From the moment of its launch App Store was traditionally considered to be a great market giving opportunities to earn money even for those who can invest nothing but just ideas, skills and talents. We heard a lot of fairy-tale stories when a young talented unknown developer had prospered in one moment just by suggesting an unusual and high-quality product. These success stories attracted a lot of developers to the iPhone applications market. And as a result the rules of the game have changed.
I am not saying that the division of the market is made. No, everybody understands that iPhone apps market is far from stability. But anyway it is much more saturated than one year ago. And even than couple of months ago.
My focus of interest lays particularly on iPhone games. And here we can observe that not only independent developers are attracted by App Store success stories. The big game publishers and developers (console, PC, mobile etc.) are also interested. Even those who haven't thought before that iPhone games market gives great opportunities are finally coming.
Besides, even among originally iPhone game makers some leaders such as Donut Games have been already shaped.
So, what does it all mean for a newcomer, for an indie developer?
What are his chances of prospering in iPhone games market?
As we present these indie developers, it is very important for us to explore and analyse the TOP 100 across the Games category. We are concentrating on the paid games and the analysis of the TOP free games will be made in the next step.
Original iPhone games/ Ported for iPhone platform games
Firstly, we decided to compare the share of the games that have
been originally created for iPhone against the share of already existing games that were ported for the iPhone platform.
Even the first look at the TOP 100 gives an understanding: the majority of the game industry leaders has finally understood the lucrative opportunities of the iPhone market. Tetris, Bejeweled, Sally's Salon, Need for Speed and so on and so forth.
Observing the TOP 100 during 2 last weeks we got following data:
Source: Mobeojo based on the data gathered from AppShopper
Wow! Even comparing with the Flurry statistics published four months ago (blog.flurry.com) that gives us a ratio 3:1. The ratio is for the TOP 25 only, and it covers a much longer period than we explored (almost one year) but anyway we can evaluate the dynamics. For the moment the ported games dominate the TOP 100 (66%). Even though the original iPhone games still have their 34%.
If we narrow focus to the TOP 25, the situation hardly changes: 63% of the ported games against 37% of the original iPhone games.
The dynamics of the increasing number of the ported games scares me. The leaders from other platforms are attacking App Store giving others fewer possibilities for independent developers. The point is that the ported games already have the popularity and the army of fans ready to buy favorite games in the App Store. Moreover, the companies themselves have more possibilities for tight marketing. The games have more chances to be noticed by the reviewers of the popular apps sites. And don't forget about cross-sales:
In this situation small players have not only to edit polished, addictive games with a brilliant idea, excellent graphics and soundtracks but also to invent extraordinary promotion and marketing tools.
Why can't Apple make, for example, different TOPs for ported and original iPhone games? Thereby for customers it will be easier to find interesting and innovative iPhone games. And now they are lost in the mass of ported games.
Ok, in fact the 34% is still no that bad. But it would be very interesting to look at the ration in six months.
Top 100 Developers Structure (by the types of developers)
To go deeper we examine the developers' structure of the TOP 100 paid games. During the time of the App Store existence which was primarily invaded by independent developers some categories of the developers can be outlined. Firstly, big game companies coming from other platforms (Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Real Arcade, Pop Cap and many, many others). Secondly, the class of leading developers specialized on just iPhone games is appearing such as Lima Sky, Ocean House Media, Backflip etc. And finally, it's small and independent indie developers that maight one day grow into big developers or might remain "one-game-maker".
Source: Mobeojo based on the data gathered from AppShopper
From the pie chart above we can see that companies that previously worked for other platforms have predominating share of the TOP 100 - 71%. About 19% of the TOP 100 is presented by developers made their names on the iPhone games. And just about 10% is taken by the indie developers.
Top 100 Company Structure.
If we explore the TOP 100 paid games structure more deeply, focusing on the companies presented in the TOP 100, the situation becomes more positive for newcomers. The structure is far from the structure of a stable market. Just nearly 47% goes for companies that have 2 or more games in the TOP 100. The major part - 53% - relates to the companies that have just one game in the TOP 100. Totally 66 companies are presented in the TOP 100 which indicates that the market is still young. The numbers should encourage the newcomers - they still have chances.
Source: Mobeojo based on the data gathered from AppShopper
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