

Results: iOS Game Revenue Survey - EvilTrout
http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2011/09/28/results-ios-game-revenue-survey/

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5hoom
Interesting how median lifetime revenue increases with the number of
developers on a game up until 20+, where it dips.

From this it would seem 10 to 20 person teams are the sweet spot for mobile
game development.

Now I just need to find 9 to 19 more developers for my project :)

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acak
The median revenue _per developer_ per month is an indicator of profitability
and probably a better metric to decide the right team size.

So if you look at figure 7b, the sweet spot seems to be a team size of 6 to 9
people (where the median revenue per developer per month is $550 to $820. In
contrast, the median revenue per developer per month for 10 to 19 person teams
is $320 - $620).

If you can hire 19 people, you should probably split them to run two projects
of 6-9 people each. :-]

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cageface
If you consider what a capable developer can bring in just in salary in a
month you realize what a ridiculous chicken-scratch game this is. Making indie
apps may be fun but it's a dumb way to try to earn money.

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Dove
Take-home lesson:

To be successful,

    
    
        (1) Practice.
        (2) Network.

~~~
cageface
And, if you look at the games that are _really_ doing well in the store, write
gimmicky, addictive games and make a fortune selling virtual
coins/tokens/badges/clothes to people psychologically locked in to your
scheme.

Freemium is king in the app store now.

~~~
felipemnoa
I think is better to try to go for quality rather than gimmicks. In the long
run it will succeed more often than not. Anecdotal Example: Apple

Going for gimmicks is like going for get rich quick schemes.

~~~
cellis
Apple started out as a get rich quick scheme, not a "lets change the world"
scheme.

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felipemnoa
I don't know if that is true but it is irrelevant since they became successful
NOT by using gimmicks or schemes but focusing on quality, which is the point I
was trying to make.

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davidtyleryork
To me, this just shows that the iPhone app is totally hit based

The medium lifetime revenue is right beside the 90th percentile, which means
those top 10% earn the vast majority of the revenue

~~~
cageface
This has been my experience too. I have one fairly successful app, with good
reviews and a long stint on the featured page in its category. It's still not
even close to paying for the time it took to develop it. I would have been
much better off financially if I'd spent that time consulting.

Writing apps is appealing because it's so much easier than bootstrapping a
software business from scratch outside the store but I'm not convinced it's a
good bet for the average developer.

~~~
Woost
Am I reading that right? 100k lifetime value seems to be near the top end of
what you can expect from one app. A reasonable salary at a normal job for a
senior-level developer is near or a little better than that. If you want to
succeed better than you could by working for someone it seems like you either
need to be completely serious about releasing new games every 3-6 months(and
release hits constantly), or, maybe, not write games (do business apps fare
better?)

Has anyone tried the minecraft approach on the app store?

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Impossible
This assumes you only care about money and don't care about creative control
and the satisfaction of running your own business. For a lot of indie
developers making equal to or slightly less than they would as a salaried
developer is doing well, even if you don't have a massive hit that makes $1M+.

~~~
Woost
I admit that's the way I phrased it, but I meant to say "Why iOS when you have
other avenues if you want to work on your own thing?"

In other words, iOS seems to be a very bad choice for someone who wants to
make money, when you could do a, say, SAAS web app, or a traditional app.
Sure, you probably won't START making the same money as a traditional job with
those, but the cap is much higher.

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atomicdog
I'd be interested to see the distribution of revenue from sales vs ads.

