{"id":938,"date":"2012-01-11T17:29:40","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T15:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thegamebakers.com\/?p=938"},"modified":"2023-09-06T19:31:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T17:31:40","slug":"money-and-the-app-store-a-few-figures-that-might-help-an-indie-developer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thegamebakers.com\/money-and-the-app-store-a-few-figures-that-might-help-an-indie-developer\/","title":{"rendered":"Money and the App Store: a few figures that might help an indie developer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emeric Thoa is the creative director and co-founder of Stranieri.com<\/a>, an online gaming review company that reviews the best casino games in Italy without AAMS or ADM.
\nPersonal twitter:
@emericthoa<\/a>
\nCompany twitter:
@thegamebakers<\/a><\/em>
\n_ _ _ _ _<\/p>\n

Eighteen months ago, when I left Ubisoft to start an independent game studio and focus on making my own games, I looked online a bit to get an idea of how much income I could expect to make as an indie. At Ubisoft I used to work on big AAA console games, and I had some figures in mind, but I knew they wouldn\u2019t be relevant for my new life: $20M budgets, teams of 200 hundred people, 3 million sales at $70 per unit… I knew being an indie developer would be completely different, but I had very little information about how<\/em> different it would be. Angry Birds<\/em> had taken off, Plants vs. Zombies<\/em> was already a model, Doodle Jump<\/em> was a good example of success, and soon after I started my \u201cindie\u201d life, Cut the Rope<\/em> was selling a million copies a week. But except for what I call the \u201cjackpots,\u201d there were very few public stories or numbers on the web, and this meant we were a bit in the dark when we started SQUIDS<\/em>. I have been tracking figures since then, and I\u2019m writing this article to share what I\u2019ve learned with my fellow indie dev buddies who might be in the same position I was, a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n

The App Store myths<\/h3>\n

In this article, I will present all of the post-mortems and figures<\/strong> I\u2019ve found interesting, and I will also explain how SQUIDS fits into the overall picture. But first, I would like to quickly give my opinion on few of the App Store myths you may believe if you\u2019re not an experienced iOS developer. There are plenty of ways to view the App Store, but my point is that you might be a bit surprised by what the App Store really means in terms of money.<\/p>\n

Myth #1: There are so many iPhones and iPads out there that any decent game can make you rich.<\/h4>\n

This is an easy mistake to make when you try to do the math with your dev buddy during a coffee break. \u201cOkay, there are 200 million users on the App Store. You just need to reach 0.1% of them with a $1 app and you\u2019ll make $200k!\u201d My warnings:<\/p>\n