The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty)
March 9th, 2009
This post was written March 9, 2009.
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/
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!
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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
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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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Excellent post and thank you for sharing that honesty! This should help make people realize that making an app that can profit is not as easy at it appears to me.
It is still like all traditional business that must deliver real value and solve a real problem.
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