Supercell generating $1M a day

http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2013/01/10/supercell-generating-1m-a-day

Wow, that is some impressive profit!

Good news, maybe everyone will start making shitty farmville games instead of slenderman.

Thats insane! But we already knew F2P games make the most so I don’t think there is any revelation there. I really hope that apple would take off consumable IAPs. I really can’t imagine people are really having all that much fun with those types of games… I feel it is mostly greedy developers preying on our weaknesses as irrational human beings. $99 IAPs are insane. I can’t imagine a single person who could have spent that much real money on fake money and was proud of themselves after doing so.

I don’t see why dev wanted to make profit from their game should everytime be finger pointed as greedy…the goal of running company is to make benefit from what you do and if possible a lot …often indie see those insane things through their own point of view …or because they won’t never do X then obviously other too …as a common sense…

people buying $99 IAP or IAP in general well , you can see it as insane or can’t imagine they spend that money in this… but well they seem to do it anyway …and as far I know nobody put a gun on their head to force them buy…

Wish I could come up with some sh1tty game that makes me 1M a day

IM TOTALLY A GREEDY DEVELOPER!

give me all your money.

Me too. But I don’t think their games are the key. The games seem very similar to many other Facebook/Farmville style games. I’d prefer to come up with a marketing strategy similar to theirs… and the $60k/day they have for advertising :wink:

That is insane. It makes me wonder why people even bother asking for new 3D graphical features for Unity when MAJORITY of the mega-money making games are 2D only.

Cut the Rope, Angry Bird, Doodle Jump, Draw Something, Battleheart (Unity!), and now “Hey Days” and “Clash of the Clans”…

With exception to a few 3D titles, the top 100 are mostly 2D games.

just proves that it’s not all about graphics…

But there’s so many 2D games already. Its the same thing really.

Since when has that mattered? People really need to learn innovation means nothing when it comes to making money.

Very true. In fact, innovation is often the best way to avoid making money. People don’t want to try new things. They certainly don’t want to PAY to try new things.

They’ve played Farmville. They’ve played Call of Duty and Halo. They know what to expect, and they like that. If you notice, even innovative games don’t make a splash until someone tells the world to check it out (Kotaku and such).

If you want to make your dream game, don’t expect to become rich. If you want to become rich, don’t expect to make your dream game.

Because the mobile marketplace isn’t the only one that exists maybe?
Because some of us want to make games because we like the game we’re making, not because it’s designed around maximised profit margins?
Because these features can be used to help make new gameplay concepts function?

Not really that hard to figure out.

+1 on the popularity trend of 2D games :slight_smile:

A cautious +1 to the comment that innovation doesn’t make money… if it’s true it worries me.

Innovation isn’t a promise of money, but neither is any game. In fact, it’s pretty hard to quantify how much money innovation makes/doesn’t make money because there’s no way to quantify how much innovation is in something in the first place.

What’s amazing is I have never even heard of the games. Means that even through the saturation, money can be made (I mean big money).

Technically, Hay Day and Clash of Clans are both that 2.5D orthographic stuff, for what it’s worth. But I think the main thing is that 3D graphics usually don’t work as well on tiny phone screens. The details/shading/textures of 3D graphics make the games look complicated and less casual, IMO. And the mega markets for phone games are casual for the moment.

But if your game is for PC’s, consoles, or non-casual games, I think games with 3D graphics usually do better (I think, haven’t done in depth research). So, it really depends on your game. My PC multiplayer car racing game would not have a chance without rich 3D graphics (may not have a chance even with 3D).

I can do the first part, it’s the second part I have trouble with.

I played Clash of Clans from Supercell a few days back and I thought it was a well made game. Shows the power of the freemium model. Lure Em and then Milk their cash with addictive gameplay. How hard can it be?(kidding).

The only thing I might like to note is that if the same game was on - say Steam or Kongregate I doubt it would be raking in that much cash. IN fact I remember a game that had similar gameplay elements to this called Backyard Monsters.

So, in a way it shows the power of the iOS app store as well.

See here is the thing that burns me a bit. I know there ARE a lot of conscious adults that know they can spare this money and do so. However, I have not only heard way too many stories about kids maxing out parents credit cards, but recently saw it happen first hand to a friend.

First thing that crosses people’s minds is “well, restrict your kids’ access to the device, don’t give them your password, it’s your fault, etc.”

A friend had his daughter recently manage to discover the account password, and in a day proceeded to spend $200 on coins for a zoo game. This is a family that lives VERY tight (in fact the kid’s iPod touch was a gift from grandma.) That’s the kind of thing that makes me feel… well a bit wrong. I have seriously considered making a game that follows this formula in the past. I keep holding back because I’m too empathic. Every time I remember this case, I feel a bit sick to even consider doing such a game. I know me not doing it does not stop others from doing it, though.

It’s like going Vegan to stop animal deaths, not like the local store is going to order any less meat, nor will the farm let those cows go free, because I went vegan.

But… well I guess in this case I am friend of too many “cows.”

BTW, I downloaded these games to see what the deal was about them (just to see if there was anything special) and the only difference from Farmville seems to be that my crops did not go rotten overnight because I didn’t log in every half an hour to collect them. Still, though, these are games where you either play for 30 seconds and wait for 20 minutes, or spend loads of money (LOADS) to be able to continuously play nonstop. There is nothing to do in between other than stop playing.

Perhaps… perhaps the games would be nicer if there was something to do… not just waiting but actually something to do… even if it was a grindy repetitive action, but something other than just “WAIT”. (Tiny Tower may be a good example, as you wait you still can be attending the elevator.)

Then again, I guess if people have things to do, they will never feel the urge to speed things up and therefore never actually spend money. Bah. Can’t win without wearing the Devil Horn’s hat I guess.

Clash of Clans gets TouchArcade coverage regularly. In fact, they had an article yesterday on the latest update where they called it “Everybody’s favorite free-to-play concoction”