April 14, 2016

Space Bang Launch Week

Space Bang has been globally available on the App Store for a whole week now. This post covers the key metrics and other information about the project and the launch.















LAUNCH METRICS (First Week)

  • 25,000 downloads
  • $219 revenue (uncut) from IAPs
  • $2,300 revenue from UnityAds (~$20 avg. eCPM)
  • 4.4/5 average rating
  • ~24% day-1 retention
  • 20% day-7 retention (might be flawed)
  • ~1.5 avg. sessions per user

Similar to Monkeyrama, people seem to dig the game but don't necessarily stick around for that long. 

The game got some featuring but not nearly in the best places available. The best spot it had was the iTunes Home Page, Best New Games position #12 in the UK, which also brought in a bit more than 50% of all revenue.












It also got 191 other miscellaneous highlights here an there.

Considering the fact that the project took about 2 months to develop from start to finish, the metrics are quite a positive surprise for me as an indie dev. The first update (out 5th of May) took 5 days to develop, and if it gets anything close to the launch visibility, I'm already running a "sustainable business"! That is, if I can survive with just noodles and live in a cardboard box.

It took me by surprise how well incentivized video ads monetize, and how high the eCPMs can get especially during the launch week.

Another nice-to-learn fact was that the launch of Space Bang affected the downloads of Monkeyrama, and even Party Soccer, too. Nothing major, but some.

With the two actual launches I've now done (Space Bang & Monkeyrama), I've come to learn that Apple really digs quality over anything else. Even though about 3500 games get launched every week, it's possible for indie devs like me to get visibility on their store fronts even without a recognizable name, high marketing budgets, large teams, or long development times.



And obviously, I've started the development of my next game already. I call it "GTA Express." More of that later.