Who here makes a living off writing mobile games?

I've come close in the past, but due to work pressures and family life, I've not been able to devote the time, so now my games revenue (from admob ads) is a third of what it used to be.

But I'd like to know who here actually makes a good income from their games, other than those of you I've spoken to in the past and if so, then how do you do it, is it all ad revenue, or IAPs? And what sort of games do you write?

Not me, but I do make a living from creating bespoke businesses solution for my clients up and down England using B4A and B4J (and sometimes Visual Studio).

Saying that, right now I could not develop a game if my life depended on it @andymc, well not unless I spent months and months on it constantly learning game development and doing absolutely nothing else, my brain is wired for developing bespoke business solutions and not games.

I've watched a few YouTube videos on indy developers like yourself, these bedroom developers make a living through Android and iOS apps though. The one thing that they all had in common was quantity. They all had 30+ games bringing in the dough for them. One developer from the UK had well over 50+ games and apps on both Android and Apple stores, basically the same on both. He had ads running, pay to remove the ads and also pay for some simple upgrades which he said the upgrade route doesn't really pay that well. They all basically said that quantity was what was working for them.

If I remember correctly, the UK developer was making in the region of around £7.5k per month minimum, sometimes reaching £10k+. He also said that he has now left his daily developers job and spends more time with his kids at home. He now only works 3 days a week and never on weekends, that's the deal he has with his wife. I just tried finding that video for you but I couldn't find it again on super busy YouTube and I don't have my YouTube history turned on. But if I do manage to find the video again, I'll PM it to you Andy.

Peter Simpson said:

If I remember correctly, the UK developer was making in the region of around £7.5k per month minimum, sometimes reaching £10k+.

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That would do nicely! The biggest problem really is finding the time to write more games. I've done well from retro type games, so it makes sense to follow this theme, do versions of pacman, galaga, centapede, tempest, asteroids, frogger, etc..... The plan is to do a simple arcade style version of each then a "deluxe" version that has extras like weapons upgrades, boss levels, better graphics, theme packs, hats, etc....

its hard to make a stable income from games. every day new 3d games are coming out and today we have to much games in the stores.
from all games i did i have not seen much income. i do like making games but a good game takes to much time and the effort you put in it is in most cases a waste of time.

(I apologize in advance, for the moment I have only read the first post, so I will reply (or ask) only this. Obviously I will read the other posts "immediately").

andymc said:

I've come close in the past, but due to work pressures and family life, I've not been able to devote the time, so now my games revenue (from admob ads) is a third of what it used to be.

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I could understand if you said that, having not had time, you could not publish new apps and that for this reason your revenue has not increased, but I don't understand why they have decreased and so much if you have not removed any app from the market.

Do you think this depends on not having updated the apps already on the market? Or... what do you think is the reason? (or... I got it wrong ?)

I think it's due to me not updating the apps or marketing them over the last few years. I do get a few hundred downloads a day, but not the amount I used to get. I'm going to look into things like Firebase notifications to bring players back, as there's a lot of active installs, but not many active daily players. I have lots of update ideas for the deluxe version of my space invaders game, so will try to find time to do that.

It's mostly down to luck whether an app gets popular or not from what I can see. You can pay for installs, but this may or may not have any effect.

Peter Simpson said:

One developer from the UK had well over 50+ games

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The problem with that amount of games is when Google decides that you need to do this or that that you have a lot of work to do just to stay conform to their guidelines.

I only have 9 or 10 and it's already a misery to keep them up to date.

but ok, with that amount of games you only need to earn a few bucks per day per app to get decent earnings.
€3 * 50 apps * 30 days = €4500 (*2=9000 if you count IOS at the same earning level)

but it's already hard to get €3/day and usually you have 1 or 2 good earners and the rest is peanuts or even 0

sorex said:

I only have 9 or 10 and it's already a misery to keep them up to date.

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This is so true!!! It just took me five goes to get my Invaders game updated! Google kept rejecting it because it was showing ads not appropriate for children, or it linked to my other games and they decided one of those wasn't appropriate (which I guess is true since it was a man going through a house with a shotgun killing drug dealers). the really annoying part though is they control the ads (admob) and the market, so they could easily automatically set the ads to match the game rating since the ad account is linked to the app listing on the store, but no, they force the developer to make the changes then reject the changes if they don't meet the standard.

I have 9 games on the play store, 3 of these make money, and only 2 of those make good money.

andymc said:

I have 9 games on the play store, 3 of these make money, and only 2 of those make good money.

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Few developers can write this, I think you know it.

It depends what your expectations (and needs) are.

for me €5/day is already good more would be better ofcourse. for someone else this could be €1 or €200.

I'm having a full time (39h/week) job so I don't have always the time or mood to code at night.
If you need to rely only at the game earnings it's a different story.

sorex said:

It depends what your expectations (and needs) are.

for me €5/day is already good more would be better ofcourse. for someone else this could be €1 or €200.

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Correct; for me (net) 10.000€ / day would be enough ?

The reason is that I am already rich; in fact, my next app will only contain:

"Be generous, give me charity, otherwise I will not be able to survive"

I fear that "give me chartity" is very bad english, moreover.

LucaMs said:

Correct; for me (net) 10.000€ / day would be enough ?

The reason is that I am already rich; in fact, my next app will only contain:

"Be generous, give me charity, otherwise I will not be able to survive"

I fear that "give me chartity" is very bad english, moreover.

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Just a few minutes ago, looking for an app developed by an our friend (at the moment he is not reachable) I found a similar one. This app, published 3 years ago, has already obtained... 10+ downloads (and who knows how many uninstallations).

Seeing these things is depressing (assuming I need this to be depressed ? )

LucaMs said:

Just a few minutes ago, looking for an app developed by an our friend (at the moment he is not reachable) I found a similar one. This app, published 3 years ago, has already obtained... 10+ downloads (and who knows how many uninstallations).

Seeing these things is depressing (assuming I need this to be depressed ? )

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I'm guessing that was his only app and then he gave up. The trick is not giving up. I've updated my space Invaders game more than 50 times over the years with bug fixes and extra features. I also play gamers with millions of downloads to plan future features.

To be open and honest, I make about £20 a day from my 9 games combined. To quit my full time job I'd need £220 a day to feel secure.

I balanced aroud 20-27 euros per day a few years ago which gave a max of 700 something in a month once.
But then it suddenly dropped probably because the app vanished out of the belgian/dutch top 250 puzzle games.
Now I'm happy with the €120-180/month (that's €3-10+ per day) (where they then substract another 25 of it for some unclear reason)

£220/day is a lot and requires a lot of daily/returning gamers. I think you can count those who earn that much on 1 hand here on the forum.

sorex said:

I balanced aroud 20-27 euros per day a few years ago which gave a max of 700 something in a month once.
But then it suddenly dropped probably because the app vanished out of the belgian/dutch top 250 puzzle games.
Now I'm happy with the €120-180/month (that's €3-10+ per day) (where they then substract another 25 of it for some unclear reason)

£220/day is a lot and requires a lot of daily/returning gamers. I think you can count those who earn that much on 1 hand here on the forum.

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True, but given I had two months where I earned over £2k each month, I know it's possible. From what I'm reading, you can make much more money from IAPs than ads if you do them right. Features like rewards for opening the game each day, daily quests, a scaling leveling up system, level packs for purchase, cosmetic changes, these all help with player retention and can help revenue. I've tried a few shooter games to compare and do find it works, I want to keep playing and trying to get "that next upgrade". I'd like that in my games too.

Be quiet, since you are among the few who are getting rich thanks to your apps (in addition to @Douglas Farias, of course, who has already purchased a couple of skyscrapers, someone told me ?)

andymc said:

From what I'm reading, you can make much more money from IAPs

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right, but this is game depending. it's a lot easier with your shoot'em ups where you can use it to buy extra weapons, unlock levels etc.

It's barely usable in a 2048 puzzle game exept for an ad remover.

sorex said:

right, but this is game depending. it's a lot easier with your shoot'em ups where you can use it to buy extra weapons, unlock levels etc.

It's barely usable in a 2048 puzzle game exept for an ad remover.

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You'd be surprised how many would pay for a 2048 "hello kitty" theme pack download! Or a version based on evolving Pokemon types creatures.

I'm reading a book right now called "Free 2 Play", all about how free to play games make money. I'd highly recommend it to anyone wanting to make money off mobile games. I know there's many of us who hate micro transactions and potentially causing addictive issues with players, but it's worth reading all the same, if only to understand how you can spot yourself getting addicted to games and why.

andymc said:

You'd be surprised how many would pay for a 2048 "hello kitty" theme pack download! Or a version based on evolving Pokemon types creatures.

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I prefer not to get a lawsuit or account removal because I used things like that