I am thinking of developing an android app and wondered what would be the best strategy to monetise my app.
Charging a price for the app is obviously one way to go but it has been said that android users prefer not to pay for apps and android statistics seem to bear that out. piracy is also a problem.
I am aware that there are a couple of plugins like admob for advertising but is it correct that these require extending my current standard build workflow to orientate towards eclipse, which I dont really wish to do. What are your experiences here? Please share your thoughts.
The paid app market is definitely not as lively on Android as it is on iOS. I just launched my most recent iOS game (Battleheart) over there, and decided to stick with the exact same business model as on iOS as an experiment - it’s a paid app for $2.99.
So far the revenue hasn’t been incredible, but its better than I expected, generating around $300 a day during its opening week. The app is also restricted to a limited slice of the market - Armv7 and OpenGL ES 2.0 required, and many Samsungs can’t download it from the market due to its download size. This looked like pretty good news… until I realized that this places it among the best selling apps at the moment (it’s currently ranked at #12 among new paid apps). So realistically, the cieling doesn’t get much higher than what I’m seeing now.
Based on this, I think it’s safe to say that there isn’t a lot of money in paid android apps, at least today, without an established brand and a large portfolio of games. Still, it’s much better than it was a year ago. I think as Android devices continue to grow out of the technophile niche and into the mainstream (where people are less pirate-y and more willing to spend a buck or two here and there) the potential for paid apps will continue to grow.
hi MikaMobile, thanks for the response (from an esteemed developer tis great!).
Yeah, your app looks really good quality and fun, you make some interesting points also.
Hopefully you will get a ‘long burn’ with respect to sales over the coming months and years (as people update their mobiles, which will bring them into the unity sphere).
Unity’s quality really shines doesn’t it! Thats taking nothing from the hardwork and imagination you have brought to the table.
Hey congrats, thanks for responding - Mika FTW!
@MikaMobile: Are you using SpriteManager or another tool for your 2D or did you roll your own system?
Rolled my own (kind of), it’s all based on skinned meshes. I’ve talked about it at length on these forums.
And how about iOS, is still decent or it is a bit saturated?
IOS is better than ever, the amount of money flying through it’s ecosystem as a whole continues to grow as the installed user base does. There’s no question that it’s the more profitable platform as far as paid apps go, by an enormous margin. It’s also as competitive as ever, and the majority of apps don’t gain any traction. Still, I think that the chance of a feature by Apple is fairly high if you have a quality product, which often leads to an app breaking into the lucrative top end of the market, at least temporarily. The “Midas touch” of a feature on the app store has no real parallel on Android. Still, since porting via Unity is so painless, it makes the most sense to target both markets.
I too would be curious to hear if anyone can compare the performance of paid to ad-supported apps on android.
@Lostlogic GET YOUR OWN THREAD AND GTFO!
One decent reply - awesome guys [sarc]!