Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale — Mobile Launch Update
In this post I reference ‘revenue’ which I take to mean ‘proceeds’ (the amount of revenue seen by the developer *after* the app store takes its cut)
The Mobile Release
A few weeks ago, I talked about the Steam 1.0 launch and Krumit’s Tale Project Retrospective.
Since then, we’ve released Krumit’s Tale on iOS and Android and I wanted to share a quick update about how the game has sold on those platforms.
What Happened with the Google Play launch?
On August 27, the announced date of the mobile release, iOS went off without a hitch. Android — not so much. According the Play console, the app had been rolled out to production, but wasn’t actually available for sale. The store page continued to only offer a ‘Pre-register’ button.
I contacted Google Play support who told me my app was In Review. I found this surprising, since nothing in the UI suggested this to be the case. Over the next few days, I contacted Google Play at least 4 more times, before an agent finally pointed out that my app was still in ‘Pre-registration’ mode — woops. There’s a separate screen, buried in some menus, apart from the release rollout that you have to update to roll out your app.
This illustrates a big difference between the iOS and Android backend store interfaces. Both have lessons they could learn from the other but in this case, I’d love to see Google take a page out of Apple’s book. One thing the much simpler Apple App Store backend does well is to make it simple to understand the status of your app. Whether your app is ‘In Review’ or ‘Pending Developer Release’, it’s clear how to get the app visible in front of customers. From pre-release, there’s a very unambiguous ‘Release this app’ button on the App Store.
The main takeaway here is — if you’re using Pre-Registration on Google Play, make sure you know how to release your app afterwards ;)
Featured on the App Store
Krumit’s Tale was featured in the App Store prominently in two ways — the app carousel at the top of the Games tab, as well as the first slot in ‘New Games We Love’.
I don’t know how the majority of iOS gamers discover new games, but for me personally, I discover a ton of new games via ‘New Games We Love’ which is my favorite curated section in the App Store.
I’m also very grateful that Krumit’s Tale was highlighted by Apple’s App Store editorial team. A lot of storefronts (seem) to be 100% algorithm driven, but I’m definitely a fan of the human touch as part of the curation process on the App Store.
Krumit’s Tale —By The Numbers
- 315 Days since Early Access launch
- 20 Days since the Mobile launch
- 4.8 ⭐ (Google Play, App Store)
- 94% ‘Very Positive’ (Steam)
- 21,543 total units sold
- 3,289 Pre-Registrations* (Google Play)
- 859 Pre-orders* (Apple App Store)
- $22,661 Week 1 mobile revenue
- $36,727.60 Week 2 mobile revenue (cumulative)
- $316 average daily revenue
- $99,798 total revenue
A ‘pre-registration’ is not a commitment to purchase and simply notifies a user when the app is available. A ‘pre-order’ is a commitment to purchase and will charge the user when the app is released.
Graphing the Performance
As you can see by the huge yellow spike, the iOS launch of Krumit’s Tale represented the single largest day of revenue, with about $4800 Day 1 sales.
The mobile release of Krumit’s Tale made a huge impact on the total revenue, totaling months of sales on Steam in just a few weeks.
Krumit’s Tale trailed behind the pace of Journeys after the Early Access launch but quickly caught up and surpassed the pace of Journeys with a strong mobile release.
I’m curious to see, in particular, how Android performs over time. On Journeys, iOS jumped to a quick 80:20 lead after launch but nearly 3 years later, Android has been steadily gaining to an almost 50:50 revenue split. It’s interesting — iOS really seems to front load the sales, while Android seems to have a stronger long tail (from my very limited experience). I’m curious to see if this same pattern plays out with Krumit’s Tale.
The Effect on Meteorfall: Journeys
Perhaps the biggest winner was Meteorfall: Journeys. To celebrate the launch of Krumit’s Tale and to help juice the cross-sell opportunities, I reduced the price of Journeys to just $0.99 for the weekend, the lowest price ever in the history of the game.
It rocketed up the charts and saw a nice, predictable boost in sales due to the sale. This sale effect tapered quickly on iOS but on Android, the revenue continued to increase after the sale was over. As of the time of writing, Journeys is #1 in the Card Game (Paid) category on Google Play in the US. During the time since Krumit’s launch, Journey has averaged $506/day in revenue on Google Play, which exceeds any point in the game’s history (nearly 3 years at this point), including the initial launch.
Closing Thoughts
I’m really excited that Krumit’s Tale had such a strong launch on mobile! I think a lot of what I expected turned out to be true — Meteorfall fans had discovered the series originally on mobile, and preferred to wait to buy the game on their preferred platform. Thus, Krumit’s Tale was able to rapidly outpace the lifetime sales on Steam.
That said, I’m really happy with my experience on Steam as well and am glad that the game is available and highly rated across multiple platforms. Steam is a really strong third platform for Krumit’s Tale and I definitely plan to include a PC / Mac release as part of my launch plan for future games. Most importantly, PC provides access to a very large and important community of streamers and influencers that can make the difference between a game performing ‘OK’ and a game being a massive hit.
Missing from the list of launch countries on mobile is Mainland China, but I’m currently working with Indienova to bring the game to Chinese audiences. The process is a bit complex due to the ISBN requirement. We currently have a TapTap page live and I’m eager to get the game in front of Chinese players — perhaps the largest single market in the entire world.
That’s It, For Now!
That’s it for this update! I’ll probably do another update at the end of 2020 (if we collectively make it that far!), checking out how Krumit’s Tale looks as it settles into a more steady state after launch.
In the meantime, I’ve got a patch update I’m working on for Journeys, a bunch of new tiles / Mutations lined up for Krumit’s Tale (plus Varfa!), and am very eager to begin prototyping on the next iteration of Meteorfall.
Stay tuned!
