
Monument Valley in Numbers: Year 2 - Impossible
https://medium.com/@ustwogames/monument-valley-in-numbers-year-2-440cf5562fe#.phzgxwizd
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fasteddie
Monument Valley, one of the most polished and loved premium mobile games ever,
has made $15m in its lifetime. Meanwhile, there are multiple F2P games with
over $1b in revenue.

Now, $15m is fantastic, especially for a small studio. But high-production
value F2P games from bigger studios cost around $3-5m to make, not including
marketing/UA, so its pretty clear to see why studios aren't investing in
premium titles at all, unless they are ports of existing content.

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ambicapter
Those F2P games are in a whole different league of replayability compared to
Monument Valley. I played through MV once. The F2P games you refer to are
endless competitions.

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hueving
True, from a gamer's perspective those games are trash, but unfortunately
studios discovered it's much easier to make money selling cocaine rather than
a fine cuisine.

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rtpg
I think it's more like the difference between Chess and Magic The Gathering.

One is based on some sense of immutability, another is the result of constant
iteration and community.

Just because they both end up being games doesn't mean they serve the same
purpose

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chongli
Immutability? Chess has tens of thousands of books written on all facets of
the game. Its strategies have evolved over a period of centuries of study and
development by countless players who have since lent their names, cities, or
countries to those lines. Now, with the aid of computers, the game evolves at
a faster rate than ever. What worked at one tournament may be refuted at the
next! Chess is anything but immutable!

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Crespyl
I think the distinction being made was more that Chess doesn't have weekly
patch notes or pieces being added and removed on a regular basis.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt8XnDfyTpc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt8XnDfyTpc)

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chongli
Ahhh. Another interesting distinction is to compare game trees. Chess has a
finite though extremely large game tree. MTG, on the other hand, is
potentially infinite. Heck, MTG is even Turing complete so even a single play
has the potential to fail to halt!

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mevile
I don't understand why Android continues to do so badly in comparison to iOS
revenue numbers. As an Android user it's very disappointing. Bigger user base,
but almost inconsequential when it comes to revenue. I'm surprised game
developers support Android at all, I want the games that are on iOS for my
phone but even I'm not sure it's worth it.

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fasteddie
This is partially because it is much, much, easier to pirate premium games on
Android than it is on iOS. There are tons of 3rd party APK sites that are well
trafficked. On F2P the platforms are much more equally split.

Also, as Android has a higher footprint in Asia, making games that resonate
with the Japanese/Korean audience is pretty important, and I'm not sure if
Monument Valley qualifies.

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themartorana
This is 100% true. Advertising-based revenue models are far superior on
Android due to piracy. I have a Google alert set up for our games, and updates
hit APK sites less than 24 hours after hitting the play store.

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jjeaff
That would be super frustrating. Is there just no recourse for sites like
this? I assume they are hosted overseas, but do hosts not respond at all to
complaints?

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fasteddie
You'd be playing wack-a-mole so hard that your legal team would cost more than
any gains. I had similar google alerts as the previous poster, and the sites
would have every single popular game -- I don't think anyone fought it
effectively, although I never did a true survey.

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exolymph
Monument Valley is one of the first mobile games I paid for, and I'm glad that
it provided such an excellent experience -- unparalleled by anything I've
tried since -- because even though other games I've bought since haven't been
as beautiful or as fun as Monument Valley, it made me feel okay about buying
games in general. If Monument Valley hadn't been good, I never would have
ponied up for Smash Hit or any of my other favorites.

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shahzeb
Alright then. Time to crack open XCode and get to work on my incredibly
mediocre game which will not even pull 0.000003% of these numbers. :-)

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joeld42
Keep at it:

1\. You never know if it will be a surprise hit (Crossy Road)

2\. All of my game projects have made very little money, but have had
unexpected side benefits that made them worthwhile.

3\. It's fun. I enjoy making games more than playing them, so even if I'm
wasting time, i can consider it entertainment. :)

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themartorana
4\. You can write off other game purchases as research.

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shimfish
It seems that a buried nugget of info here is how seemingly pointless Amazon
Underground is in terms of revenue. Admittedly MV seems a bad fit for it
because of its low replayability.

Also, what's with iDreamSky? They basically give the game away for free to
China for...what? Or is that part of the 6% "other"?

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moomin
Just to state the obvious: buy it. It's a great little game.

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orangecat
The presentation is great, but it's very short and very easy. It's far from
the best value I've gotten.

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moomin
For the tiny amount of money I've spent on it, I'm happy. But by all means
recommend some more titles. :)

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Falcon9
Crashlands! An action adventure game with a crafting component that's fun even
for people who don't like crafting games - you have an infinite auto-managed
inventory that just gets out of your way - with a funny, quirky storyline and
easily over 50 hours of gameplay, all for $5 (on mobile, or $15 on Steam). Oh,
and there's cross-platform saves so you can spend $20 to get the game on both
platforms and switch back and forth on your same saved game at your leisure!
(I'm a big fan of Crashlands, as you can see.)

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superbatfish
The link lists interesting stats about their _revenue_. Does anybody know if
they've published estimates on their costs (team size, developer hours, etc)?

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jack_pp
Original one [0] says 55 weeks / $852,000 for original and 29 weeks / $549,000
for the sequel . Team size : 8 core team members

[0]
[http://blog.monumentvalleygame.com/blog/2015/1/15/monument-v...](http://blog.monumentvalleygame.com/blog/2015/1/15/monument-
valley-in-numbers)

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derFunk
Very well deserved. This inventiveness has to be awarded. I'd be interested in
even more numbers. What did they spend etc..

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maxpert
Shucks even Amazon made more than Windows

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mathattack
Awesome game. It's one of the few that I was ok with my kids expanding their
iPad allotments to play.

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glasz
the infographic tells me we'll get new levels once more, at most, and that's
it. dead.

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samstr
I would love a set of new levels once a year, as an annual tradition at the
start of the summer. Whatever new add-ons they create, I'll be paying for and
downloading immediately. Such a great game. I replay it every few months
(enough time for the levels to feel fresh)

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erikpukinskis
I've been starting to accept that we've moved into an "IP never dies" era.
Seeing Batman reborn over and over, Ghostbusters coming back, all this DLC...
I've started to think that you release one original version of something, and
then if people love it you just keep doing re-releases forever.

Some people just like tradition and familiarity.

I used to be a little more upset about the lack of fresh IPs being created,
but I'm relaxing lately. You can still put the bulk of your team on the big
ambitious new game, but I no longer see a problem in having a small team that
just focuses on regular DLC for an old property. Even if it's just an annual
"Monument Valley 2017" release with some new stages. The world changes, why
not let your game adapt a little.

It's almost like making a theme park with continuous admission than a game.

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Terribledactyl
I found it interesting that when only one of the stores had a special, the
other store would also benefit.

