Thinking about iOS port, a few questions!

[J3sseM]

Hey Clickers!

I originally released DISTRAINT on Steam 2015.
Late 2016 I released on Google Play for Android devices. The release went very well, and I'm now considering the iOS port.

I'm new to Apple stuff!
I'd love to hear your experiences from App Store. If you've also released on Google Play, how does these two compare?

On Google Play DISTRAINT: Pocket Pixel Horror has been downloaded over 700,000 times, has 31k reviews 4,88/5.0.
The game is free to play with ads - and also includes in-app-purchase (1,49€) to remove the ads.
Unfortunately not too many people are removing the ads.

If I release on iOS, what do you suggest?
I'd love to make it premium, buy once, no ads or IAPs. However, I'm a bit worried about player feedback as on Android is free to play.

I'd love to hear your experiences and thoughts!

Cheers,

Jesse

[AlwaysUnarmed]

You should DEFINITELY release on IOS as it's a much larger market than Google Play and there are definitive numbers that suggest that IOS users are more likely to spend money on IAPS or just a premium price, like you suggested. My experience, while limited, is I see significantly larger amounts of traffic on IOS than I ever had on Google Play, and this leads to my next point and my personal suggestion: do not make it a one-time price.

While there can be success with premium apps, I believe you'll see better results with the free version with ads and an IAP. I'll use my most recent project as an example:

I recently released an app on IOS and Google Play called "The Intruder!" for $0.99 and it flopped on both platforms, but I saw a HUGE amount of exposure on IOS. On the day of release, the app got around 285,000 impressions and 5,300 page views, but only about 40 downloads and a handful of reviews. The average conversion rates for free apps, from my understanding, is around 100 impressions to 1 download, which leads me to believe I could have had around 3,000 downloads day one instead of 40.

Of course this isn't everyone's case, and it could easily be that my app simply wasn't all that great and/or my screenshots and description wasn't appealing enough. Seeing as though your app already has exposure through other platforms, you could probably get away with charging, but I personally think you're better off going with a free version.

Whichever you choose, I wish you good luck and look forward to seeing the IOS release! I don't own an Android device, so I never got to download your game, although I've heard of it :P


**Edit**

I'd also like to mention I have another app that averages 500 impressions a day and 50-75 downloads a day, and it's a free app with ads. I tested that very same app with a one-time fee of $0.99 and it got no downloads for three days, but the same amount of impressions. This evidence is purely anecdotal and you can trust it as you see fit, but that is my personal experience. Obviously it's possible to be successful with premium apps though, I mean look at Scott Cawthon :P

[J3sseM]

Hi AlwaysUnarmed!

Thank you for sharing your experience with me.
I've heard it from several sources that iOS indeed has better chances for better revenue.

And sorry to hear people didn't buy "The Intruder!", it's a tough market! :/

I agree screenshots are insanely valuable. The first thing possible users see when checking your app/game.

But yeah, after seeing how my game performs on Google Play I'd be curious to try premium on Appstore. I think it also could help that quite a few people already know DISTRAINT. Maybe I could compensate the fact it's free on Google Play to make it slightly less expensive? Going Free to Play I'd get a lot more downloads and exposure, though, so there's that to consider. But then again, some of the exposure is already there, so premium could indeed bring greater revenue, uh, tough!

I'll think about this, thank you again and good luck with your games!

Jesse

[advaith]

This isn't really related to the post, but if you want to try out exporting to iOS, you can try this guide to installing the app on your device for free.

[J3sseM]

Hi advaith!

Thank you very much, that's useful!
I already bought one tutorial from the Clickstore, I'm sure I get my game running in no time.

Jesse

[SHINBAXTER]

defo go for ios

i'd recommend the free with ads model. i wudnt even bother wasting time coding in remove ads, as so little ppl actually do lol. make sure u play sum non skipable reward video ads every so often so u actually get sum money, as u only make any money of static interstitial ads if they r clicked, which is not guaranteed.

uve got quite a lot of ppl that know ur game so u might get a good amount of downloads right at the start wen u release it. maybe plug it in an update on the android version saying "now on ios"

in general i've found i made about £10 ad revenue from 1,000 downloads, so in theory 700,000 downloads cud get u £7,000

k, wel thats my take on it

[J3sseM]

Hi SHINBAXTER!

I've already released.
On Apple App Store I went premium, no ads, no iAPs. Pay once, it's yours to keep.

I released 5-6 days ago, it's been very popular in China! Still need to boost other regions, though. But it's doing pretty well.

[SHINBAXTER]

i stand corrected

thats awesome dude! glad its doing well. u had a super lot of downloads on the google play, so its previous exposure might b helping it survive in the premium arena (funny how we term $0.99 as premium these days )

wen the download curve tails off to a low amount u might want to consider switching it at that point to the free with ads model.

but u seem to know wat ur doing. how many downloads u at so far? i heard there was sum issue with ios china app sales dropping recently, so great to hear its doing ok there.

keep up the good work!

[J3sseM]

Hi!

Yeah having so many downloads on Google Play most definitely helps! (over 800,000 now)
I'm keeping my fingers crossed Apple would feature DISTRAINT as I believe it has what it takes, but that's out of my hands.

Just hoping it would generate some income every month after the initial "release-buzz".

So far it has sold around 3,000 copies, pretty nice!
Especially when you consider it's only one week after the release and so far no signs of sales slowing down. Exciting to see how long this can keep up.

Cheers and thanks!