Hello everyone,
most people are not comfortable sharing such private things but I thought to ask anyway.
Of the ones selling apps on the apple store or pc apps of personal sites,
how is sale going in general?
Could you guys keep a steady sale throughout the year?
I have read that normal/simple games tend to sell 10-50 copies a day, does that hold true?
What about in a time schedule how does it go through 6 months?
I have come around a few articles on these, the most common ones:
http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/09/the-numbers-post-aka-brutal-honesty/
http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2009/03/11/the-slashdot-effect/
http://www.markj.net/iphone-hit-tennis-sales-stats-marketing/
I found others too, will post if interests anyone.
But back on point, I'm not considering franchise games or hit games, but am interested on casual games sales.
I'm thinking about moving to this side of entertainment quite soon and anything related to these would help. I think if I could get some 4 apps selling within 6 months and they sell around 20-50 a day (.99 to 1.99 price maybe) I may be able to pull this off, any hints? thanks.
My (silly) Apps sold 0-3 per day, around 10 the launch day (glb forum people?)
I know about not so silly games selling 70 copies at launch week.
thanks ampos,
I guess what is important is selling a little everyday, at least for my plans.
I'm thinking of putting up a game every 2 months, simple atari 2600 type games at first,
pretty they will be...
I'm quite interested in how many simple little apps can sell.
And also how they go being sold straight from a site for mac/pc/linux.
I should put this plan up early january, have some money to upgrade my machines and buy a mini-mac/ipad for such... hope it works out, if it pays the least I need to switch work area and do it full time it would be nice... I actually don't need much for that so I'm shooting for simplicity in quantities, pretty simplicity though.
thanks for sharing
Good question erico, as I plan to release several apps in the next few months and I was interested in expected/average sales too. Obviously each case will be different, depending on app type and time of year etc. Perhaps it's too early to ask for this info from GLB users, but will probably be available elsewhere.
Gernot has been selling apps for quite a while, I wonder whether he'd be happy to share his average app sales?
I am also interesested in hearing about tax with regard to selling apps. Does anyone have info? Obviously any additional income has to be declared, or does Apple sort out that side of things? How are payments made to you? etc. etc.
Quote from: Ian Price on 2010-Dec-07
I am also interesested in hearing about tax with regard to selling apps. Does anyone have info? Obviously any additional income has to be declared, or does Apple sort out that side of things? How are payments made to you? etc. etc.
Payments, from what I heard, are made when sales hit 150$ from a single country, then apple writes a check. Exactly how they pay I will still look into it when I open an apple account, probably the guys here that already have something going will now more.
Tax will sure vary from country. Here (brazil) my guess is that if I open an app account in my name, then I will pay for this additional income normally, if I open a company account then I will pay less taxes, something around 5% if my income is around 40k/year.
will see to add more articles about sales whenever I come by any that looks interesting, it should give a good read for those thinking about starting something up.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31837/How_One_Man_With_An_Idea_And_1000_Made_The_Global_iOS_Hit_Trainyard.php
you best take a closer look here too
http://struct.ca/2010/the-story-so-far/
AS you can see from the second post down there, before the game became a hit, he sold something like 3.200$ within 4 months, 2338 copies. Those figures are really motivating, my guess is that if you can keep 4 apps on those figures it should be enough to get things well started (at least in my case, not married, no kids, dollar is high currency in brazil).
@erico - can you post what I PM'ed you? I have no copy in my sent-messages directory :blink:!?
Here it goes, Kittie's numbers:
well, I'm maybe not the best one to ask about app sales, because my apps usally are quick drawing with some easy programs that I put together within a few days.
But here's my sales for this whole year (divide by 11 to get average per month) so you can get the picture:
Wumbo's Adventure: 198,- EUR
Acrobastics: 50,- EUR
Dr.Shiver: 4003,- EUR
Dr.Shiver HD (iPad): 328,-
Fridge Game: 51,-
GooseBumpsters: 105,-
Spy's Kit: 1122,- (whoops! Didn't expect that much)
Here's a link to them:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-shiver/id341772204?mt=8
well here's mine :)
finger goalie: 10,000$ done with flash cs5 :)
ipuppeteer : 1500$
thats it for now
Those figures are very encouraging :)
Erico & Djtoon-
Congratulations! You look like you are both doing well.
I can see that many people would filter apps by release date on their device, so an app would sell in volume initially, but once its off the first 25 in the 3 filters (top paid, top selling & release date) its as good as lost unless someone is specifically looking for it, and for someone to look for it they must know it exists.
So my question is really- to what extent do you 'manage' these apps once they are up? Or are they essentially 'fire & forget'? If the latter is the case then are these apps proliferated via word of mouth / advertising, etc?
Cheers, Shawnus
I update then every now and then. Doing proper updates brings more sales, though.
Quote from: shawnus on 2010-Dec-08
Erico & Djtoon-
Congratulations! You look like you are both doing well.
oops, those are Kitty's numbers not mine, but I hope I do that good too!
@Djtoon, what about time spam?
ipuppeteer is a nice app, you surely will sell more copies.
My pong game has been on sale for almost 3 weeks and I sold over 300. It has slowed down a lot, it is currently selling about 5 a day.
Payments from apple gets direct deposited to your banking account, about every 20 days.
Thanks Gernot for this easy and powerful developing tool, GLBasic. My dreams are are finally coming through, developing video games.
Just Pong:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=403868243&mt=8 (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=403868243&mt=8)
best way to beef up sales is facebook
i wish we had facebook connect support for updates on score :) its better then open fait
and with facebook connect i can post images directly to the users feed :) viral is the key for good apps :)
take angry birds and doodle jump for example
ah. You think?
OpenFeint _does_ enable Facebook for you. So, we have to update that.
BumbleBomber has not done very well to what I thought it might. I have sold about 71 copies in about 2 weeks :(
However it is on numerous hacking download sites and has hundreds of downloads. I don't know if i should be unhappy or take it as a compliment lol
PercyCute has over 4000 downloads, but a high percentage of those are from when I changed it to free.
I never expected either app to sell loads, as they were both quick apps just to get used to the app coding and releasing process and to give ourselves a bit of marketing. The next app is also a qiuck app for marketing. However, the one after that which is still currently being concepted by the guy who does game design for me is much bigger and I hope has some success.
At the end of the day, I would be programming whether for profit or for fun, so anything that I make is a bonus.
Wow ... never expected these amount of sells. So who buy me a Airbus A380?
My app has been on about a year now and I started off at £1.19 for a week and it didnt really sell, dropped it to 59p and it has been a steady seller brining in about £700 in a year after Apple have had their cut. This is despite me not updating the app (having troubles getting the new version up :( ) and it being a pretty niche market my app is aimed at (a UK fruit machine)
I have received 2 emails from companies that "promotes" apps:
1.- Fixed price, around $400. They re-design the app description and sent app review to around 400 web sites, hoping their editors put on the ewview on the sites. He even pays back if sales do not grow to $400 in a month.
2.- Promotion in a percentaje per sale. Not more info, as they want to call me by phone.
Anyone knows if this would really help (I know that my current apps will not benefict a lot, but...)?
I would consider the 1st option only if the company has great reviews from past customers.
It sounds kind of 'scammy' by saying they'll send it to 400 web sites for reviews.
If they have a history / reputation with those web sites then ya, sounds like a good deal.
I'd rather they send it to only 4 review sites if they have any influence!
But if those 400 web sites are just a list of reviews sites he downloaded from somewhere, the only value we be that it saves you from submitting to them yourself. (But still might be worth it if you have more money than time!).
Even option 2 wouldn't be bad if you didn't want to fork over $400, but I'd want to be pretty sure they can actually market your game better than yourself, or know people, etc. Your game could be a hit and then you'd own them a percentage, but maybe they really didn't do anything that contributed to the success.
I'm guessing my game will be done in a month or two, and I'm also thinking about advertising / promotion. I have a bit of money I'd be willing to invest if I feel it's invested wisely. But $800 for an ad on a review site would only be worth it if people actually bothered to click the ad. The best promotion is getting reviewed, but that's not something you can buy (or is it? ha).
Wow...all these finance figures are making my head spin. :sick: Do we have enough to chip in for an Airbus A380? :whistle:
$400 with a payback option if sales don't exceed $400 sounds pretty sane to me. I mean - what have you got to lose there?
Quote from: Kitty Hello on 2010-Dec-10
$400 with a payback option if sales don't exceed $400 sounds pretty sane to me. I mean - what have you got to lose there?
I was thinking the same thing, except it sounds like most other products with a money back guarantee. If the company sounds trustworthy and you think they would honor that deal, then sure, I'd go for it too. Was there any fine print to that offer?
Ampos: Are you willing to tell us who they are? Did you ask for information from them, or did they just blindly email you from an email list?
Quote from: matchy on 2010-Dec-10
Wow...all these finance figures are making my head spin. :sick: Do we have enough to chip in for an Airbus A380? :whistle:
You won't believe! I had an idea for an i-pad game and told a few companies about...
...one of them bought it for several thousand millions so I just though I would by an a320 and have it go all over the world picking up all of us forum users for a first GLBASIC party/convention!
Unfortunantly, like, as you can see on the pic, they forgot to remove the a320 logo off the plane, it really pissed me off I told them to go back to factory and report when they get the painting job done correctly...
you can't really trust these a320 factories! :P
[attachment deleted by admin]
Then the A320 went to city to city with GLB users, stopping off at the annual convention and selling ideas (not apps) to investors. Sweet! :zzz:
lol nice picture :D
Quote from: Slydog on 2010-Dec-10
But if those 400 web sites are just a list of reviews sites he downloaded from somewhere, the only value we be that it saves you from submitting to them yourself. (But still might be worth it if you have more money than time!).
I agree and am not too found of this type of company.
If an average success is to be found there, I think they would hire or buy the programs in the first place.
This is all too new market for someone to come up with this "advertise" stuff.
Only my opinion though, I would send my games to reviews and sites myself...
or someone on the forum could put up a site for apps review? and we could benefit from a straight channel.
Something similar to the thread people release their app,,, just a thought.
Quote from: Slydog on 2010-Dec-10
Quote from: Kitty Hello on 2010-Dec-10
$400 with a payback option if sales don't exceed $400 sounds pretty sane to me. I mean - what have you got to lose there?
I was thinking the same thing, except it sounds like most other products with a money back guarantee. If the company sounds trustworthy and you think they would honor that deal, then sure, I'd go for it too. Was there any fine print to that offer?
Ampos: Are you willing to tell us who they are? Did you ask for information from them, or did they just blindly email you from an email list?
Sorry for the delay.
Here you have the web:
http://www.mobile-app-marketing-makeover.com/ (http://www.mobile-app-marketing-makeover.com/)
For my, that I have a full-day work, and only program on my (little) spare time, will pay for someone to promote my app on so many sites. 400$ per 400 web pages? Perhaps a bit expensive.
The only concern is if that guy (or any other company) will do the job they are talking about really, and not just getting $400 for sending the promotion to only a few sites.
I will pay for a serious job, but not for being cheated.
I read over his entire web site and I now like his pitch, he sounds genuine and not very 'scammy'.
$497 for what he does is a great deal.
What you are paying for is his marketing skills at writing "persuasive copy" (as he puts it) for the iTunes game listing, plus a "carefully crafted press release". He claims to spend about 2 days per client and has previous experience doing this with other top iPhone developers.
Consider his web site as part of his 'portfolio'. After reading it, do you feel compelled to use his service? If so, he may have the ability to convert potential customers into paying customers. Plus get the review sites to actually review your game.
I think I'll trust him with my $497 and give him a try.
Otherwise I'd still have to research review sites, plus create a press release, then manually submit it to each site.
But that wont be for a month or two.
He gives me a 100$ discount if answered before a week. Maybe we can get a discount if we talk as group. Glbasic group.
The guy behind that site is Ed Turner, do a search for "Edward Turner iphone"
His approach to marketing his services seems to me to be too spammy but
it all depends on how you look at it. His personal website doesn't inspire
confidence. http://www.edward-turner.com/
have a look for other companies i.e.
http://www.apalon.com/iphone_marketing.html
mmm thats a shame. I thought he did sound promising, but his website says that he had to use "Willie Crawford" to market his software. This rings slight alarms bells with me.
I suppose there is still the guarantee of your money back....unless that is his next "highly lucrative software project" that he talks about.
oh and I also smell something fishy.....actually more bovine, when he talks of hitting 6 figures in the next 30 days for his current project. if that was the case would you really be bringing in a 50/50 partner??
In the words of the dragons "I'm out" :'(
Dang! I did some research too and now I'm not too confident with Ed's services.
I did notice his personal website was copyrighted 2008, so I wonder if he found a 'partner'? And how well he did? But I don't really care!
The http://www.apalon.com/iphone_marketing.html (http://www.apalon.com/iphone_marketing.html) site looks more professional, but their prices ranges up to $4000, but they guarantee top 50 rankings for that price. (Only $2000 up front). (What if they have over 50 clients?! ha)
Just searching for "iphone application marketing" reveals tons of sites that do the same thing. Too many!
I guess for my first game I'll do the leg work myself. Should be a learning experience!
I will try (can only try) the leg work too when I get first app done,
it's too new a market to have so many "professionals" around, heck, ipad just about launched...
excellent research/share you guy did though...that's what community is all about, thanks.
SOme one can earn money doing a "marketing company" here, in GLB forum, managed for one guy we know and trust.
In this bussines, trust and not results is the key.
Hello,
I have one game out as of September. Hairy Legs and Hairy Legs Lite. I consider it one game although technically 2 apps. The paid version is selling 10-20 a day. There are some days it gets up in the high 20's and 30's. I've done no advertising at all. Just posted in some App forums about it. One thing I did that really helped was the free version. The free version did not come out until about a month after the paid was out. Daily sales were starting to dip below 10 a few times a week before the free version was out. Once the free version came out sales more than doubled for awhile. Now they have been 10-20 for about 3 weeks. I tend to put a minor update out each month just to refresh it on the "What's New Lists" such as App Shopper.
One thing that helped me, and I cannot explain it at all, is that the free version became a hit in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. In those markets it was within the top 10 downloaded free apps and the free version was getting 5k+ downloads a day, which in turn translated to more sales. www.appannie.com is a great place to view how well apps are doing in different markets.
Hairy Legs was about learning GLBasic and the whole App Store process. I would have been happy to sell 50 copies, so I am very pleased with what it has done. Took about 20 days, working a few hours a day to make. I have a more serious game under review right now called Christmas Rush. This is the one that more thought and time went into and I am hoping it does well.
If you are looking to get into apps there is no easier way than GLBasic if you have limited programming experience. I've gotten better support here than you do some pay support plans. It is a great community. The biggest issues I had were getting the Apple side working with all the code signing and provisioning. If you are new to the whole thing, that part is very intimidating I think. My only drawback at all with GLBasic, and it is not the fault of the developers, is that Android is taking off in a big way and I would like to see support for that. In the meantime I am developing for Android with another software package, but GLBasic is by far the easiest and quickest way to develop of the 2 packages. Android support is something I hope GLBasic can pull off in the near future and I hope the developer is not afraid to charge a little extra for the time involved to create an Android version. Folks should not expect something like that in a free upgrade. Whatever the price, you will make up the cost in no time developing for the 2 most used platforms.
Take Care and Good Luck,
Gary
Quotethe free version was getting 5k+ downloads a day
Wow, that's a lot! You should put in some ads and start capitalizing on those downloads!
Congrats! :good:
Thats a really good website, however, I am not so sure that submitting your itunes connect logon details is something you should ever do. I will stick to just looking at the basic, non personalised stats.
No sooner did I post this reply and I got word from Apple that Christmas Rush is approved and up for sale. This game was made with GLBasic.
Here is a link to it if you are interested. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/christmas-rush/id409499277?mt=8
For Appannie I never put any info into it. I just use what they offer for free. I go to the site and put in the app name and it tells me where it ranks in the different markets.
Looks good! Hope it sells well, as people should be in a christmas shopping mood :)
Stick it in the app store thread
this article and the part I of it should interest people into the indie development scene:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidGalindo/20110114/6785/How_much_do_indie_PC_devs_make_anyways_Part_II.php
just about anyone here might know about it, just in case...check this:
http://www.8bitfunding.com/index.php
good thing for me is that they support internationals by paypal
.... just have to get a paypal here first....
interesting funding scheme.
hi my friends, I stay looking this thread about the number of sell your applications, well my first application (Fantasy Bricks), only sell about 50 copies, and stop, now I don´t sell any more.
I have a little idea when Ampos tell us about a web on for 400$(too much expensive) send the application to 400 webs, ok.
Well, when I start to promote my application, I loss to much time searching forums and webs for advertising my game.
Here go my propourse, so , in this forum, between us, the users of Glbasic, make a list of sites for "promo" our games, we are a little community respect the all world of applications on AppStore, and anybody from here don´t affect to another glbasic user in his sales, because evry one sell her applications when is finished and how I say we are a little community and don´t have troubles between us.
I propourse make everybody a mini-list of 10 sites or perhaps 15, we going making a list, and in a short(perhaps 1 2 or 3 months) time we have got a great list of forums and advertising web, only for lose 5 min at day in a week everyone of us.
What do you think?¿. I think for the simple fact we are a little community, but enough for help us between us, and don´t put any money, we same can help us, in a huge manner whitout a great effort, how I say only 5 min at day, when you want, can be a usefull list.
If you think can be usefull, tell me, and I design a planning for we can be done a great list of sites.
And if you think is a lazzy thing comment me, but I don´t thin this.
Well after of have the list, we have to do the work of put the explanation of game, but only ctrl-C and ctrl-V not waste too much time.
Kinds Regards,
Iván J.
Well I go back from smoke :offtopic:, and I think in another thing, perhaps usefull too.
Well we have past 2//3 months and we have the "BLACK LIST", well going put into the browser any URL can be a tedious and anioning work, but we can use a simple acount of Xmarks, common for all of us.
Xmarks, have the capability of merge the content from another count to your personal count of xmarks, and we can make into Xmakrs, list for pre Palm, iPhoen/Ipad, Window Mobile and so on.
What do you think about this?¿.
PS: Little Description of Xmakrs
Xmarks, is a free tool for browsers, how Internet Explorer (Who uses), Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome, this have the function for save your bechmarks in a remote server. If your computer crashes, don´t worry whit your account you can restore all your benchmarks in a couple of seconds.
I think it's a great idea Iván.
A community maintained list of marketing websites / contacts, sub-divided for the various platforms.
And I currently use Xmarks, so I like that idea too.
A forum thread (by platform?) could work too, like the App Store thread. (ie. no discussion, just info)
Then you can add a link, contact person (if you know) and a little description of what the web site is, and/or any tips you've learned.
Or a wiki.
In defense of that other website charging $400, that fee also included him rewriting your App Store description and writing a promotional letter / press release to send to those 400 web sites. But that doesn't mean it's worth $400 or not, but if he's good (or your marketing skills are lacking!) then his service (or the countless others) may be of some value. I just don't know if I can trust *him* in particular or not.
HI SlyDog, thanks in advice for your comments.
Well what you say about a thread for only info the links, I don´t occurs this, but is a great idea too.
But I think in a principle make a basic list, not short, but a determinated number or person colaborate between them, and organize for not wast time for search.
I think a simple metod, for organize this works, I look Glbasic users are from to much points on the planet, USA, Spain, UK, Brazil and I don´t know if any site more.
Well I think making little groups of people of every country in example Spain, where I´m. Make the next.
12 Spain guys, searchs in dived groups whit this scheme.
4 Search Google Firefox
4 Search Google Explorer
4 Search Google anothers Browser
The same for another engine Search in example Bing, always using the Domain.es (Spain)
4 Search Bing Firefox
4 Search Bing Explorer
4 Search Bing anothers Browser
The first person search the 2 first pages that appears on the searchs (Google, altavista, bing, and other)
The second person search the 3 and 5 pages that appears on the searchs (Google, altavista, bing, and other)
...
The second person_number_X search the X and X+2 pages that appears on the searchs (Google, altavista, bing, and other)
Ok, this is for Spain
On Usa the same, but the domain , I think will appear automatically .com or us (I´m not sure).
And so on on every country, where stay the users or group os users of GLbasic.
Tha fact os use differents browsers and different engines, is, I make some search on the web, about another things, but sometimes I don´t have the same result on Google than in example Bing, or Yahoo. The different browser I don´t stay very sure, but I thinks occurs the same.
Well we imagine, we have a very extend list, I think whit a simple code, in Glbasic, we can send out the webs they are repeat, can be a great number, or not, but making something similar to this, we don´t have care, if an user, have my searched URL, and I have to find another. Because can be a great confusion, if any user have to watch what found another. I think if anybody can be do this code, or I think I can be do it, it´s only compare arrays.
This code I don´t kwon in a principle how make, but I think the most quickly, can be, we have the list, whit X numbers, in .txt, we pass this .txt at glbasic code, and the code(compiled) give us a list clear, whit nothing repeat.
What do you think?¿.
Again thanks for your reply, slydeDog, and if you have another ideas or counsils, please comment.
Another question, I send some PM a couple of users, I think if every of us tell his friends on the forum , can be do this idea, in not too much time, how more people enrroll in this idea, more benficits for all us. I think.
About you tell me the webs for pay, yes I think they can be a great work, but pay 400$ is almost for me a too much money, and in this days we are living, the crisis is how play to "fortune roulete",perhaps you pay 400$ and win 1200$ or more, or perhaps lose a high quantity of money.
Kind Regards,
Iván J.
Well another idea, but I don´t think if this can be too much legal, or we can have troubles in the forums or webs.
If anybody can tell us about this, and possible troubles or perhaps, we can be banned in the forums, PLEASE COMMENT!!!.
The 2nd idea, compatible whit the first Idea(this is the idea of the List for we can help between us), is the next.
We can have a simple Gmail account, for all of us, and them use for register in the forums, and say (remenber me!) check box, every users, that search a web, register whit this account coomon for all of us.
Then when we have the complete list, evey user, only click on his Xmarks, and put it his explanation about her game or APP, whitout have to make a login for her in every web.
Well, how I say this is only, for comment, who no want make this or if can we have troubles own I say, we leave out this 2nd idea.
Kind Regards,
Iván J.
Another article with numbers and few experiments...check
http://www.garry.tv/2011/06/02/the-story-of-snabbo/
For the last 2 months my Poker App has sold from 900-1100 copies every month. Made it to the No 4 Paid Card game in Germany and featured in New and What's hot for weeks.
Still doing the same. Ed Turner, Appdictions and the lot have all contacted me, but to be honest who can you trust, and is it worth spending a dime when you can do almost what they do if not even better. The only one I see to be worthwhile is Appalon but at 2000-4000 dollars it hurts.
So at the moment my apps are not been advertised in any way. Just the usual press release here and there, most of which have not even replied to me hehe. Im afraid we are very much alone, so prepare to do your stuff and do it the right way, coz no one is going to do it for you :)
I might advertise a bit my next coming app. Getting lucky in the Appstore also helps, but its very important not to base it on luck.
I have many things in mind, as you'll see very soon :P
Take care my fellow coders and hope my post is of some use :PPPP