. Apple already has the “Genius” for music they just need to extend it to the App Store.
Until Apple fixes this huge problem in the App Store (that almost everyone’s apps get lost in the sea of other apps) the only solution is to advertise outside the App Store. The good news is that unlike other application stores (i.e. Handango or Microsoft Market) sales resulting from your advertising always net you the same amount since they all have to go through the App Store. Google Adwords is probably the cheapest, fastest way to get started, and is especially good because you can put a cap on your monthly spending.
I can only assume that submitting a story about the “real story” of an iPhone developer to slashdot was part of your plan all along. If so, I applaud you. If not, way to be flexible. If I had an iPhone I might buy your app just as a reward for your ingenuity. Please post a follow up analyzing how getting slashdotted affected your sales. Also, make sure that gets posted to slashdot too, for maximum effect.
My last comment seemed to disappear. I’ve been posting the sales stats for my own app on my blog (do a search for Sudoku Grab). There’s two weeks worth so fat and I’ll be adding another week of data this coming weekend.
So far sales have been pretty much what I was expected – ie not very high.
$4.99 is a very high price point given that most games are only 99cents. You can try and buck the market – but you’re going to need something pretty special to do so.
I can only tell you how I look for games, and from that perspective, your game chances look bleak.
I’ll rate each category out of 5, with 5 being best, 1 worst.
1) Look at free games (1)
This is brutally true, and you are addressing it. Why spend any time reviewing a game if I can’t play the free version first? The good news is that if I get more then 30 minutes of play, or come back to it more then 3-5 times, then I buy the real version, and here’s the important part, ALMOST REGARDLESS OF COST OF FULL PRODUCT. After all, I don’t really care about $5 vs $10. I care about TIME! If it’s worth wasting my time playing, it’s worth a couple of lattes to have it.
2) Look for new games that stand out (3)
I look at technology (tilt/camera/other), genre (I am into new things more then most), configuration, and quality. To be honest, game play is rarely enhanced by “quality”, and very often glossed over with spiffy graphics and nice music. And this part you can’t do a lot about (though maybe technology and play-style options are a relatively low cost investment to snag a buyer like me?)
3) Read reviews (5)
Your reviews are excellent, and it most be frustrating, but reviews really have little sway over decisions, though their greatest strength is that sometimes they can help reduce fears (like amount of game play), but rarely can reviews entice you to play a game after your primary filters have evaluated it.
I know you have worked hard, and as a programmer watching this market and debating product ideas, I figured you’d appreciate my 5 minutes of thought and feedback.
Good luck, and thanks for the honesty. I appreciate it more then more words can convey.
Christopher
Convert it to a PC game and talk with Valve about getting it put on Steam. Lots of need for fun casual games there.
I would like to make an iphone app, but now given your sales, the reality is that the income does not even justify buying a phone to test the app on. At 13 MB the app is enormous. In South Africa the price for bandwidth without a contract is $0.2/MB ie just downloading it would already be $2.6 . Your blog is indicative of the realities of the market, the only time you got sales, was when there was advertising. If you can release updates every day, and have kept it on the charts, you would conceivably have 150 sales a day. What is the feasibility of linking in to a server to do authentication (thus offering free play for a limited time), with a debit / micro credit type transaction generated by a wireless application subscriber after the demo is finished? Cellular phones are essentially tools for communication, and I would think a multiplayer game would naturally do better than a single player game. Thanks for your honest feedback re app success, it is very depressing to admit that what one created is not successful.
I have long suspected there was a rockstar model in iphone apps. Ie, a few rockstars make a fortune, but most people in the business don’t. However, the rockstars get all the press and so few realize how hard it is to make the business work.
A few suggestions–
I don’t know how big the app is…but if you could squeeze it in under 10 megs that must help a lot. I just tried to buy it but I failed since I don’t have wifi where I am.
Lite version–works for a lot of people. You should try it.
Your frankness in writing this article is appreciated. I, too, think a free version to try first would encourage sales.
By the way, the light grey text on this page may look pretty in terms of colour but seriously affects the readability of the article.
Lower to .99 or give away for free.
The game may be too complex for the target audience of players.
Auto hint mode?
Needs more Graphic WOWS??
Any way to get multiple combination when new blocks down for progressive points?
[...] Streaming Colour Studios » Blog Archive » The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty). [...]
Thanks for the article.
Hope you keep up with this work, and make enough money to live from it.
I have no idea regarding price sensitivity or competition. But here are a few creative thoughts how to boost sales.
* Create some sort of news letter around the game. (Facebook group?)
* Make/Sponsor a competition. Have people play against each other on time and/or high score. Create news around the game, that has potential to be picked up by blogs, etc.
* Involve users with a wish list of improvements, etc. (Facebook group?)
* Give away some games through charity, etc.
* Advertise – commercially and just through word of mouse.
* Make variants of the game that are designed for events, such as easter egg color matching (or graduation hats, or …). Sell those as 99c versions.
Just my five minutes brain storming for you.
I’m interested in seeing what your Slashdot bump is… Perhaps you’ll give us an update on that in the coming weeks.
Owen,
Thanks for posting. I released Jiggle Balls on Feb 23rd. My graph looks very similar to yours. I’ve sold 422 units at 99 cents a piece. I’ve made $275 (enough to pay for the iPod Touch I bought). I’ve released 1 update and another forth-coming this week. Each update spikes the sales a little bit. I am putting out a lite version next week, so we’ll see what that does.
Thanks for sharing.
doug
funkyvisions.com
Make Dapple $.99 and I’ll buy a copy today. I feel your problem is that you are overpriced. I know $4.99 seems cheap but you have to remember that iPhone apps are disposable entertainment. If there is plenty of competition selling at $.99 then so should you.
At least you don’t suffer the problem of many other developers – boring crappy apps. I think you can succeed if you lower the price and market your app right.
If you lower your price let me know. I’ll buy it today at $.99.
[...] been a few signs lately that the app store gold rush may be ending. More spefically, there is an awesome post from Owen Goss that just got picked up by Slashdot. The fact that a sweet game like his is not picking up steam [...]
[...] Dapple scenario seems to be more the norm and is what I am experiencing with Jiggle Balls. However, my [...]
Here’s an idea… Get to the front page of slashdot.com and see how sales are affected!
I’d love to see data *After* the slashdot surge.
Plus, I dont think anyone has mentioned that your sales will most likely start accelerating once they gain some momentum. Word of mouth effect, more reviews, slashdot coverage, …
Best of luck!
I can only wish you the best of luck. Did you plan on having to sell 9k copies originally, or did your budget grow? 9k is such a huge number…
I played a review copy, and I enjoyed it very much. That being said, I wouldn’t have dropped five dollars for a relatively obscure title; color-matching is too bloated of a genre. I hope that the lite version helps–it should. A price drop or a significant update could help you out. Look at other five dollar apps: Zen Bound, Sway, etc. Does yours have the same value? The same hype? Hype is pretty important…and value is entirely relative. We all know how brutal the App Store price wars have become.
But Dapple is a great game, and I hope that you have better luck in the future. Thanks for the informative blog post! I think you’ll be seeing another minor traffic bump soon…hopefully.
The most insightful comment I have seen about the app store, is don’t rely on Apple to market it for you! Pretend the App Store is purely a distribution mechanism, and that you are going to have to reach the buyers under your own devices.
Dude,
Congratulations on the game, it looks great, but I feel your pain. My own app FemCal is bumping along with a few sales a day, which is probably about what I expected, but sadly it took longer to build than I thought. I have a lite version for free, and it does about 100x the purchased version.
Post if you get a slashdot bump in sales!
Good Luck!,
Jonathan
To the people who suggest dropping the price to 99 cents – that would mean Owen would have to sell 4-5 times as many copies to make the same revenue. The million dollar question is would sales go up 4 to 5 times? If not, dropping the price translates into less revenue, not a happy scenario.
If there is big money to be made on upgrades, then a bigger installed base is a high priority goal. When upgrade revenue is not in the cards, a higher price point even with fewer copies sold may mean more $$$ in the developer’s pocket at the end of the day.
Just my 2 cents, not knowing his competitors or their price points…..
I’ll be brutally honest, don’t hold it against me I’m a struggling indie developer as well
Interface:
Too many colours, doesn’t “flow” well. The user’s eyes/attention is not drawn to a specific option such as “new game”. A good book to pick up to help with designing interfaces is: Game Interface Design by Brent Fox. Great book and will help you alot, otherwise pay a professional to re-do the title screen and all graphical layouts will increase sales exponentially.
Graphics:
I haven’t seen the game in action/live but from the screenshots the graphics are below average for a puzzle/casual genre. Casual games have so much polish these days it’s crazy! This doesn’t relate to the interface issues, but the actually tile pieces.
Price:
Too high from my view. I don’t have much to work with on this being fairly new to the app store myself. Although from what I have noticed, this price sticks out as a sore thumb.
Those are my three points that stick out, and I don’t mean to sound so harsh as I realize just how much sweat, blood and tears go into each game’s creation.
Congratulations on finishing and releasing a game, it’s honestly one of the hardest tasks a person can do in their life, very few people are capable of it. It’s easy to have an idea and create something, much harder to stick with it and finish it to a level worth paying for! Best of luck in the future.
darkmessiah: Your sense of economics is a bit screwed up. Whether he takes the time to do the work himself is irrelevant; there is opportunity cost: if he did that he could use his own time to do something else that brings in money. Your argument only makes sense inasmuch as you value you own time very lowly, which you seem to do.
[...] This guy got a lot of attention for his brutally honest blog post. Enough so that he managed to get his site slashdotted and and hit up with a ton of comments. [...]
[...] The full article can be seen here. [...]
A colleague of a colleague made an iphone game so you can play shufflepuck on your iphone. Sold it for less than an euro and reported to have 1600 downloads in 3 days. Maybe the $5 is to high for the general iphone public?
@Martin
Maybe I didn’t word it right. It sounds like this might be his first venture into the iPhone business. With that said, I wouldn’t have bet the farm(sports car) on such a basic, over saturated game theme.
Sure I might spend more time than I should on my “hobby” but I’m not going broke doing it either. At this point, I am still $32k richer than this guy.
I will eventually get around to making a game for the iPhone, and my first step will be to make a free game. is my “sense of economics is a bit screwed up” still?
I’m also realistic, only a AAA publish could pull off something like this. And guess what those AAA publishers do, they advertise; inside other games they make and outside.
Make the app $.99 and I’ll buy it.
Personally I don’t think you should drop your pants on price; I think you are right to charge $5 for your game. Java games for mobile phones have been at the €3-5 range for the last 5 years and are universally much, MUCH shitter than what’s available for iPhone.
As someone above said, it doesn’t matter if it’s $5 or $10 once you have some way of people evaluating whether they want to buy it (a free version should help with that). That’s one of the problems with the app store right now, there should be a ‘try’ button next to every buy button.
drop your price man, that’s obvious. 5$ for a simple color matching puzzle is too expansive. i prefer to buy the amazing Edge or Rolando for this price. supply and demand my friend
$4.99 is extremely overpriced for ANY match-3 game.
$32K on an iPhone game is INSANE.
$32K on a match-3 game is INSANE.
6 months and you had help/contractors? C’mon! You’re not making the next Quake.
Hone your skills. You should’ve been able to make this app in a month and done all the graphics and other resource creation yourself to boot. Don’t know how? Learn it.
This market is tough so you have to be doubly so.
Good reviews mean absolutely nothing because they are only from people who have already purchased the app. Revenue will come from numbers. And if a majority of people don’t think that style of game is worth $4.99, then they won’t buy it. As good as the reviews are I will never pay $4.99 for this style of app because there are much bigger productions selling for $4.99. Hell Zen Bound is $4.99 and that game kills yours graphics and gameplay wise. It “feels” like it should be $4.99 (or more). So comparing what I see there with your game, and I don’t think yours is worth it. I’m sure you skip out on TONS of perspective sales because lots of people aren’t willing to pay $5 for this type of app.
Drop the price and you will be making less per sale, but make up for it in quantity. I would even buy your game at $1 or even $2. No way I am paying $5 comparing your game with others in the same price range.
Nice – you don’t accept my comments?
[...] [As an aside, if you are more interested in the iPhone app store then you might like to read about Dapple] [...]
First, you are to be commended for sharing this with the community. I’m sure it wasn’t easy but this info is helpful for others who are considering development of an iPhone app.
I would like to point out two things that struck me about your story:
(1) Where’s the marketing?
Many programmers don’t see the value in marketing because they don’t understand what marketing is. Simply put, marketing is the process of creating demand for your product. Your iDev presentation was great marketing, but now your job is to market the hell out of your product. (And you thought that developing software was hard.)
If you want to sell more product you need to find a way (or many ways) to (1) inform people about your product (2) make them want to part with $5 to get it.
Have you asked all of your friends to spread the word? Have you posted videos of your game to youtube?
(2) Your graph
This might be a minor point, but I found your graph to be a bit misleading. Since the Y axis represents dollars and the X axis represents time, the line should always move up, unless you somehow find yourself refunding money. As drawn it looks like you eventually lost all of the money earned during the initial revenue spike.
Finally, don’t lose any sleep over the app crackers. I know lots of people with iPhone, including housewives, executives and programmers. None of the people have jailbroken their iPhones and none of them use cracked software. The warez crowd are a small fringe of the market. Focus your efforts on marketing to the masses and don’t lose any sleep over the crackers.
–
Matt
P.S. Nice game… I am going to send a link about it to my wife, who has an iPhone and love games. That’s marketing in action!
So you spent $32,000 on development… and nothing on advertising?
And $4.99 for an app people can’t try out with a lite model?
The problem is people expect the AppStore to do all of their marketing. The AppStore is like PayPal. You need to treat it like the checkout counter, and don’t rely on being found within iTunes.
I’m spending $1,000/month in advertising, on Google, YouTube, Facebook, and a dozen-plus iPhone-related web sites. And participating in forums and giving out promo codes, and $10 iTunes giftcards to users who submit videos, etc.
And my app is $0.99. And it made the Top 100 (#33 actually). Top 100 lists are based on UNIT sales not dollars, so if you can get in to that, inertia will keep you there. $5 is too much to get traction when there are so many cheap and free games.
I’m working on a (free) e-book that will offer tips on app marketing. Contact me for some free advice.
http://www.NoTieSoftware.com
32k is insane to spend on what appears to be a simple game. Did you just buy into all the hype on the iPhone store and think you could sell 9000 units so easily?
[...] he posted a detailed post on the sales figures from his first iPhone game: [...]
[...] the goldrush already over? Over at Streaming Colour Studios, Owen wrote a nice post about the revenues he made with Dapper (a color matching game with a twist) during his first month [...]
[...] site, good gameplay videos, and so forth, it hasn’t sold too well. So Owen’s written The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty) where he reveals how it has sold so far and what effect a review on Kotaku [...]
Hi Everyone:
Thanks for taking the time to comment on my post. I appreciate your thoughts and feedback. I don’t have time to respond to each comment individually, but I have written up a bit of a response post, which can be found here:
http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/11/the-slashdot-effect/
Cheers,
Owen
[...] month revenues of just $535.19, in spite of good reviews for his product, Canadian game developer Owen Goss wrings his hands a little—the first sale went to crackers (See also: Crackulous: One click iPhone [...]
I read this article and I’m in the exact same boat. My iPhone/iPod touch game “Whack Attack! Games” is just suffering big time. The game is very polished, lot’s of fun and has “three” different games in it. I was hoping that since it’s a multi-game suite that it’ll catch on, but regretfully no. I think it’s just hard to compete with $0.99 3D car racing games and the multitude of free games out there in the marketplace.
I also haven’t thrown in the towel yet either, but the situation is quite discouraging. By the way, if you’ve purchased my game, please write reviews of it on the iTunes store.
So, I really appreciate the “Brutal Honesty” element, and it inspired me to purchase the game. The first I’ve ever paid $5.00 – consider it payment for your outstanding and informative blog post – Even on an iPhone packed full of Apps, I would have never considered paying $5.00 for a color matching game – $1.99 would be considered expensive, $0.99 would probably move traffic.
My thoughts:
Amazing quality. From the sound, to the graphics, to the background to all the nice little finishing touches (warning me that I’m about to overwrite a game, popup hints, the nice paintbrush hint tip) – you really got your money’s worth. It’s _amazing_ what you can get for $32K
I don’t have much else to add other than you should hopefully get some ycombinator sales (you got a posting on their front page as well) – your “Brutal Honesty” approach is quite simply brilliant marketing – well done.
[...] was surprised to see such a quick followup to Owen’s original post at Streaming Colour Studios regarding his brutally honest sales numbers and figures and the [...]
Also put the data on how much you made after this blog post went live and after it got appeared on Hacker News front page
Thank you so much for posting this. I have friends who are convinced that they can make a killing developing iPhone apps. The press just wants to cover iFart, Ocarina, and that Scorched Earth clone. It’s fun to talk about the insta-millionaires, but they may as well have just won the lottery.
I know exactly where you’re coming from and that it’s not about whining or complaining. You’re doing this to present a true picture of what real App Store app numbers look like. So, don’t listen to all the haters. You’ve done a good thing here, and we appreciate it.
People can afford iPhones?
[...] numbers – along with a chart – can be found on the developer’s blog. After that post went up it was linked on Slashdot, which led to this follow-up [...]
I will buy your app. I know how much time goes into making one, and the hassle of dealing with itunesconnect!
And, as much as it pains me to say this, and it really is painful to say, perhaps $4.99 is too much. Fieldrunners is $4.99, and that allows you to shot things, and I think the landscape of the game world is that people pay to shoot, and pay much less if you don’t give them a “weapon”.
Note: I just now downloaded the app via my phone, but the App Store (that you get via your phone) does not show the reviews. Reviews are critical to getting others to buy your app. I will be sure to write one, too.
$5 is WAY too much. This is a competitive market with lots of lemons, people are really shy about paying too much.
I would price at $1, then increase slowly as you get a sense of what the market will bear. Nobody blinks at $1. In fact, I think most people would rather by a $1 game than a free one, the implication being free is not likely to be any good. Everybody blinks at $5. I would be very surprised if you don’t get more than 5x sales by selling at $1.
P.S. to my note above:
If you drop the game to $1 I will buy it and if I like it push a couple other friends to buy it.
1. Viral – in game email to others with highscores that will motivate friends to compete and share their love of the game.
2. Build more great games, I am more likely to buy your second game if i enjoyed your first game.
3. Have a limited time sale to build a base. State the period of time and build some momentum.
4. This blog post was probably the best piece of marketing you have done so far… continue
5. Good luck!!!
there’s no lite version so it’s not surprising that no one wants to shell out $5 to see if your game is any good. i would create a lite version and drop the price to $1.
[...] third parties involved. Now, i’m beginning to take what i wrote even more seriously following a post from an iPhone game developer about how he’d made $535 on an investment (including his time) [...]
Just to say thanks for releasing this information, I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision. I am debating whether or not to start developing for the iPhone, so I would be interested to see how this keeps developing.
Keep your chin up,
Paul
“So, that’s how it all connect” -Skeeter on Bedtime Stories.
So, you’re actually making a marketing by posting this post. Congratulation, it works!
[...] info | Streaming Colour « Google Voice Deja un [...]
Some have found another way to make a lot of money with this reward for ideveloppers :
http://www.app-store-vet.com
Good reality check.
The opportunity that many Developers are missing is the VALUE, and BENEFIT that an app can bring. I am not a developer, just a fresh business school grad, but I can tell you that games are a saturated and limited area of the iphones potential. Back in college i was exposed to the iphone months before the public announcement of the new product. In the Marketing of Technology course i took we had conference calls with the VP of Marketing @ Apple. Thats when i got my mind thinking about the possibilities this innovation can bring.
Watching the product announcement, launch, and growth has been priceless. I think the numbers are channeled at games for now. Any idea that can bring value to 10,000 people who have something in common could easily step out from the masses and deliver real benefits to their users. Cover the costs and the rest is luck.
Features are nice but Benefits SELL.
let me know if you could bring to life a few marketing/product concepts i thought up in college.
Go get em. thank you for the insight.
Thanks for writing this up. My app sales for Pachinko Puzzle by the way were pretty similar – slightly higher because of timing (November), but nonetheless similar. I would guess most apps fall into this category, and will end up with total revenue of $1k-3k . I still get a few downloads a day, but then I did it purely for the accomplishment and fun of it. I’m working on a second game, perhaps I’ll hit the iPhone lottery one of these times – 1 in 25,000 is actually pretty good odds for a lottery… I think the key message though is you’ll either need a number of applications under your belt to sustain a reasonable income or to do it as a hobby. Try different price points, and be reasonable about it – I started mine at $2.99, then $1.99, and now $.99. Definitely worth trying a free version, but it has to be done right – in my case, I was getting lots of free downloads and not much change in actual sales…
[...] sviluppatore di un gioco per iPhone chiamato Dapple ha pubblicamente rivelato le sue vendite sul blog.Dalle sue parole si evince che la corsa all’oro degli sviluppatori probabilmente è finita e [...]
[...] From there, went to Owen Goss’s session about the creation of an iPhone game. Also a good talk, but it was all about the development process, concept, art, user testing, etc. No code. Owen, by the way, is the one who posted the “brutally honest” post about how much he invested in his iPhone game, and how much he made back: http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/09/the-numbers-post-aka-brutal-honesty/ [...]
Go read that:
http://blog.omnigroup.com/2009/02/27/omnifocus-news-latest-mac-updates-gtd-summit-and-50000-sales-on-the-iphone/
That’s 50 000 X 20$ before apple cut.
There is maybe something to learn there!
[...] onto the news! The developer of Dapple, an iPhone game which took 6 months and US$32,000 to make, has put up iTunes store stats for his game. In the first month of sales, he’s generated US$550 of revenue. Ouch. On the other hand we have [...]
I will give any game a chance for maximum price of $2.99.
$4.99 is above my automatic buy limit.
Drop the price to $2 or $3 even and you will get better sales me thinks. Its not selling now, what is there to lose?
Sorry to hear that it has been such an epic fail
Good luck!
Just 3 things to say:
1) I suspect the lite version will help significantly. Don’t forget it’s just another advertising avenue.
2) $5 is too high a price point. Though I feel the app is easily worth $5, you have to consider i) what people are willing to pay on an unknown or seemingly generic app and ii) what else people can get for their $5.
The case of (i) I think is addressed by the lite version. There are so many colour matching games though it will be hard to stand out. If someone has Bejeweled already they probably aren’t even looking at another one.
The case of (ii) I think many people will simply weigh $5 dapple vs. up to 5 other $1 titles, which may have better reviews and/or be on the top X list.
3) Good luck on the iphone development!
Im a startup IPhone developer and I can assure you that I will not be making any kind of 3-match game, puzzle game or such like coz thats been done. Im afraid you sonny jim belong in that bracket. Try and do something fresh and interactive rather than another zzzzzzzzz puzzle game.
Oh,good luck!
Control your cost. $32k is way too much for the development of such game. Do it under 5k and you would not fear of selling at $0.99
Good luck,
I think you’ve learned a harsh lesson that derivative block/match games like this, that are 10 a penny on the app store will disappear into obscurity with the rest.
compare your screenshot with any other “match” game – does it stand out? have personality? a unique look and feel?
visually it looks just like the rest, and price wise, it’s way too high – I can buy a much visually slicker and unique game like EDGE for around the same price..
and 32K for the development?? wha??
[...] downloads would still exist if cracked apps did not exist. Owen Goss at Streaming Colour recently posted some rough sales figures for his game Dapple. Before significant attention from Slashdot, [...]
For my part, I’m not sure how much good Dapple Lite in its current form is going to do you. I read this blog, was intrigued, downloaded the game and tried it. After about 5 attempts and 20 minutes I have absolutely no idea how the game works or where the mixing of colours fits in or anything. So I wouldn’t buy it or recommend it to anyone. Maybe I’m just a moron, but maybe you’re assuming too much knowledge or brains or ingenuity on the user side. I sincerely wish you the best of luck with it, but the game eludes me.
Gold rush over? Hmmm…. maybe I got in late, though my business model is more about productivity apps like my Notes replacement iQuickNotes and guidebook to Confession iConfess.
The “scary” thought here is that low-cost labor countries like the Philippines, India, Russia, China, will have tons of developers jumping-in and developing new apps like crazy and selling them at the $0.99 level. Where would that put the developers from other parts of the globe? Look at the job postings at oDesk – some people are asking for game developers at the below $300 price for an entire game application. And there are takers!
As an iPhone developer myself (http://www.brainthawgame.com), I can really relate to this post. It’s extremely difficult to build a quality application in less than a few months, so at the very least, it’s going to be an expensive proposition when you factor in opportunity costs. Combine this fact with the deluge of apps on the store and an extremely low price expectation from consumers, and it’s very difficult to make a reasonable return on your investment. I can only hope this won’t drive away developers who believe in good applications, leaving only sweat shops that churn out ring tone apps.
As a note of encouragement, a lot of apps have sales spikes well after their release. We were lucky enough to be chosen by Apple for the “New and Notables” section two months after release, and our sales went from 600 units to 16K units in a month (I wrote about the experience here: http://www.groovysquared.com/blog/2009/03/17/cold-hard-data/). And of course there’s iShoot, the poster child of this phenomenon, which skyrocketed to the #1 paid app after releasing a lite version.
Good luck!
[...] the post, and it makes for rather difficult reading: http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/09/the-numbers-post-aka-brutal-honesty/Ads by GoogleRNS-510 Bluetooth – Plug & Play Kit – FISCON-Mobile.com Related PostsSimCity in [...]
[...] developer Owen Goss, creator of Dapple, who posted a self described “brutally honest” description several weeks ago about how he had done in his first month of sales. While Owen just came out with [...]
[...] puzzle game per iPhone, racconta dell’irrisorio successo finora ottenuto dal suo prodotto. In un post del suo blog scrive di aver stabilito un budget $32.000 per lo sviluppo e di aver guadagnato dopo [...]
Hi Owen,
first of all thank you for sharing your experiences. Dapple seems to be nice original game. But in my opinion 32k $ are very high development costs. Did you hire somebody to help you out? I wish you that you reach break-even soon. May be you should try to do some promotions and sell your app for 0.99$ on 1-2 weekends. I tried to do some advertising for my app and i have couple of 5 stars reviews on major app review sites.. But it all doesn’t really help. However, after Apple feautured Measures sales sky-rocketed and i am doing pretty well.. But i would never invest that much into iPhone project. It is just too risky.
Cheers,
Michael
[...] 那么，开发一款iPhone游戏的成本又有多少呢？Dapple这款流行iPhone游戏的开发者Owen Goss告诉我们，他为这款付出的开发成本大约是3万2千美元，而Dapple发布后第一个月的销售额仅有535美元。 [...]
[...] 那么，开发一款iPhone游戏的成本又有多少呢？Dapple这款流行iPhone游戏的开发者Owen Goss告诉我们，他为这款付出的开发成本大约是3万2千美元，而Dapple发布后第一个月的销售额仅有535美元。 [...]
[...] figures of one of those one-man-show games sold in the app-store? Then you might be interested in Owen Goss’ blog entry. He is giving some figures and a chart showing the sales of his game Dapple over the first month. [...]
[...] offering him a beer if he’s ever in my neck of the woods. Anybody that has the cajones to do what he did and take the kind of heat he did shows a strong determination to never give up. And that’s [...]
[...] From there, went to Owen Goss’s session about the creation of an iPhone game. Also a good talk, but it was all about the development process, concept, art, user testing, etc. No code. Owen, by the way, is the one who posted the “brutally honest” post about how much he invested in his iPhone game, and how much he made back: http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/09/the-numbers-post-aka-brutal-honesty/ [...]
[...] first was from Owen Goss of Streaming Color Studios, in which he detailed the sales figures (so far) of his iPhone game Dapple. He expressed frustration with the fact that although Dapple [...]
I would definitely advise you to price your app at $0.99.
When I buy an utility application – I pay more – especially if I think the utility I’m buying is something I need.
However, games are not something “I need”. They does not increase my productivity
Moreover – I do know, that I will play less than 2-3 times each game. This is by the way reason I would not advise you to prepare a lite version. Unless you are sure, you have designed a blockbuster…
So if I buy a game that has a big hype – one of the top games in the App Store for example – I may spend more than $1. If I buy just “a” game – I will never spend more.
[...] avatares que un desarrollador puede sufrir al encarar un proyecto de aplicación para el iPhone, el dueño de Dapple nos cuenta que invirtió unos 32.000 dólares en el desarrollo de su juego Dappl…, por la descarga de unos pocos centenares de copias a través de [...]
I think Dapple’s lack of success is no mystery. Let’s think for a second:
1. It looks exactly like bejeweled, and will be instantly dismissed by many people as a result.
2. You debuted at $5 in mid Feb., when the game you would be instantly compared to (Bejeweled) was $3. This was insanity.
3. Kotaku press is meaningless, because its readership is primarily composed of jaded console gamers who think the iPhone will never be taken seriously as a gaming platform (read the comments of any iphone related article for a glimpse of this).
4. 6 months of full-time development on a match-3 game is absurd, even for an individual. Dapple might have found a niche last year, but the app store has evolved and grown highly competitive in a very short period of time.
I don’t mean to discourage you, but the tone of this article seems to be one of bewilderment. Making a match-3 game on a device cluttered with them, and then pricing it above all other competition, with no lite version to prove that your take on the genre is the best out there… how could it have NOT failed?
[...] not like other platforms are immune: Just a few weeks ago iPhone developer Streaming Colour had a similar problem even getting close to sufficient sales of their game, [...]
[...] I posted my “Numbers Post” back in March, one of the most common questions I got asked was “how did it take 6 [...]
Hey Owen,
thanks for discussing this so openly. I’ve been following your efforts for a while.
I thought you might find this “Lessons Learned” post interesting:
http://eliainsider.com/2009/04/15/lessons-learned-one-month-in-the-iphone-appstore/
Keep posting,
Elias.
[...] the next week I will release some figures in the spirit of other bloggers here, here, here, here, and here. It was really hard for us to get a handle on things [...]
[...] votre réflexion sur le développement d’appli iPhone à la lumière de la lecture de cette passionnante note du créateur du jeu Dapple. if (GetCookie(‘wordpressuser’) == ‘mobile’) { document.write(‘20 [...]
[...] Morning, everyone. On March 9, 2009, I wrote a blog post called “The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty)” in which I talked about sales for Dapple in the first 24 days of the game’s launch. I [...]
[...] out radio surf’s playlist. yes that playlist http://beta.clientsideweb.net appstore game dev releases sales figures as marketing ploy, rest of universe copies. Enough already! I don’t think a word has ever [...]
This goes out to all the commenters that think that 3 months and 32K is insane.
“# Brian Says:
March 11th, 2009 at 8:17 am -
$4.99 is extremely overpriced for ANY match-3 game.
$32K on an iPhone game is INSANE.
$32K on a match-3 game is INSANE.
6 months and you had help/contractors? C’mon! You’re not making the next Quake.
Hone your skills. You should’ve been able to make this app in a month and done all the graphics and other resource creation yourself to boot. Don’t know how? Learn it.
This market is tough so you have to be doubly so.”
I have worked on DS games that cost 2,000,000 for 8 months. Very few people are skilled in all the areas necessary to make a game (some of you think you are, but take it from me you are not). I am heading development of a iPhone “match” game, and getting a skilled artist and marketer are the 2 best decisions I have made.
He was not making quake. But i would like any of you to go to a serious development house and ask them to build you Drapple for 32k. They will be laughing at you not with you by the way.
Skills = Money (Both in cost and revenue)
I do agree price is determined be the Market not costs. So I have no qualms with the price comments, I can’t say what a good price point is yet.
[...] Streaming Colour Dev Blog: Some great posts about (not) making money in the iPhone space. Example [...]
[...] Streaming Colour Studios » Blog Archive » The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty) (tags: iphone) [...]
32 thousand on that?? wtf… you had BAD BAD advice and you learned the hard way.
1, you selected one of the most over-done genres in existance.
2, you did not make it stand out.
3, the price is way high compared to competitors.
4, epic fail.
I am very interested how you managed to spend 32k? Did you get vastly overcharged on the art etc?
I will be submitting a game I have created in the past week soon, and I bet it will make much much more than Dapple and the grand total I have spent on it… £0.00
[...] suspect we’ll see fewer and fewer stories about people getting suddenly very rich." (The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty)). Owen Gloss spent $32,000 developing Dapple and made a total of $535 in revenue. Playing the [...]
[...] him from his color-matching game Dapple [{content}.99], though he also gained some notoriety from a blog post he made back in March in which he detailed the (lack of) sales of his first iPhone title. The blog [...]
[...] [...]
Your post-mortem inspired me to grab a copy of the game. Although your game is innovative and I appreciated this it failed the pick-up and play rule that one must adhere to in the casual download market (where I work) to have a success. I skipped the instructions (who doesn’t) and got immediately frustrated because I was trying to swap ‘gems’ and it wasn’t working for me. I gave up. All other comments about the app store aside I think it’s worth exploring this aspect. I am watching the popular games in the app store mirror casual download a little bit from the early ‘gold-rush’ days.
Hi Owen,
thanks for the great article. Helps put things into perspective. I think you did the right thing to go out with an idea and try it.
Now you´ve learned a few lessons – helped us learn a few lessons – of what seems to go and what doesn´t seem to go. Great! Use your knowledge to imporve your first idea and try again! Eventually you will be successfull, but it may take a few trys. Failing is good, because you learn.
I think the iPhone is a great device, and it hosts tremendous opportunities, but good things take it´s time. And often it is just small details that make the difference between a success and not so successful. Maybe it was the price, mabe it was the lack of a free level, or the rules were too complicated. Just use the experience and learn from it.
I keep my fingers crossed for you, hope you still have some money to continue
Cheers
Marc
[...] Jeff TunnellMarch 13, 2009Owen Goss, the owner of Streaming Colour Studios released a great article about his iPhone App Store experience that has been sweeping the Indie blogosphere. If you have not read the post, you really need to do [...]
[...] Sales Numbers: for Flight Control, Dapple (with bonus brutal honesty), Mouse House, Rebound, Hit Tennis, Super Monkey Ball, Trism, Surf [...]
Wow. Talk about your lessons learned.
I’m a fledgling casual game developer myself, and yes I too created a “yet another match 3″ game. Here’s the key differences though:
1. I built it for the PC, where there’s a MUCH larger market and development tools are either free or dirt cheap. There’s about 17 million iphones out there and about ONE BILLION PC’s. It’s a no brainer which platform to develop for when you’re first starting out.
2. I bundled it with a second game with completely different objectives and gameplay. A 2 for 1 deal since (as others have said, there’s a ton of match 3’s out there already).
3. I wrote both games MYSELF in my spare time (nights and weekends) in about 3 months. Are they perfect, mind blowingly stunning games? No. Are they marketable however? Hell yes. We’ve gotten tremendous feedback from beta testers who have said point blank they can’t wait to have the full finished version of these games. What I couldn’t create myself I found in the form of open source graphics and royalty free music and sound. Just so you know I’m not full of it, you can see screenshots and more right here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mojo-Bone-Software-Studios/87860748751
The advice you’re getting here is spot on. Lower the price, and offer a free trial. I’ll also add: Develop for the PC as well as the iphone. You should have no problem making back your $32K and then some. Finally, market, market, market. My partner put up the facebook page as a lark, and it’s turned out to be a great source for not only potential buyers but resources for future projects as well.
Best of Luck!
-Phil
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