Spacetime Studios, the company behind the popular mobile MMO Pocket Legends, has released some surprising numbers showing that the Android version of their game has been pulling in more money than its iOS counterpart. The game gets about 9,000 daily downloads on Android compared to some 4,000 on iOS. In addition, the developer noticed that Android gamers would spend about three times more time within the game than iOS users.
What is even more impressive is that Pocket Legends makes most of its money using in-app purchases - the actual game is free. This means that even without Google having implemented their in-app purchasing system yet (Apple has had it implemented for some time), Android users are buying more than iOS users. Spacetime has also bought ad space for their game inside other mobile apps and has seen about three times the interest from Android users compared to iOS users. Because of these numbers, CEO Gary Gattis said:
"This led us to stop advertising on Apple and throw all of our marketing dollars onto Android. It really just makes sense from a financial point of view."
Stories like this aren't just great news for the particular developer, they are great news for the Android platform as a whole. With hundreds of thousands of apps, it is increasingly hard for developers to get noticed and stand out in Apple's App Store and many are frustrated by Apple's vague App Store rejection policies. For many, it would seem that Android is still an untapped market and don't be surprised if you see iOS games coming to Android in droves this year. [Computer World]
Reader comments
Developer says Pocket Legends makes more money on Android than iOS
Sounds awesome but hopefully it doesnt become full of ads lol
That's because Android only has a handful of good games. Competition on iOS is much stiffer. I tried this game on Android simply because it held out hope that I might get a decent game on my phone. On my iPod Touch, I have lots of games that are way better.
I am not an apple fan boy but I was going to say the same thing. I think this is true as well.
At the end of the report he clearly states that the iOS market is full of apps and it is harder to get noticed than on the untapped android market.
Coming soon to an Android near you...5 minutes of non-skippable commercials for every 15 minutes of gameplay.
Suck this Jobs! Now what?????
Cool to hear. Pocket Legends is an awesome game. It's pretty much taken over my mobile gaming for the past few months. Great, responsive, developers too.
It is created by Spacetime Studios not Realtime.
Also about the ads, I haven't seen them unless they mean the TapJoy offers which you have to select a menu to view them.
That's because more n3rd5 use Android.
That like saying more computer geeks watch Big Bang Theory.....
I've never heard of it. There's part of the problem.
Wait a minute. Wasn't the amount of apps a strength not a weakness? At least last minute? How bout this: if you create a quality app people will purchase stuff. Especially if they are cool people like android users. And especially special people like Android Central readers.
I've been commenting this for some time now. The key is a *quality* app. Just look at the successes:
PowerAmp - $4.99 x 100,000 to 500,000 downloads = min $500,000
Beautiful Widgets - $2.78 x 500,000 to 1,000,000 downloads = min $1,390,000
Locale - $9.99 x 10,000 to 50,000 downloads = min $100,000
Only total losers would like this game. Where's ID software when we need them?
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