Here’s a question that often occupies video game developers: how do I assess the viability of an idea for a game I’m about to start working on? After investing many months and a multitude of other resources into development, you really want to end up with a game that is not only fun to play with friends but one that you can actually make money from.
A brief statistical insight: every month, an average of 10,000 new games* appear in mobile app stores that are ranked at least once, even in the least significant categories: in just one country, or for just one day. In other words, all these apps get at least a bit of attention when they hit the radar – they get a few thousand downloads and earn a few hundred dollars. Roughly two-thirds of them seem like developers put a lot of effort into production: they have coherent gameplay, art, user interface, etc. The implication is that developers worked diligently, had the appropriate skills and were passionate about a specific idea. Yet only about 3% of them will earn more than $100,000 while the game is active. So what about the rest? Those developers must have had certain aspirations and beliefs, believing in the potential of their idea, just like the more successful ones. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.
So, what can you do? How can you increase the chances of commercial success for your future game? In fact, it takes a few things to consider the commercial potential.
It’s not uncommon for us to play a game and then be inspired to make our version. For example, something similar to Archero or Brawl Stars.
Has this ever happened to you? Before you delve deep into development, it’s worth checking if someone has already had a similar idea. And if so, what came out of their efforts?
There are several ways to find similar apps:
After researching and compiling an extensive list of the most relevant titles from the target subgenre, you can assess how unique your idea is: what game design, monetization, art and user interface solutions seem to be associated with success, and whether you can create a product that can, with some conviction, match the most successful references found.
It’s important to note that searching for reference apps only at the top positions of the chart can lead to survival bias. Therefore, it’s important to equally pay attention to less successful apps. Digging deeper into the stores reveals millions of inglorious innovations resting in peace (or elsewhere).
This type of analysis won’t help you find guaranteed ideas for a successful game, but it can help avoid costly mistakes by leveraging the expertise of other developers.
This approach to development sometimes works quite nicely, but it’s still important to analyze the mistakes of others before embarking on your development path. Let’s stick with the idea of building our variation of Archero for now.
Let’s take a look at Archero’s monthly revenue depicted in comparison with 18 of its most prominent clones. Yes, Archero’s revenue is the blue area of the stacked chart, while the thin multicolored line represents the combined revenue of all its clones. Impressive, isn’t it? Each of the developers of these games likely had a vision: they tried to introduce something unique and exciting into the game in the hope of ensuring success and they put in a lot of effort. Yet none managed to come close.
Moreover, the original revenue of Archero has been declining from the very beginning. What does this tell us? Above all, game development in this genre is a risky challenge. The chart doesn’t tell us why none of the Archero clones succeeded, but it demonstrates the ideas and variations that were used and couldn’t do the same trick, warning you of others’ mistakes and helping you save a lot of time, money and stress.
The visualizations shown above are available to premium users of AppMagic and are a convenient way to compare the revenue of multiple apps in one chart. However, you can still use AppMagic’s free tools to compare the positions of games on the largest grossing lists over time.
It’s important to remember that only revenue from purchases, subscriptions and paid installations determines a game’s position on the highest-grossing games lists. Advertising revenue cannot be disclosed and there is no analytical service that can provide reasonably accurate estimates of advertising revenue for mobile apps. However, some insight into advertising revenue can be obtained by analyzing how app downloads are distributed by country. This data is freely available on AppMagic.
Advertising revenue from users in countries like India and Vietnam, if monetization is properly configured, ranges from 0.01 to 0.05 USD (depending on retention, audience and game monetization); for Russia and Brazil, it is 3 to 5 times higher. Advertising revenue from the wealthiest countries can reach 1-2 USD per user.
In other words, if you see a game with a large number of downloads, be sure to list the key countries from which the majority of its traffic comes. If most of the contributions come from countries with low GDP per capita, such as India, Cambodia, or Brazil, then you should not expect significant ad revenue: with a million downloads in India, you can only earn 10-20 thousand dollars.
To summarize, when considering the development of a variation of an existing game, here are a few tips: if you really want to make some money instead of just spending time on product development, think more about innovative solutions in monetization, user retention and testing hypotheses rather than fancy art or twists in core gameplay.
Looking at how revenue shares of different genres of mobile games have changed in the largest Western countries, the first thing we notice is the sharp decline in the red area, indicating RTS games.
In mobile games, there are no traditional RTS titles as we know them from computers. In the mobile context, RTS is usually a PvP game with real-time battles and strategy elements where you have to control many units, like Clash of Clans or Island War.
The question is: “Why are games of this genre losing their market share so quickly?” Maybe there are no newcomers in this genre? But there are! Are they of poor quality? No, there are many great games. So what’s happening?
When something (a game or a genre – RTS is just an example here) is not growing or is declining, the reason is always the same: developers cannot buy enough traffic for growth with a positive ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment). In the case of a genre, this means that games of other genres with the same target audience can pay significantly more for installation, resulting in their traffic.
It’s important to understand that, given the increase in user acquisition and other factors, the cost of one installation is increasing. So, a game (or genre) with a higher LTV (Lifetime Value) compared to competitors will not take all the traffic, but the balance will shift: whoever is willing to pay more per installation will get more traffic. On the other hand, even games with low LTV can still buy some users. However, the number is often so low that it doesn’t justify the costs of maintaining the game and the marketing team.
Looking at how quickly the share of RTS games is falling, it’s clear that this genre is currently losing the battle for traffic on mobile platforms. And that means it’s extremely risky to start developing a game of this genre.
One thing to add is that revolutions occur from time to time in many genres, unlocking great opportunities for completely new generations of games. So it’s important to keep track of successful new products in different genres if you don’t want to miss out on an opportunity.
How can you track successful newcomers? For this purpose, some companies provide special tools for tracking recently released and fast-growing applications, including GameIntel (you can see five applications in the subgenre on the top list of free applications in the USA for free) and AppMagic (free, no limitations).
Hmm, no. The mobile device market doesn’t work like that. There’s hardly any free traffic in stores. And what’s available won’t give you a chance to make money. Yes, there are a few exceptions: one is shown on a non-contractual basis, and the other – using traffic directed from stores. But you can’t consider them as your main cash-earning methods.
Yes, there are examples of games in stores that have become super viral and firmly stuck to the top lists, while at the same time never buying traffic (or buying very little of it). However, these stories mostly come from ancient times when there were still many empty niches in the market – for example, those corresponding to traditional games (card, sports and board games). We can recall unique cases like Minecraft and Roblox, but keep in mind: that these are very striking rare exceptions to the general rule.
What do you do if you’re not yet familiar with how user acquisition works? In this case, before you start your development, make sure the market** is growing or at least stable and that its leaders change from time to time, making room for new titles. After the application is produced, find a partner who understands how to turn an ambitious game into a hit title: a publisher with a recent record of success or an agency with good recommendations from friends.
Notes:
* Refers to the largest mobile stores: Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
** Refers to a genre or subgenre.
