The Road Of Entrepreneurship For An Independent Programmer

Some may remember that at the beginning of last year, I wrote an article about how I started to become an independent programmer.

With the coming of the new year, I think it is time for some introspection / conclusion. At the end of this article, I will tell you how much money I have earned so far. I plan to publish this income into a monthly routine announcement, just like KreCi is in his. website It's the same way.

But first of all, I think I need to use a little more space to introduce how I plan and start this whole business. Part of the plan is short story. I've had enough of life in the video game industry that I can't do what I want. My last attempt, a web game company, was started by me and several former colleagues, because investors lost confidence in our creativity and technology and went bankrupt. I worked in another company, but soon I realized that I should go out and do it alone. So, I:

　 Quit (that's the best job I've ever thought of) start programming.

I managed to apply for one. government The qualification of entrepreneurship can get unemployment benefits, plus some health insurance and so on. I have to rely on these incomes for nearly 9 months of life (from mid May 2011 to mid February 2012). After that, I have to earn enough money to keep living. Soon, my wife and I were informed that we were going to have a child, probably born in October. Although this is the most pleasant news I have ever had, I have to worry about whether I can make my own business and earn enough money to support this little family by the end of the year. I still insist on trying. I know that if I want to, I can still find a full-time job as before. So I opened the Corona SDK that had been working for several weeks and began to develop. I only have one Samsung. Galaxy S mobile phone There is no apple product at all. That's why the software I first released was first made by Android (Android) platform.

The first game I developed was Old Fart. It includes two kinds of free and paid versions of advertising on Android platform. Two months later, the paid version received 40 downloads. There was no exciting result. The game was later shut down by apple because of its name. You also heard that they no longer approve anything about farting. At first, I also want to argue that this is not a "click a button to put a fart" application, it is a real game, but you also see that the reason I want to go out alone is because I do not like to quarrel. I just want to program.

　　 In view of the initial difficulties encountered, I began to develop my second game, Bloo Kid.

Bloo Kid

Because I am a nostalgic game enthusiast, I think many people still like 8 byte code and square pattern game. I read a lot of articles about how to earn money through apps. I decided to develop Bloo Kid, which users can use free of charge. I put some ads in the game, because no apple device, I only made a Android version. The first thing I choose is the advertisement provided by AdMob, because it is the most advertised platform that people talk about. The reason why the advertising effect in this game is not very good is that it is wrong to place advertisements. This game requires users to download some things (about 46K, 13K is installation files). Because users can only earn money after they have advertised them. This advertisement needs to show enough time for people to point to it. And the ads I put on will only appear on the start menu (and level selection), as you can see in the picture below, so these ads will not interfere with your playing games. However, it takes only a few seconds for the user to start the game to select the level and start playing. There is not enough time to load ads, let alone click them.

The advertisement settings of Bloo Kid put the ads on the start menu, which brought me very few hits.

Another problem is, for reasons unknown, Bloo Kid always fails to reach the click price that other developers can achieve. When Corona supported inmobi advertising, I immediately changed AdMob to InMobi. Facts have proved that this is a correct decision. I earn more money from advertising. You can see the monthly income. )

I bought a Mac mini computer in an online shop and later found that the machine was delivered from Thailand. In order to get tax exemption, I made a lot of trouble. This machine is much cheaper than I bought directly from the apple store, but it took me a long time to get the goods. For a while, I thought I was cheated because I needed to put money in a Thailand account. And can not pay online, can only go to the bank to fill in the form. The waiter behind the bank counter will think that I bought a woman or something from Thailand. From the FedEx agreement, I could see that my apple machine reached my hand after a long journey. It first went to Germany, Cologne, then Paris, France, and then back to Cologne, I don't know why.

Then I developed a iOS version of the Bloo Kid game, which began to see a bit of hope. But despite this tour

In a certain depression, I made several other game prototypes, several of which you can see on my YouTube channel. But I don't think these are too rich.

Now, let's start with a happy part. You should listen to it.

By chance, I used the weekend time to develop a child's game. I have heard that there are several pictures of animals like this. If you click them, the game will be called everywhere. My nephew and niece (3 and 5 years old) were excited to see this game. But I need to find the motivation to do this kind of game. A friend of mine saw his little daughter (one year old) playing a game mentioned above. Every time he heard the cry of these animals, his little daughter was very happy. So he said, "why not try and develop some such games?" so I tried to do several such games.

Doll farm

I think we can make this game even more exciting. Only some animal pictures in the game are too low. So I built a farm and put some animals in it. When touching an animal, it will shake its head and make its voice. I also added something interesting. For example, a door that can be opened, a hidden frog, a fish pond, a chimney, if you touch it, it will smoke.

I posted this game to iOS, and users can use it free of charge. The first week's downloading reached 20 thousand. What I have done is to publish this application, and then use my twitter IDRTG to publicize it.

I immediately decided to upgrade this application, adding two game scenarios. Users spend 0.99 dollars in the game to enter these two scenes. The sale of this app is the same as that of the first week of Bloo Kid. The difference is that after a week, it still maintains 50-60 downloads and no fall. It took me a week and a half to remember the three games. A sudden outbreak.

Children's intelligence game

Then I started developing another children's game, children's animal intelligence game. There are intelligence problems that gradually increase the difficulty. Once you have answered a question, there will be balloons rising, you can pierce them with your fingers, and lovely animals will move. Since the game was released, its sales have reached an astonishing 80-120 per day. Its price is set at 2 level, 1.99 dollars, and I can get 1.4 dollars from it.

Dinosaur world

Inspired by the first two games, I developed another game, this time dinosaurs, and some other prehistoric animals: the development of the first two games helped a lot in this game, and the dinosaur world was born. It is not as successful as animal intelligence games, but there are 30-50 purchases per day.

Android trading market

All my games in Android trading market are free, but they contain advertisements. This market is changing, and I can earn some money through the paid application mode, but now it seems that the "free but advertising" mode is more suitable for my applications. When Corona supports embedded ads in Android apps, I will immediately switch to this mode.

Because my downloads are pretty good, the monthly income from InMobi is OK. You can see it below.

I have recently come up with a good idea to make my Android app user evaluation skyrocket. I need to pay iDevices money to unlock my message, and users can evaluate my application without Android. Just unlocking the game in the background. Many people have scored the game, and many people even write to me about the game, most of them positive.

Current revenue

I said I would like to tell you my current income. Over the next few months, I kept updating my monthly income.

Advertising revenue in December 2011

IOS: $72.46.