00:04today i'm going to be talking about how
00:05much money i've made with my mobile
00:07also talk about if i think that those
00:08projects were worth the time and energy
00:10that i invested into them
00:12i'll give a brief overview of how the
00:14mobile marketplace works and i will give
00:16my recommendation to other developers
00:18out there who are wondering which
00:20platforms they should be developing
00:21games for let's get to it
00:25so i've made three mobile games on both
00:27the ios and android app stores
00:29and uh when i go and edit this video i'm
00:32gonna have to go in and
00:33aggregate all of the different um totals
00:36advertisements and in-app purchases and
00:39kind of figure out how much i've made
00:40in total but i'll take all those
00:42statistics for those three apps and then
00:44i'll put it down here at the bottom
00:46so you can see one total value for how
00:51with my three mobile games put together
00:58wait that can't be right
01:03okay new title for the video why my
01:06three mobile games completely flopped
01:08let's talk about that i initially
01:10started making mobile games for a few
01:13primarily because one the android
01:16seemed very easy to publish for the
01:18developer fee was only like thirty
01:21and i had an android phone to test on
01:24some mobile games like flappy bird were
01:26generating like 40 000
01:28every single day and then from android
01:30jumping to ios was the next logical leap
01:33if you want to check out how i was able
01:35to finish my first mobile game you
01:37should check out my previous video about
01:40of finishing projects
01:45okay so in a moment i'm going to talk
01:47about why my mobile games didn't make
01:49but first you need to realize something
01:51about the mobile games market
01:53and that's that it's not traditional in
01:55the sense that you typically don't see
01:57customers paying a flat fee to get a
02:00the people who are putting out these
02:02games are putting in different
02:04methodologies for generating income so
02:07let me talk to you about
02:08some of those methods that i put into my
02:10games so here's the three types of
02:12monetization strategies i used for my
02:16first i used advertisements specifically
02:18i signed up with google admob
02:20and displayed interstitial ads in my
02:22game that would come up every so often
02:24i also put in in-app purchases to remove
02:26ads from my ios apps
02:28i put this in the game so that people
02:30could remove the advertisements from the
02:32game for a one-time fee
02:34and finally there's working with
02:35publishers i reached out to mobile game
02:38publishers to see if any would be
02:40in signing my games this entire process
02:44most publishers were not interested in
02:46talking to me but some were
02:48i actually was able to do an analytics
02:50test with two or three publishers
02:52where they would advertise my game on
02:53social media and see how many people
02:56and you can see from the dashboard here
02:58that my ad revenue was very very low
03:01so unfortunately with admob you don't
03:03get paid a single penny
03:05unless your revenue exceeds 100 mine was
03:08nowhere near that so i didn't get
03:11and technically i did get one in-app
03:13purchase on ios to remove ads
03:16but that was just me testing it out to
03:18make sure it worked properly
03:20and from the one or two dollars that i
03:22paid apple took 30 percent of it
03:24so i actually ended up losing money on
03:26the transaction i remember looking at
03:28these statistics for the first time and
03:30being amazed at how their
03:32business model was so objective for
03:34which games they wanted to formally
03:38so why did these games flop well let me
03:40introduce you to the word of the day
03:41which is saturated gone are the days
03:45where you could release a mobile app and
03:47some people would find it organically
03:49now the market is so full that the only
03:51way for your game to get noticed is if
03:53it gets featured by the platform itself
03:55or if you spend a butt load of money in
03:57advertising to force it in front of
04:00and this leads to the most popular games
04:02being the junk food of the mobile world
04:05they have little to no substance but
04:06companies advertise the heck out of them
04:08because they are good at taking your
04:10time and giving you quick shots of
04:13that's not the case for all mobile games
04:14though there are some premium games out
04:16there on the mobile market that have
04:18been major financial successes
04:20let's take a look at my favorite one
04:34alto's adventure and its sequel alto's
04:36odyssey are some of my favorite mobile
04:40they didn't touch any of the popular
04:41monetization strategies for their game
04:44they went very traditional which is
04:46strange for the app store
04:47they made a quality premium product and
04:49charged one flat price to own it
04:52this is a great game and i highly
04:53recommend it so the question remains
04:56was this a complete waste of my time
04:58creating these mobile games
04:59and would i recommend to other solo
05:01developers that they create mobile games
05:04well i think it's all a matter of
05:07although my initial expectation was to
05:10i still gained some valuable outcomes
05:14i made great strides learning unity and
05:16deepened my technical skills in how to
05:19i learned how to finish projects and
05:21publish them online so other people
05:24this allowed me to add them to my online
05:26portfolio so potential employers could
05:30i learned a lot of business strategy by
05:32talking with publishers
05:33and i learned how to read analytics and
05:35which key points of interest to pay
05:37attention to when it comes to games
05:39on the other hand i do feel that it took
05:41a ton of my time to go through this
05:44hundreds of hours for sure i realized
05:47that i didn't really ever stand a chance
05:49creating profitable mobile games is kind
05:52of like winning the lottery
05:53it's a very binary system you either
05:56make nothing or you make millions
05:58ios was a huge pain in the butt it's
06:01much more difficult to publish on apple
06:03devices than on google devices
06:05so in conclusion would i recommend to
06:07other devs that they create mobile games
06:09well i think it depends what your goals
06:11are if you want to make money
06:13no i think that there are some other
06:15platforms out there that you would have
06:17much more financial success if you were
06:19creating for those other platforms but
06:21if you want to get your game into the
06:23hands of your friends and family
06:25very easily and publish it one singular
06:28anybody can go and download it and get
06:30their hands on it then i don't think
06:32a better market than ios or android
06:35for now i'm personally going to stay on
06:37my course for creating games for the pc
06:40and if people like these games then i'd
06:42love to eventually port them to consoles
06:44well that's all i've got for now if you
06:46have any questions about anything that
06:48feel free to drop a comment below and
06:50i'll be sure to answer it and
07:05can you believe that some people have no
07:09like you as a viewer don't need to be
07:12pandered to to like and subscribe
07:14like if you like content i know that
07:16you're gonna subscribe and you're gonna
07:18so it's like stunts like this just don't
07:25anyways see you all in the next one
07:28where i'll be going over the process of
07:29how i created this game where you play
07:31as a little tree guy
07:32and how i made it look all pretty and
07:34stuff see you all later
