What Does A Top-Grossing Android Game Make? $640,000 A Month, Says Game Insight
Game Insight, which makes Android’s top-grossing app in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, said its hit title “Paradise Island” raked in $640,000 in net revenue this May.
This gives developers a sense of the current upper revenue bound on the Android platform — at least through in-app purchases and paid apps. (The top-grossing list doesn’t include revenue from offer walls or advertising, so there may be other higher-earning titles with ads such as Rovio Mobile’s Angry Birds.)
For comparison’s sake, it’s possible for a game on iOS to earn more than $3 million per month, according to conversations we’ve had with leading third-party advertising and analytics providers and top developers.
So with these assumptions, we’re looking at a 5:1 ratio when comparing potential run-rates on both platforms for a single game right now.
This is pretty consistent with what we’ve heard from other developers. Earlier this month, Glu Mobile said its Android portfolio of games was making one-eighth to one-tenth of what its iOS titles were making. The company’s chief executive Niccolo de Masi also told us that he anticipates that the company’s Android apps will make about one-half of what its iOS titles make by year-end.
Moscow-based Game Insight said the app broke 1 million installs mark in the title’s first three weeks and now has 3 million users, according to company manager Vera Konysheva. The game is a classic casual sim title, where players build and manage a resort where they can earn revenue from pleasing virtual tourists.
The game monetizes through in-app purchases of virtual currency which can speed up actions in the game. It’s classic social-gaming style monetization, which only became recently possible on Android Market thanks to Google’s launch of in-app billing at the end of the first quarter. The Moscow-based company has about 200 employees and 11 studios. We’ve reviewed a few of their previous titles here, including MyClinic and The Syndicate HD.
July 20th, 2011 at 6:12 pm
[...] $1 million figure is up from the $640,000 it was earning on a monthly basis in May. The figure also helps set an upper-bound on what in-app billing revenue currently could be on [...]
September 13th, 2011 at 5:11 am
This game is buggy. With every patch update there is a chance your game will be wiped. I’ve spent months playing this game and used real money to buy bonuses only to get everything wiped! FYI this company does not do refunds.
January 6th, 2012 at 12:43 am
[...] generally heard that a top grossing iOS game can earn around $2 and $3 million dollars a month. But as the size of the iOS market grows with iPad sales and a strong quarter with the [...]
January 20th, 2012 at 9:31 am
[...] comparison, a top grossing game will typically earn between $2 and $3 million a month in the App Store, but can earn as much as $5 million a month if it has a high profile and strong [...]
January 30th, 2012 at 9:09 pm
[...] tends to focus on social games for the web, iOS, and Android, with its top social-mobile title, Paradise Island, having earned $640,000 in net revenue on Android this past [...]
May 9th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
[...] was No. 24. Based on reports from last summer, we know that top grossing game can earn between $2 to $3 million a month on iOS. Funzio’s ability to earn $5 million a month in sales based ranking in the 20s on the top [...]
June 29th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
[...] Last summer, we had heard from several sources that a top grossing app was earning about $2 to $3 million a month on iOS. This means by Q3 the same app was earning about $3.5 million a month in order to keep up with the [...]
July 1st, 2012 at 4:46 am
[...] of last year and the beginning of this year. Using that info, IMA calculated that, based on last summer’s reports of top-earners bringing in between $2 and $3 million per month, those same top earners are likely [...]