Independent Developer General Statistics - Johnny-K (continued)

Once upon a time, more than a year and a half ago, one good man Vadim Starygin took and posted my statistics for 2009 on Habré . In 2009, my life as an independent game developer did not end; since then I have overgrown with new achievements, which I will tell you about in the continuation of those statistics.

So:

14. In February 2010, launched the flash game Cover Orange 2. The game went very well, since then it has been played more than 65 million times. The game included music from The Village of Fools (Pun TV Magazine). She infuriated many, but for the most part they were Russian people who already had time to get tired of the melody at one time, in general, people like it, the music fits the game very well. They made music with the permission of the copyright holder (now this is Sailor from the "Village", he is Vadim Nabokov; it was fun to meet a dude from the TV), I have a certificate.

15. At the same time, together with the sponsor of the game, an editor of its levels was launched. The editor was tied to the sponsor portal bubblebox.com, still on the gameplay Cover Orange Level Editoris in the top of this portal. The editor for the game itself, as an idea, is not new, we have already done this, there’s not much profit from it, and people don’t like to make any levels for physical puzzles. To love, we launched a competition of these same levels with a prize fund of 4 thousand dollars (I paid half). Still not seeing profit? Coming soon.



16. At the end of March, when the results of the contest were announced (I had to choose from more than 4000 levels), and the winners were congratulated and gifted, we made Players Pack from the selected 80 levels.. From Pack Orange 2, the pack of levels differed only in levels and a chip with switching the skin of the game (you can play the same level both in a childish-rustic style and in a post-apocalyptic smack, moreover, you can switch directly during the game), however, people only new puzzle levels were required, which made the pack very successful (played more than 40 million times). Here is the profit. The sponsor paid me a total of 25 thousand dollars for level pack (as well as for Cover Orange 2, by the way). The level editor, I must say, was also bought for half this price.

17. In the spring, mobile publishers contacted me. FDG Entertainment . They proposed to transfer the game Cover Orange 2 to iOS. Of course, I agreed, but when they found out that I was the creator of the game Ragdoll Cannon, offered to launch it on iOS first. I pointed them to the Ragdoll Blaster game, which some very bad people made in 2009, having completely copied the Ragdoll Cannon. The Germans agreed, they say, yes, those villains acted badly, stole the idea with roots, and even raised more than two million dollars on it. When I learned the order of numbers, my roof went, the anger was rampant, but empty. Having burnt out, I decided to make a feint with my ears and release two games in one box at once. As a result, in the summer of 2010 the Physics Gamebox was launched . The application included two games: Ragdoll Cannon and Roly-Poly Cannon.



I don’t recommend, by the way, downloading, a few minutes ago the publisher reported that there are crashes of this game after updating the device to iOS 5.

18. In the same summer, flash versions of games included in the Physics Gamebox were released (sponsored, of course, by the same bubblebox.com): Ragdoll Cannon 3 and Roly-Poly Cannon 3 . Both games promoted Physics Gamebox, slipping under the player’s nose a link to the app in AppStore. For the first pancake, the com turned out to be very good. In AppStore, the game has earned 115 thousand dollars at the moment (so many buyers have brought). A little, of course, not two million, but the Ragdoll Blaster already took its toll, the Ragdoll Cannon was a simple clone of it (although, as is already clear, everything is, in fact, the opposite). So, my advice to you: be careful, do not throw ideas around, they, although they are not objects of copyright, bring money, and if you slap your ears, then it’s not for you.

19. I did not want to stop on what was achieved, because Cover Orange was in stock. For three months I programmed it on iOS, we made 80 levels, realized that it turned out cool and in November released Cover Orange for iPad . I even started a simple trailer trailer . For several days, they were in first place on the Russian top, during the same time they got into the top 20 US paid apps for iPads (in the top of the games they were in 8th place). Things have gone. Apple pretty willingly featured us, blogs were happy to write about what a cool game.

20. In December 2010, Cover Orange launched an iPhone. The game came out at a very bad time - AppStor was full of Christmas applications, winter themes and more, which is why they did not want to take the summer game. Yes, and Apple treated the iPhone version extremely dismissively - so far we have not received any significant promotion from them. In a quick way to make a light version with a Christmas theme did not work, although we did it, it was too late to launch in January. The iPhone version failed at the start.

21. But failure to failure, this is not a reason to throw support for the game. Players demanded new levels, we ourselves, of course, made them, but we wanted more in a short time. And then I remembered the level editor. In December, I launched my own contest among readers of my blog.. The prizes were iPhone 4, iPad, iPod 4 or their cash equivalents. A lot of people responded, the levels began to come in packs, in connection with which I decided to add prizes (iPod nano and shuffle), and then also comforting awards. In total, almost 500 levels were sent, 50 participants did them. Good levels were enough for five or six game updates, which, of course, brought benefits. In addition, a little later, we released the second Players Pack , it was sponsored (notdoppler.com already, bubblebox.com changed its owner, and we did not agree on the characters), which, as is clear, is money (the second level pack was released in March 2011 years, at the moment they have played almost 20 million times, and in total Flash Orange games of the Cover Orange series have played more than 170 million times).

22. In February, they released a special version of Cover Orange Valentine's Gift (now not in AppStore). The main character, an orange, was invented by an orange girl, hearts fell from the sky and all that. In the tops they rose, but soon again fell to the bottom.

23. At the end of March 2011, the publishers messed up some kind of advertising campaign for the iPhone version (somehow they launched a free version of Cover Orange), after which the game sneaked into 30-40 places of the American paid top. Income figures began to grow. In general, I must say about the ratings. They were (and are) beautiful:



Five full stars with so many votes - this is very cool!

24. I didn’t abandon the flash, with my team (and there are three of us, here , by the way, you can check out our simple office) two more games were released: Ragdoll Cannon 4and Roly-Poly Cannon: Bloody Monsters Pack . Yes, we mercilessly exploited old ideas, but people liked it. In addition, skill grew, each new game was better than the previous one. Yes, and they paid money.

25. In June 2011, they launched Cover Orange for Mac OS . Went weakly, to tell, as it were, nothing. We will think, come up with what to do next with the game.

26. In August, the third contest was launched. This time there were fewer levels sent, there were few participants (summer, presumably), but there would be a pack of levels and good updates.

27. In August, the publishers came up with a new promo, after which Cover Orange for the iPhone soared into the US paid top. Moreover, we climbed right up to the THIRD place, where we hung for several days:



Apple, however, didn’t make us anyway. Well, okay, most importantly, we were THERE!

28. In early August, I inserted into the game the ability to make microtransactions. The new update gave the player three helmets. A helmet is an opportunity to complete a level without solving its puzzle. People liked it, because sometimes they had to get stuck at some level, but they wanted to play further. As a result, when a player spent all three helmets, he could buy them. 5 pieces cost 99 cents, 15 - 1.99. Since then, people have brought 120 thousand dollars for helmets, which, of course, is cool.

29. In September, another flash game was launched. Roly-Poly Eliminator 2 .

30. Well, actually, that's all. It remains only a little about the numbers, money. All my games are on appstore, and there are two of them: Physics Gamebox and Cover Orange (I consider all versions of the game: for the iPhone, for the iPad and for the Mac OS), have earned more than one million dollars (let me remind you again - this is how much money the buyers brought) . The released flash games mentioned in this report brought me more than 150 thousand dollars (excluding advertising, how much from it - I don’t know for sure, something in the region of 20-30 thousand).

Here is such a dry statistic.

I hope that the results will encourage you by giving someone an injection of inspiration.

Am I happy with the result? Honestly, it could have been better. Although they hung in the American top, they didn’t hang there for long, they could last longer (however, this is the fate of many applications, unless, of course, you are a “bird” or a “rope”).
Nothing, with the second part of our game, everything should be much better. Yes, and androids and wp will connect. We will see. We work further.

Good luck to everyone and good ideas for good games.