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How much $$$ will I get from the Android MArket ??

Rotundjere

Rotundjere

Member
Hi guys,

I'm new to the android development, and I want to sell apps through the Market.
But I don't know how much $Money/month I will get from Android Market.

I just want to ask, how much I will get if I make 1 simple 3D game like 'Speed Forge 3D', or 'Deadly Chambers' ??


Btw, thank you very much :-)
 
its impossible to say how much $$ youll make from your app....... there are many variables involved....... not the least of which are how much you charge for the app and how popular the app becomes........

if you sell your app for $1 and sell it to 20K people then youll make about $20K - fees...... if you sell your app for $10 and only sell it to 1 person then youll make about $10 - fees
 
Rotundjere said:
@copestag: Do you know how much 'first time' average developers earn $Money from the Market each month ?
Click to expand...

MILLIONS. You're really not going to get a serious answer to this question. It really depends on just how good your application is and if you can convince people to buy it.

I've got a similar question, though. What are the fees that google takes for app sales? Is it a percentage, or flat fee? I did a quick goole search but didn't find the answer.
 
Here is an article written by the developers of Screebl: Android Market Fragmentation Sucks

Part of the issue is the Android community seems to have (generally speaking) this attitude that everything should be free. It's common to hear or read in forums (or Market reviews) negative comments about having to... GASP... pay for a app (or deal with ads).

Most iPhone users I know just hop on and buy an app without even thinking. Android users complain about it. Not everyone... I certainly don't think twice about spending $1-2 dollars.

My personal feeling is that this will change as Android is leaving the "geek" world and moving into the mainstream.
 
If you want to know how much people are willing to pay for your application, then send to some people a beta of it and put a price which they told you.
Then it is all up to advertisements. For example, you can send your applications' links to forums etc. Or maybe you cooperate with someone on this.

Actually, your question is like this: how much will I earn if I learn to play a guitar and form a band and print an album? Would you give an exact answer to that question?
 
Rotundjere said:
@copestag: Do you know how much 'first time' average developers earn $Money from the Market each month ?
Click to expand...

This actually surprised me when I started developing. but google take 1/3 of all your sales. That's exactly the same as apple do in the iPhone store.

You'd think they'd be nicer than that.

As to how much you make? If your games good you'll earn the $20 it cost to put the app in the market back.

I would definitely suggest a free version with limited features/levels. Even though the market currently allows 24 hour trials it doesn't look like it will for much longer.
 
Like others have stated, there is no way possible to determine what your revenue might be by getting feedback from a few guys on a forum. It just isn't possible.

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article about the Market:

Android Market - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It includes some references at the bottom that show Market statistics that you might be able to get some idea. There are probably other places you can go to get this sort of information.

Determining what a product might make in an particular market is a complicated issue, and that's why there are sales/marketing people. As a developer (just not for Android), it's something I usually leave to the experts since I am not one myself.

If it were me, I wouldn't count on any revenue, and get an app out there and start collecting data from there. The thing is... few people will buy a new game. That is the sort of thing that has to go viral first. Which means.... free until it has some momentum. Or... free in a limited form, and a full version has a price.
 
@HoochieCoo: Lets say I made the game "Deadly Chambers" (you can find it on the market),

do you know (or can you predict how much) the developer of "Deadly Chambers" earn money each month ??
 
Rotundjere said:
@HoochieCoo: Lets say I made the game "Deadly Chambers" (you can find it on the market),

do you know (or can you predict how much) the developer of "Deadly Chambers" earn money each month ??
Click to expand...

According to cyrket, it's been downloaded 1000-5000 times. It's priced at $2.99 (let's call it $3), Google takes $1 off the top so the developer has made anywhere between $2000 to $10,000. That's assuming EVERYONE actually paid $2.99 for it and it wasn't free at some point or been given out any. I have no idea how long it's been out, but you just divide $2k by however many months and there's your rough guess.

Keep in mind that Deadly Chambers wasn't Battery Powered Games' first Android game and if you were to put your game on the market you'd just be some random guy putting another home made game up, so I wouldn't expect those numbers for a long while.

Also note that the stats say the Deadly Chambers Demo has been downloaded between 50k-250k times. Consider the in game ad revenue that is generated by the much larger user base and you'll see why a lot of Android games and apps are moving more towards that revunue model.
 
Rotundjere said:
@HoochieCoo: Lets say I made the game "Deadly Chambers" (you can find it on the market),

do you know (or can you predict how much) the developer of "Deadly Chambers" earn money each month ??
Click to expand...

I personally can't, at least just by looking at the information in the Market. You can't see how many people have downloaded it, just the number who have commented. You also can't tell if it's trending up or down.

The only way I could even venture a guess is to try and find data on what the buy rates are for similar type games, and calculate from there.

I'm really not trying to evade the question. Rather, there are people who specialize in making these sorts of predictions, and get it wrong. I am no specialist. I am a "throw it out there and see what sticks" kind of guy. In the end, it's always a guess, with the better guesses requiring a lot more information that I have at hand.

I'd be rather surprised if there aren't already statistics out there on what various types of apps make at the current time. According to that Screebl article, not much.
 
@HoochieCoo: Yeah, you're right...
I'd better to give away my first game (free), and after it will become more popular (with the right marketing tactic), I will eventually make that game paid..

is that correct ?
 
Rotundjere said:
@HoochieCoo: Yeah, you're right...
I'd better to give away my first game (free), and after it will become more popular (with the right marketing tactic), I will eventually make that game paid..

is that correct ?
Click to expand...

I think that as a lone developer, trying to make predictions on revenue is pointless unless you have to cover some other cost. I certainly wouldn't count on making a living from it based solely on a prediction (of this sort).

What I would do is create a demo version and a paid version. Then get out there and market your game. Visit the forums dealing with games and make your pitch. Monitor the threads and respond quickly to questions and problems and start building a following.

This is a very common problem that developers don't always get. You could have to coolest, hippest, most awesome-over-the-top application on the planet. If no one knows about it... it doesn't mean squat. Don't make the mistake of thinking by just dumping it on the Market, download will start skyrocketing.

Believe it or not... often, the easy part was writing the code for the app.
 
Hi Guys,

I'm one of the two that developed Deadly Chambers. Here are the current stats:
Total purchases: 4,463
Total demo downloads: 106,126

We made more off of the full game purchases than the ads. Currently mobile ad units don't pay much. In total we're sitting at 2.8 million downloads across all games and apps but see only a few hundred per month in ad revenue since mobile ads are paying less than 1/10th of what my regular web ads pay.

But considering that the game took about 7 months to make, it's hard to justify doing it again. We've switched over to a new cross-platform codebase and an ever growing collection of tools so it should be faster and faster for us to do bigger, better, badder games, but it's still a grind and it's hard to ensure that all the time will pay off in any form.

The next games we do will be a big step up from what we currently have out there but I have no ETA on those yet.

Cheers

Robert Green of Battery Powered Games
 
rbgrn said:
Hi Guys,

I'm one of the two that developed Deadly Chambers. Here are the current stats:
Total purchases: 4,463
Total demo downloads: 106,126

We made more off of the full game purchases than the ads. Currently mobile ad units don't pay much. In total we're sitting at 2.8 million downloads across all games and apps but see only a few hundred per month in ad revenue since mobile ads are paying less than 1/10th of what my regular web ads pay.

But considering that the game took about 7 months to make, it's hard to justify doing it again. We've switched over to a new cross-platform codebase and an ever growing collection of tools so it should be faster and faster for us to do bigger, better, badder games, but it's still a grind and it's hard to ensure that all the time will pay off in any form.

The next games we do will be a big step up from what we currently have out there but I have no ETA on those yet.

Cheers

Robert Green of Battery Powered Games
Click to expand...

I find your post really interesting. Rovio was saying recently that they're raking in $1 mil a month just in ads off Angry Birds. Now that million a month sounds ridiculous until you realize what they're making off sales of the app. It's got like 30 million downloads on iOS at $2 a piece (I think) and Apple takes about a third of that. So, they've got about $40 mil in revenue off sales of the app at $2 a piece. Even at a million a month it'll take them three years to make what they've made on iOS in just a year and that's on a ridiculously popular game. The ad revenue just doesn't seem to be there to support ad based games.
 
A.Nonymous said:
I find your post really interesting. Rovio was saying recently that they're raking in $1 mil a month just in ads off Angry Birds. Now that million a month sounds ridiculous until you realize what they're making off sales of the app. It's got like 30 million downloads on iOS at $2 a piece (I think) and Apple takes about a third of that. So, they've got about $40 mil in revenue off sales of the app at $2 a piece. Even at a million a month it'll take them three years to make what they've made on iOS in just a year and that's on a ridiculously popular game. The ad revenue just doesn't seem to be there to support ad based games.
Click to expand...

It's a supply and demand problem. Currently there is excessive amounts of ad space being supplied (so many apps, so many impressions!) and not enough demand for ad space from advertisers so naturally the price will bottom out. I don't know what it will take to gain equilibrium. I think the ad market is just fluctuating because of the intense growth it has experienced in a very short time.
 
rbgrn said:
Hi Guys,

I'm one of the two that developed Deadly Chambers. Here are the current stats:
Total purchases: 4,463
Total demo downloads: 106,126

We made more off of the full game purchases than the ads. Currently mobile ad units don't pay much. In total we're sitting at 2.8 million downloads across all games and apps but see only a few hundred per month in ad revenue since mobile ads are paying less than 1/10th of what my regular web ads pay.

But considering that the game took about 7 months to make, it's hard to justify doing it again. We've switched over to a new cross-platform codebase and an ever growing collection of tools so it should be faster and faster for us to do bigger, better, badder games, but it's still a grind and it's hard to ensure that all the time will pay off in any form.

The next games we do will be a big step up from what we currently have out there but I have no ETA on those yet.

Cheers

Robert Green of Battery Powered Games
Click to expand...


Thanks Robert, I have 2 question:

1. Btw, how much the the game cost on the market (because I live in Indonesia and can't buy/view the paid game, only the demo) ?

2. How long the paid version of Deadly chambers on market ?

Thanks again, nice to discuss with someone have already experience wih you :-)
 
Rotundjere said:
Thanks Robert, I have 2 question:

1. Btw, how much the the game cost on the market (because I live in Indonesia and can't buy/view the paid game, only the demo) ?

2. How long the paid version of Deadly chambers on market ?

Thanks again, nice to discuss with someone have already experience wih you :-)
Click to expand...

The game is currently 2.99. I've experimented with prices from 3.99 down to 0.99 and it's a lot like a game of lemonade stand. Fewer purchases at higher prices and more purchases at lower prices but it almost balances out perfectly to be the same income.

The paid version has been on the market since July 2010. It also may be worth noting that it was featured for 2 weeks and the vast majority of purchases came from that. That may go to show how competitive the market is and how difficult it can be to get a game discovered by people.
 
my rough estimate Deadly Chambers generate revenue about ~ 14000 - 20000 USD for 6 month.

14000/6 = $2333

well, $2333/month is a big money (at least on my country),

I only earn $600/month work as a programmer right now :-(

Thanks a lot, now I'm considering to leave a daily job as a Perl programmer :-)

Best regards
 
Rotundjere said:
my rough estimate Deadly Chambers generate revenue about ~ 14000 - 20000 USD for 6 month.

14000/6 = $2333

well, $2333/month is a big money (at least on my country),

I only earn $600/month work as a programmer right now :-(

Thanks a lot, now I'm considering to leave a daily job as a Perl programmer :-)

Best regards
Click to expand...

Don't forget to subtract 25% of copies as returns then multiply the rest by 70% since the market takes 30% and then divide by 2 since it goes between two people...

Don't quit your day job!
 
rbgrn said:
Don't forget to subtract 25% of copies as returns then multiply the rest by 70% since the market takes 30% and then divide by 2 since it goes between two people...

Don't quit your day job!
Click to expand...

I've friend who earn more than $11,500 USD / month alone in Indonesia !! (thats sound crazy, but it's true)

However, he needs almost 3 years to make more people know him & improving brand image. (it's not a android market business, he only sell e-books online.. and it's limited in Indonesia only !)

Just don't give up trying :-)
 
Rotundjere said:
@Robert: do you write Deadly Chambers using OpenGL Es Android SDK, or the using OpenGL Es Android NDK ?
Click to expand...

Deadly Chambers is a mix of Java and C. Rendering is OpenGL ES 1.0, Animation is half Java half C, Collision detection and response is all in C.

The native side is compiled using the NDK, like any Android native app.
 
Rotundjere said:
I've friend who earn more than $11,500 USD / month alone in Indonesia !! (thats sound crazy, but it's true)

However, he needs almost 3 years to make more people know him & improving brand image.

Just don't give up trying :-)
Click to expand...

I've pretty much got it worked out now so that I'm making the money I need to via a combination of games, websites and (rare) consulting.
 
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