Speaking of Sales Stats
If you’re curious to know what sales stats look like when you have the number 1 paid app in the world for a month, FireMint just posted an incredibly detailed report on their latest month’s sales stats for Flight Control.
- Flight Control Sales Numbers (firemintgames.blogspot.com)
I think it’s fantastic that they’re sharing this data with the world. The numbers are pretty mind-blowing. One of the most interesting things I saw in the report is the difference in sales numbers for the number 1 spot in the US vs. Canada. In order to be in the number 1 paid app slot in the US, they were having > 9,500 sales per day. To be in the number 1 paid app slot in Canada, they were having > 650 sales per day. That just goes to show you how huge the US app store market is compared to the Canadian market.
One of the things that makes me happy about this is that Flight Control is a fantastic game. It’s one of my favourite games for the iPhone. It’s a simple and elegant game concept that was executed extremely nicely. It’s a simple, but well-polished game, that is incredibly fun to play. It’s nice to see a great game sell well.
So, thank you FireMint for sharing this data! As another iPhone dev, I find it fascinating.
Owen
The difference in App Store markets isn’t really that surprising. For starters, America is about 10 times bigger than Canada, so I’d expect the difference to start there. Then they got the iPhone a year early, so they’re a bit more entrenched, and American data plans suck a bit less.
Even so, I suppose it is a bit of a bigger gap than I’d have expected, but not by a staggering amount.
First I wanted to say that since your first dapple sales numbers post that I found through Slashdot, I’ve been following your blog via Google RSS Reader.
I don’t own an iPod Touch yet, waiting to see what Apple comes out with at the WWDC this summer.
Speaking from an outsider point of view though, Flight Control does look like a very good and most importantly, very original game.
When reading about how disappointed you are with the sales of Dapple, it’s time to start thinking about why they are so low.
Is it because it’s not polished?
No, from what I can tell from screenshots and all your blog posts, Dapple is an incredibly polished experience. So that’s not it.
Is it because it suffers from bugs?
Again, no, not from what I read here and elsewhere.
Is it because it costs too much?
Nope, can’t be that, you’ve lowered the cost to $2.99 already, which is pretty low.
Is it because you don’t have a lite version?
Again, you’ve fixed that by releasing that, and sales are still pretty low, so that can’t be out.
Is it because Dapple isn’t as original as several of the top games?
Probably
Of course the game has original elements based on the blog posts I’ve read.
But you can’t escape the fact that your base concept is the same as so many others. Or more so, that when other people see screenshots of it or maybe even a video or try it out, they get the feeling that this is just the same old game with a few small twists.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to bring you down. Dapple is a great accomplishment, but it’s failed to meet your desired expectations and that’s got to be due to the type of game it is.
It’s clear that your trying to make a business out of this. Sure your having fun, expanding your abilities to code, create, etc. But your end goal is profit.
So just try not to find yourself here again with your next game.
If your next game idea is Tetris but with a few original twists, you may want to think bigger.
I hope you don’t take offense to this comment, I look forward to reading your future posts