I updated FuguMaze to Unity 2.0 and resubmitted it to the Apple downloads site. I see there are four Unity widgets in the Top 50 Dashboard list:
MacPinball, StuntManiaJnr, FuguMaze and Banana Warehouse. The max number I’ve seen before is three, so the trend to Unity dominance (at least in widgets) continues!
That’s cool! Is there a way to find out how many downloads a submitted widget has had to date?
Ricko
We have had 255k downloads of the StuntMANIAJnr widget in 173 days. Our daily download figure goes up and down, but we have stayed in the top 10 widget downloads for 168 of the 173 days.
But as DaveyJJ always says… if I had a $1 for every widget downloaded… sheesh…
I actually charge a dollar per widget (well, $0.99), although it’s listed as a shareware on the Apple site (really, just to make it clear I’m using my trademark for commercial products).
Out of perhaps 120,000 downloads over seven months (my widgets don’t have as much staying power in the Top 50 as the others - FuguMaze usually gets a couple of weeks on there whenever I resubmit it, and FuguBowl snuck in there once), I received $3 and one support email. But I’m getting a little more from Google Ads.
So you have had .99 for 120,000 downloads? or you offer a free download and .99 if someone wants to own/register it? How many downloads have converted to $$$ for you?
I’ve now downloaded more than 700,000 widgets … and have three (four?) donations of only about 40 total to show for it. It's why I'm scrambling to save enough to upgrade to Unity 2.0 right now.
Okay, so $43 combined between you and technicat. That confirms that the widget itself is not monetized. How about traffic? Can you track the amount of traffic your site is getting from that link/exposure?
Ricko
This is why something like MochiMedia would be a killer for you guys.
Thats quite a lot of combined downloads - when you consider it’s a binary.
Is there a way to make your widget display an HTML page before the game starts, or have an ad sidebar - although I guess that might violate the Google Ads policy.
Mochimedia thread:
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=7794
A Facebook game could be a good opportunity too - If I could play 3D pong against my social network on FB and keep a tally of who’s on top - I bet that would be fun. You could consider FB’s Ad platform - I’m sure there would be a way to tap into that if you dug a bit deeper.
Agreed and I’ve been thinking on ways to incorp MochiMedia into my games.
I’ve had requests for this too, but I haven’t figured out FB much as I’ve spent time in MySpace with little return with the time invested.
Cheers,