Number downloads for you app ?

[Csar]

I'm using the same approach as Diablohead, though my newest game will be free immediately and contain ads. After reading what some of you guys had to say I thought I might give ads a good run to see if it generates any income.

I really like Keiths advice about not spending to much time on each game and reusing code. I have a project which is rather big but now I'm thinking of making a basic version first that doesn't have everything I had planned. After a while I could release a second game in the series were I improve on stuff and continue on the old code. This will probably help with keeping an interest in the project aswell since long projects always run a bigger risk of being abandoned.

[DistantJ]

Cow Boom shot up to 418 downloads when I put it up for free. My Obj-C coded iInsultU app has had double that and only made me about $3 in revenue though, so free apps, I guess they need to be really addictive games to make you any kind of money. If you're developing in your free time and want to see a few bucks here and there then free with ads is probably the way to go, but it's not going to make you a career.

I used to use the 'reusing engines' technique back when it was all just free PC games I was building. It's pretty foolproof really. The best thing to do is, when you build a game, make as much use as you can of behaviours and build everything so that it's easy to change, that way you can tweak and re-use the engine for later games in the same genre. Treat all of your objects like widgets - program the majority of the way they work inside of their behaviour, then you can just drop them into your next game if you want them.

The thing to keep interest in a series, updates are actually more lucrative than you might think. A lot of people shy away from adding extra levels, features etc. to a game they've already released but firstly an update puts your app back among the new releases making it once again 'discoverable', and if you can keep people playing by giving them new content they'll either get you more ad impressions (if it's a free app or you've been very greedy and done paid+ads) or will have the game on their device for longer and likely show their friends.

[Diablohead]

Yes updates look like they are very important with iOS apps, keep that userbase strong even if it means adding a new stage every few weeks you get good word of mouth and your next game should do well also.

The game I am working on is very much like a metroid and castlevania game but for extra content I am looking at making challenge rooms, then I can keep adding more as time goes on.

[DistantJ]

I've been reading a lot on the subject, bought several books on my Kindle, and many successful apps started off modest and generated more and more users through updates. Pocket God is famous for it, it added vast new content every week for 14 weeks, and still regularly updates, and people 'tune in' like their favourite TV show to see what's new.

I've actually put off some features I had planned for Awesome Land in order to add them as updates in a couple of weeks time. Things like GameCentre achievements, bonus levels etc. I've left out in order to give me more to add in later. The more time I can be present in that new releases list the better. It's great how quickly Clickteam seem to roll out the updates to the exporter too, as with each update our software performs more smoothly on the devices and we can do 'improved performance' updates. Hell I'm just about to update Cow Boom just to add automatic orientation switching, thanks to the latest build of the exporter now featuring that.

By the way, Cow Boom has actually scored me a bit of revenue since making it free... A few hundred people downloaded it, but it's being played a LOT by them, a few thousand ad impressions in fact, so a free app (if it didn't take you much time) can apparently be a nice bit of side-income. It's not the kind of revenue I'd accept for my bigger projects - I need to make at least the time spent on them worth in wages - but for a fun side-project like Cow Boom it's nice.

[cfullerNY]

how much ad revenue has cow boom made? is that ok to ask?

[DistantJ]

Hi cfullerNY. About $30. lol

BUT, that's $30 I didn't have before, made out of a game I build in a couple of afternoons to test the exporter, and I can expect a spike again every time I put out a simple update, so can't complain!

[cfullerNY]

@DistantJ

Actually i do not think that is bad at all!!!! So you have 300 downloads, and about $30 from ads, is that correct?

If so, I would be very excited about the future!

[DistantJ]

No, Cow boom has had more like around 2,500 downloads...

[Tuna]

how was your first day of AWESOME Land?

[JasonDarby]

DistantJ keep at it, as you say $30 that you didn't have before, always good