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Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

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11–20 of 22 posts

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#11
Interestingly, I do collect about 10% of my visitors from mobile on my sudoku webapp, which was NOT designed for mobile. A mobile version would be possible but since it doesn't make much I haven't bothered. Still, it's better than the zero some report for their mobile game :)

http://sudokuisland.com

App discovery was one of the main reasons I decided to learn webapp first. Unless you make a graphic heavy game, eventually HTML5 apps will perform on mobile :)

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#12
Made about $5000 from in-app purchases and about $4000 from ads across 3 games. All free games at http://mugalon.com/ .

I am doing this on the side while freelancing (or having a day job before) as income. Most games did not have any monetization for most of their life and I am sure I could get this up one order of magnitude if I put in some work.

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#13
My free game (with ads) hasn't made enough to cover the dev license.. I think mobile games are one of those things where you either make the top 10 or languish in purgatory.

Made it in about a week: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smashcorp....

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#14
Here are some stats from the first couple months for my last game.

Highest Positions in US App Store.

All Games US #54

Adventure (Games) #7

Arcade (Games) #23

Board (Games) #4

Music (Games) #2

Revenue

$18,430 Interstitials - Static & Video

$5,180 Banner Ads

$1,515 IAP to Remove Ads

=============

TOTAL $25,125

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#15
post #13

My free game (with ads) hasn't made enough to cover the dev license.. I think mobile games are one of those things where you either make the top 10 or languish in purgatory. Made it in about a week: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smashcorp....

Great job with the quotes in your promo video! :)

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#16
I thought I put together a decent game, but I didn't have any knowledge of how to market, and no real desire to put the time in on that aspect. It made a sale a week for the first 2 years and is tapering off to a few sales per year. I think I will just drop it to free and eliminate the free version some time soon. Perhaps I should even release the source.

If you want to make money selling games you need to be prepared to put a lot of work in. Otherwise you should consider it to be buying lottery tickets which rarely works well.

http://tactitionprogramming.com/oceancommotion.html iPad only

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#17

Made about £15 with dino sprint. It was never really about the money tbh, I just wanted people to enjoy something that I had created. It has 10,000+ downloads which im extremely happy with. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wockawocka...

I'm in same ballpark, I have ads from which I made about $20 with 26k downloads (and 1.4k current installs), and I have in-game purchases from which I made 0. It seems some people really enjoy it, and give a good review, others post something like 'garbage' and give it a 1 star review https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mildspring...

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#18

Neither of mine are in the app store any more, but apps with similar names are. Santa's Last Stand - 3-4 mos - $250 since 4 years ago, free + 2.99 paid Bank Defense - 3-4 months, - $100 since 4 years ago, free + 1.99 paid (approx--I don't remember) mobile game market is _hard_ unless you're flight control/angry birds/candy crush. The market is saturated and Zynga (for example) has entire teams of people to make sure…

>mobile game market is _hard_ unless you're flight control/angry birds/candy crush.

Is there any angle to get around this, for even modest sales? Most people here seem to be saying that they barely cover cost, if that. Very discouraging :-( There has to be something that small guys can do that big guys can't.

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#19
post #18

Neither of mine are in the app store any more, but apps with similar names are. Santa's Last Stand - 3-4 mos - $250 since 4 years ago, free + 2.99 paid Bank Defense - 3-4 months, - $100 since 4 years ago, free + 1.99 paid (approx--I don't remember) mobile game market is _hard_ unless you're flight control/angry birds/candy crush. The market is saturated and Zynga (for example) has entire teams of people to make sure…

>mobile game market is _hard_ unless you're flight control/angry birds/candy crush. Is there any angle to get around this, for even modest sales? Most people here seem to be saying that they barely cover cost, if that. Very discouraging :-( There has to be something that small guys can do that big guys can't.

Check out my post. I was definitely able to cover costs.

Re: Ask HN: How much money did you make from a mobile game you developed alone?

#20

Here are some stats from the first couple months for my last game. Highest Positions in US App Store. All Games US #54 Adventure (Games) #7 Arcade (Games) #23 Board (Games) #4 Music (Games) #2 Revenue $18,430 Interstitials - Static & Video $5,180 Banner Ads $1,515 IAP to Remove Ads ============= TOTAL $25,125

What year was this? Recent?
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