Zombie Outbreak Simulator for iOS: Sales report

Thanks for posting realistic and honest figures. As developers we can become obsessed with building things, and inflate the potential return. I can understand your frustration, working at such a high level, building, marketing, debugging, drawing artwork, etc., only to have what seems like pennies on the dollar come your way.<p>It takes guts to share, so thanks.

I just read the 4 hour work week book. He actually talks about the 80-20 rule. 80% of returns come from 20% of work emphasising on the effectiveness of your actions not efficiency.<p>Applied to this, they could have enjoyed the initial success and moved onto better things. The later effort seems like beating a dead horse.<p>or maybe this is just my hindsight bias.

There is nothing about marketing right? I mean real marketing not just by cutting the price. For me it is one of the main reasons they didn't earn a lot, specially with the video game industry. For instance, it is not surprising to see the marketing at 60% of expenses, and it can be even more.<p>They should send keys to journalists, do a real marketing strategy with trailers, put ads every time they do a big update, talk to the community, etc. Marketing is a core of the formula to be rich and successful. In an entertainment industry, more you can give emotions to your future players more you increase the rate of conversion and their future value (trailer, teaser, quality of gameplay, etc.), and at the same time if you put these ads on as much people as you can, it directly increases your own wealth.<p>It reminds me this article: <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/173068/congratulations_your_first_indie_.php?print=1" rel="nofollow">http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/173068/congratulations...</a> And for the equation you have the excelente book "The Millionaire Fastlane" by MJ DeMarco or more quickly: <a href="http://personalmba.com/billionaire-formula/" rel="nofollow">http://personalmba.com/billionaire-formula/</a>

IAP is not meant for selling bombs. IAP is meant for selling full version of an app from within a demo.<p>I would argue that this is what Apple had in mind initially, before it got re-purposed by "inventive" marketers as an in-game milking mechanism. You can say all you want that "it works" and "everyone's doing it", but it's a very tacky and inherently disrespectful way to treat your users. Not too much unlike the gym membership and telco contracts. These works too, but it's a predatory model that <i>everyone</i> hates. I mean... c'mon, selling bombs to nuke zombies didn't work that well? What a surprise.

I liked the car-purchasing power throughout the article to give meaning to the values. I would suggest the freemium model though.

The free version was an obvious fail. I bet it cannibalized sales as well. Should be removed.