We work hard, spent year in development, make a great models, worlds, gameplay, and finally when we realize game, it have up to now only 200 free downloads and 1 pay download. :sad::sad::sad::sad:
We are so depressed and unsatisfied, especially game have great idea and gameplay. We running out of budget and we do not have money for promotion.
We have FB, YT and few days ago realized that TW is second word for marketing, in two days we have 400 followers and we hope we increase our revenue in next months.
Lot of people who try, told us that our game is great (I can’t said which game is), but our team running of budget and expected sallaries …
Please, if this read anyone with experince, consolate us - what will going on? Is it same with lot of other games?
Beacuse we read lot of stories (Hill Climb, Temple Runner and so…) where revenue goes up on day of publishing!
How is your experience with downloads over 1,2,3 months and so…
Thanks a lot!
Generally revenues go down after day 1 if you haven’t got any traction which you don’t.
You are crazy to not say which game because you might get some downloads from saying.
Your problems could be as simple as bad game, bad, description, bad screenshots, no marketing etc etc. If you are hoping it will turn around to pay salaries that is very unlikely sorry.
A conversion rate of 0.5% from free to paid isn’t uncommon.
400 fb followers and 200 downloads doesn’t make much sense.
Yeah seems like you made a game no one wanted I guess. Sometimes it happens, people pou-pou minecraft clones, not another zombie game or another runner but those are what sell.
You either have to bring something new to the table or be able to produce something that stands above the rest of the other games – competing against the best of that genre. Of course if you try something too off the wall there might not be any market for it and thats the risk
This is a possibility… or it’s just a new game and no one discovered it yet. I don’t have much mobile publishing experience (none for games) but from a playing perspective it’s kind of a crapshoot whose games I or my wife find. We just poke around sometimes and try things. Hill Climb Racer, as simple as it is, is actually my favorite mobile game that I’ve played on both Android and Windows Phone 8.
The first week is critical because you are featured in the “new releases” section. If you don’t get any traction in the first week, it is doubtful the game will succeed without some changes.
The bad numbers you are getting could be for any reason: bad icon, bad screenshots, bad description, or people just don’t dig the concept. I would suggest you do give the name of the game and link so people can offer some suggestions, what is there to lose?
Also, take a look at the top grossing section in google play. People voted with their money and the results are clear: the most successful model is free to play with in app purchase (micro transactions).
Since you had such a bad launch, perhaps you might want to consider pulling out, fixing whatever the problem is, and launching again.
I wish I could offer more specific advice, but without knowing what game you are talking about it is not possible.
Yeah I guess you have nothing to lose at this point. I would start collecting some analytic data and see whats going wrong – where are people bailing on the game – do you know – maybe you need to tweak the gameplay to make the first level easier or whatever. But without getting traffic from somewhere your app is DOA.
Unless you had a really good demo but even thats only 5% so with 200 downloads its not good enough.
You have to make a game that people want to see, it doesn’t matter how great you think your game is, if people don’t want it, you won’t succeed unless you have the budget to convince people they want your game (i.e marketing)
I’ve released about 5 games so far and the 2 games that I identified a hole in the market filled that hole are bringing me enough income to keep working full time at this. Other games were a space shoot, endless top down racing game a zombie shooter. They failed and the reason they failed is because no one wants them, I made them to see if i could.
Think long and hard about your game and why you are making it. Is it for the players or for yourself?
There’s no formula to become successful in the mobile martket, it’s more or less luck. Instead of complaining, see it as a delay to your eventual success.
Keep in mind you’re not alone trying to make the next candy crush saga, the competition is high!
Im my experience publish in android alone (no marketing or sites reviews) you born dead. You can have no single download for weeks for a free version. You can’t find your game even searching for its name. Sad
The “new releases” for me is a lie. We launch our game and only thing that we see in “new relases” category are the more rentable games updates (like candy crush).
The change was when we launch in app store. They new release works and give you a try in the first pages. That initial exposition created a “know” of the game that boost the android downloads.
Today, the android version is doing even better than ios for the premium version.
Your feedback is very helpfull to us. Unfortunatelly, I couldn’t give the of the game, but I promise I give my best if game suceed to post to you all details. Also, must to say, during development phase, there is a lot of helpfull comments we find on this forum. Thank you all!
whats the difference between your free download version and the paid download version? ad free? other features? maybe its not compelling enough to upgrade from free to paid. are you at least getting ad revenue from the free version? and why can’t you give the name of your game? you have a whole bunch of people here willing to try it out and maybe even get a few paid downloads if we like it. if it’s some kind of contract or agreement that you can’t give out the name then maybe that’s half your problem…
You have a marketing opportunity and you are throwing it away. You are doomed to fail with this attitude. The more people that hear about your game the better, especially if it is actually good.
I second this one. Marketing is king. If you were developing a game for a year and in the process did not do anything to market your product then you’ve done a big no-no. There are plenty of online post-mortems that feature great insights from existing game developers from which you can easily comb out some invaluable info. If you started spreading the word half-way through development you would have probably been late already. And now, when the game is out, you’re not spreading the word. As The Raider said… you’re doomed to fail.
Yes marketing is what you need to focus on or make the game that people are getting for free cost at least a little(since people are enjoying it). I generally do not work with apps ,but plan to in the future.
