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]
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