Backstory quick
So a quick update how it looks financial for me. As maybe some of you guys now I was supported 6 months with a „Gründungszuschuss“ from Berlin at the start of my career as Indie Game Developer. Which was basically almost the same money as I was working full-time. What ever its already 1 year and 3 months later now and I’m still a full time Indie.
My Gaming Apps
I got 26 live apps on iOS, 30 on Android Google play and 30 on Amazon Store. 90% of them created this year, 2014.
The main money comes through 2 of my 26 live apps. Which are Three Points, which was picked and featured by apple and PewDiePug a game that gets insane ratings and constant downloads due the strong fans/Bro’s of PewDiePie.
My capital + Income Stream
I started to make a monthly income which after splitting 50/50 with my creative partner Sabba Keynejad
is comparable with a internship salary(400 Euro a month). I got an extended „Gründungszuschuss“ of 300 Euro until March 2015 on top. My original start off money of 6000 Euro has been declined to around 2500 by now.
The rough 700 Euro will now probably make me stay around 2000 to 3000 Euro with my current expenses.
Monetization
I got featured with Three Points back than but I only had in there iAD Banners which made out of 330 000 Downloads and over 1 million expressions rough 1000 USD. We took a big learning and added Chartboost which would have generated around 7000 USD on top if we would have had it in. All Apps now got both, some of them have an extra option to remove advertising for a in-app purchases of 0.99 USD. Even tough our overall Downloads have been reduced drastically since the apple feature past there is now a solid income stream etablished. (since the last 3 months)
Chartboost statistics iOS
(2.5 months)
Chartboost statistics Android
(2.5 months)
The biggest Hope
The second game is our biggest hope so far, If Pewd’s Bro’s can make him play the game on Youtube this would eliminate all money worries quickly. PewDiePie was back than one of the main reasons Flappy Bird became the success it is/was.
Trying out some Marketing
So far I did post on several social media channels, PR agencies, this blog, deviantart and made youtube gameplay footage of my games. I tried admob, invested 100 Euro all in one day with CPC(cost per click) of 0.10 USD it made 800 more downloads over 2 days. Which was pretty ok already, additionally I’m now in contact with a big marketing player, which currently checks whats the best way to give my apps some more attention. Let’s see how this all works out.
David Zobrist 