Android game sales findings so far

Posted on:February 16 2012

As described below, my first Android game K-Space Shooter is available on the Android market now for about one week. I created it on weekends out of boredom, and also as experiment, to see if you could easily earn money with the android apps. Here are the results so far:

Sales
The game generated a few sales, but not too many. When you publish software on the android market, you need to pay a one-time fee of 25$ to google. With the current sales rate of the game, it looks like it will still take a few weeks to get that money back. :)


Reviews
I did a bit of marketing for the game. A few android game websites have reviewed the game so far, and the results were quite positive: The game appears to be entertaining, it seems to run smoothly and they like the graphic style. The only negative item usually was that the game isn't free. [But it's just 99 cents! Come on! :)] The reviews also apparently resulted in a few more visitors of the game website, but I'm not sure if they caused a few more sales.

What's next
For now, the game seems to be nice, but people apparently simply don't buy stuff on the Android Market, as it seems. The next logical step is to provide a free, stripped down version of the game, which I just did: K-Space Shooter Lite is now available for free on the Android Market, since a few hours. It has less levels, enemies and weapon upgrades, but it's basically the same game. Let's see if this will bring in more users to buy the full version of the game. I'll keep you updated on this blog.





Comments:


I personally never buy anything in the Android market simply due too the lack of a credit card. And I don't really understand why Google tries to this in Europe. To me credit cards seem more or less unusual over here, especially in Germany.
Marcus
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2012-02-16 10:20:00


I also felt that way a few years ago. But I'm currently buying lots of stuff from the internet, and got used to it. :)
niko
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2012-02-16 13:36:00


Hm. I can see it will work very well on a small screen. But I have a big screen, and I can hardly see anything, it's so small ;)
Telepath
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2012-02-16 15:08:00


can you please make a round based strategy game... maybe space based? I would like to buy it
huud
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2012-02-16 17:00:00


Thanks for sharing your experience with the android market Niko. I was not aware of the 25 dollar fee. Do you also have to pay it to publish a free application?
Lenx
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2012-02-16 19:33:00


Wow well done I've always wanted to make a android game I'll be looking for yours!
Brisbane Plumber
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2012-02-17 02:58:00


I think you'll have to pay those 25$ always, but I'm not 100% sure. Maybe some way for them to prevent app spamming.
Hm, round based strategy game? aren't there quite a few already? :)
niko
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2012-02-17 08:39:00


No you don't have to pay 25$ per app.
This is just a onetime fee for dev access to the market.
Once you paid that you can publish as much apps as you like.
At least I have 2 apps in the market(even if they are free).
rp
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2012-02-17 11:33:00


Thanks niko, articles like that are always helpful. It would be interesting to see how well ad supported apps do in the market. I heard a few of the big players finance development on Android that way.
Gauntlet
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2012-02-17 17:59:00


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