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Link: archives: February 2010 Link: archives: January 2010 Link: archives: December 2009 Link: archives: November 2009 Link: archives: October 2009 Link: archives: September 2009 Link: index: Riptide Games Link: start: Welcome to Riptide Games Link: prev: Gravity Sling v1.1 is coming Link: next: Gravity Sling 1.1 submitted to Apple Link: canonical Riptide Games - iPhone and next-gen mobile game development * Navigation * About / Contact * Who we are We develop iPhone and other next-gen mobile based applications. Our team has a long history in the web and casual game development space, and has worked with some of the biggest names around. We're currently working on some of our own projects, so check back soon for more information or contact us to talk about any opportunities you may have. * 360iDev San Jose [IMG] Brian will be speaking at 360iDev in San Jose April 2010. * Join us on Facebook Riptide Games recently joined Facebook. Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/RiptideGames and show your support by becoming a fan today. * Twitter * The latest LOGIN beat features an interview with our own Brian Robbins - http://bit.ly/czlq8p 3 weeks ago * Rehearsal v1.1 with iPad support, and several bug fixes is now available! http://bit.ly/avFynX 2010-04-01 * Nice - Rehearsal is featured as "What's Hot" in the App store on iTunes and on the device! 2010-03-02 * More updates... Posting tweet... * Recent * Rehearsal is in the can * On exploiting workers, Quality of Life and Rockstar San Diego * Gravity Sling Deluxe released - discount for first 10,000 players * Gravity Sling v1.1 update is now available * Gravity Sling v1.1 Trailer * Links * Casual Mom * Tags 360iDev 360iDev Game Jam conferences denver fitc mobile games gravity sling IGDA In App Purchase iphone iphone game jam italy japan jobs palm pre QoL rehearsal rockstar sales data san francisco speaking trailer unity webOS wired * Archives * February 2010 * January 2010 * December 2009 * November 2009 * October 2009 * September 2009 In-App Purchase results 2 weeks in games | Monday November 23 2009 4:51 pm | Comments (12) Tags: games, gravity sling, In App Purchase, iphone, sales data Our game Gravity Sling is a free app with 15 levels included and another 30 levels available via In App Purchase (IAP). It was one of the first titles to take advantage of Apple's new policy of allowing IAP from within free apps. Apple announced this policy change on Thursday October 15th, and we submitted in the wee hours of the morning on Monday October 19th. It was approved by Apple on Thursday November 5th. We've always thought that free+IAP was a better way to go for most small-form and simple titles that typically sell for $1.99-$.99 on the app store. Ultimately it provides a better experience for the end user while allowing developers to provide an easier upgrade path for "Lite" users who want to go full. However the issue is not whether or not we think it's a better way to do things, but if end-users agree and that this type of model can result in a sustainable business. With that in mind, we have been tracking our sales and a few other metrics fairly closely since launch, and this post is the first of what will likely be several posts in the coming weeks and months sharing our results thus far. Results so Far Gravity Sling has found some limited success already. It has not (yet) been featured by Apple, but we did get a few decent reviews on iPhone game sites, and several blogs picked it up. In the US, it has been ranked between 25 and 50 in free Puzzle and free Strategy consistently since launch. The most success however has come in Italy and Japan, where Gravity Sling climbed up the Free app charts peaking at #10 of all free apps (#3 of all free games) in each country. Gravity Slink ranking graph as pulled from MajicRank (highly recommended utility!) Gravity Sling ranking graph as pulled from MajicRank (highly recommended utility!) Conversion Rate The most important data point we want to know is the overall conversion rate. That is, what % of users who download the game decide to purchase a Level pack via IAP. Right now our overall conversion rate is 1.91% so approximately 1 out of every 50 people who download Gravity Sling purchase our level pack for $.99. This compares favorably with the typical conversion rate of .7-1% seen in many PC downloadable casual games. In actual #'s we have had 66,346 downloads of the app from Nov 5-Nov 22nd and 1,267 sales of the first (and currently only) level pack. Purchase Timing / Delay We expected there to be something of a delay between a user downloading Gravity Sling for the first time, and when they decided to purchase the Level Pack. What we found is that this is somewhat true, and the delay seems to be about a day, however the delay also appears to increase over time. That is, for the first few days Gravity Sling was available, there was little to no visible delay between downloads per day and purchases per day. 2 weeks later, we're seeing that purchases seem to happen 1-2 days after download. Gravity Sling's global download totals and Level pack purchases per day Gravity Sling's global download totals and Level pack purchases per day Regional Variation We have found significant regional variation to our conversion rate. To date almost 85% of our downloads have come from Japan (25,705), Italy (18,434) and the US (13,709). 80% of our purchases have come from the same three countries with the Japan leading (486), followed by the US (406) and then Italy (143). This results in a conversion rate for the US of 2.96%, Japan is at 1.89% and Italy is all the way down at .78%. Or to put this another way, US users are 3.8 times more likely to purchase a level pack than users in Italy. The difference between the US and Japan is much less pronounced with the US having a conversion rate 1.5 times higher than Japan. Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day for the US Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day for the US Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day for Japan Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day for Japan Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day in Italy Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day in Italy The OpenFeint effect Perhaps the most interesting and somewhat unexpected result we've found is the correlation of OpenFeint usage on purchases. As of last night 55% (36,980) of all Gravity Sling players had submitted a score to one of the leaderboards (which happens automatically for anyone signed into OpenFeint). However 73% (925) of all users who had purchased a level pack were OpenFeint users and had submitted a score to one of the leaderboards. Digging into this further, what we found is that OpenFeint users are almost 3 times more likely to purchase a level pack than non-OpenFeint users. Our conversion rate is 3.4% among OpenFeint users and drops to 1.2% for non-OpenFeint users. Conversion rate % for OpenFeint and non-OpenFeint users Conversion rate % for OpenFeint and non-OpenFeint users Also interesting here is that it appears OpenFeint users are more likely to purchase early. In the first few days of app availability over 5% of OpenFeint players bought a level pack, and that has since dropped to our current 3% level. Non Monetary Discoveries While we still believe that Free + IAP makes the most sense for games like Gravity Sling, there are some tradeoffs aside from the pure technical implementation. Most notably was with regards to reviews and trying to generate media attention at the launch of Gravity Sling. While many sites did cover the game, there were several which would not stating that as a matter of policy, they did not review free applications. We also were forced to limit Gravity Sling to iPhone OS 3.0 so any users (primarily iPod Touch users) who had not paid to upgrade to the latest OS were unable to play Gravity Sling. Anecdotally we've also heard that some users were confused by the In App Purchase, and would have liked to have bought the game if they knew how. The surprising thing here is that there was very little to no user backlash at having paid content in a "free" app. We expected this to be a huge concern since this was one of the first free apps with IAP content, but we have not seen any complaints about this yet. Conclusions (for now) Based on our sales data to date, we can make several conclusions: * General conversion rate for IAP is around 2% * Region matters as US conversion is 2.96% while Italy was just .78% * OpenFeint usage is corollary to purchase as OpenFeint users convert 3 times higher than non-OpenFeint users. Next Steps We're submitting v1.1 of Gravity Sling to the app store very shortly, and are hoping to learn a lot more once that is released. With v1.0 we did not do a good job of letting the user know that a Level pack was available to purchase. With v1.1 we've added a couple upsell screens to make this more obvious (though hopefully not super annoying!). We've also created 2 new level packs so we can start to learn how many people will purchase multiple level packs. To address the issues of getting reviews, and allowing OS 2.2.1 we will also be releasing a "Premium" version of Gravity Sling for sale. This version will not have any In App Purchase, but will come with everything in the game already unlocked. While our focus will still be on pushing the free+IAP version of Gravity Sling we're hoping that the premium version will pick up sales from OS 2.2.1 devices, and other users who aren't able or willing to do IAP. 12 Comments 1. Comment by Dennis - November 24, 2009 @ 1:54 am Great numbers! Thanks for sharing. Could the OpenFeint effect be explained (partially at least) by non-WiFi iPod Touch players? Those players are more likely to skip the OpenFeint signup because they are not online 24/7. That would also explain the early buy behavior of OpenFeint users compared to non-OpenFeint users. Non-openfeint users would have to wait for a WiFi spot to become available to them before they can make their purchase. 2. Comment by Marco - November 24, 2009 @ 8:47 am Thanks for sharing your results and analysis. It's not so strange that italian conversions are so low; in general italians do not buy from e-commerce sites... Cheers! 3. Comment by brian - November 24, 2009 @ 8:58 am Interesting idea about the effect of WiFi/iPod Touch players, I hadn't thought of that. It's certainly possible. I just checked our analytics data and it looks like our iPod Touch conversion rate might be just a bit lower than our iPhone conversion rate, though I'll need to do some more digging to be able to tell that for sure. 4. Pingback by Twitted by davidedicillo - November 24, 2009 @ 10:11 am [...] This post was Twitted by davidedicillo [...] 5. Comment by jon jordan - November 24, 2009 @ 11:20 am great data - thanks for sharing it good to see the conversion rate for IAP is viable for developers you have to assume OpenFeint users are going to be more hardcore so more likely to buy extra content, no matter what device they're playing on. It is a massive difference between OF and non-OF players 6. Pingback by Riptide Reveals Early In-App Purchase Results For Their Free Game Gravity Sling | TEST ZONE - November 24, 2009 @ 11:21 am [...] to include in-app purchases certainly generated a lot of buzz among developers, and now, thanks to iPhone game developer Riptide, we finally have some results that should help other developers decide whether or not to employ [...] 7. Pingback by Riptide Games >> In-App Purchase results 2 weeks in - November 25, 2009 @ 4:26 am [...] post: Riptide Games >> In-App Purchase results 2 weeks in Comments [...] 8. Pingback by iPhone Central >> Blog Archive >> Riptide Reveals Early In-App Purchase Results For Their Free Game Gravity Sling - November 25, 2009 @ 8:56 am [...] to include in-app purchases certainly generated a lot of buzz among developers, and now, thanks to iPhone game developer Riptide, we finally have some results that should help other developers decide whether or not to employ [...] 9. Pingback by FingerGaming >> Riptide Reveals Gravity Sling In-App Purchase Sales Figures - Gaming on the iPhone and iPod Touch - November 26, 2009 @ 7:02 am [...] Store publisher Riptide Games has published an in-depth blog post detailing the in-app purchase sales figures of its momentum-based puzzler Gravity [...] 10. Pingback by Ontwikkelaar Gravity Sling geeft inzicht in In App Purchases - iPhone - iPhoneclub.nl - November 26, 2009 @ 3:56 pm [...] Meer info: Riptide Blog [...] 11. Pingback by Weekly Update #24 << Retro Dreamer Blog - November 27, 2009 @ 12:00 pm [...] great blog post from the guys at Riptide Games, about their experiences with in-app purchasing in Gravity Sling. It's filled with great stats and numbers, well worth [...] 12. Pingback by thoughts of ariel seidman >> Blog Archive >> Monetizing Mobile: You Got Options - December 1, 2009 @ 11:06 am [...] Early data indicates a 1.9% conversion rate [source] [...] RSS feed. Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time. 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