In order to give the numbers some context here is a quick history for Krashlander on the Windows Phone Marketplace. 

The paid version of Krashlander was released around October 20th, right about the time the U.S. Windows Phone launched.  It was released as a 99 cent game.  The paid version quickly climbed to be one of the most popular indie games in the marketplace (Indie meaning non-XBox Live)

On Feb 22nd, I released Krashlander Free.   Krashlander Free peaked at, I think, the #2 spot for free games in the marketplace and #7 for apps/games combined.

Krashlander Free was a full version of the game with ads.  I did not try to up-sell players from the free version to the paid version as the free version seemed to bring in more per-person than I would get from a 99 cent sale.  The paid version was really more for those that just really didn’t want to see the ads.

As you will see in the charts, Krashlander Free really cannibalized the paid version but numbers-wise I think it was worth it.

Overall I’ve been very pleased with the Krashlander numbers.  Windows Phone is just getting started and if these numbers scale anywhere close to linearly with phone sales then I think it’ll be a great place for developers to make some money.

On to the numbers.

Krashlander Paid (10/19/2010 to 05/19/2010)

Krashlander Total Daily Downloads (Including Trials)

The above chart shows total daily downloads.  This chart does not represent purchases because trials are included in the numbers above and not everyone that downloads the trial ends up purchasing the game.  The spike you see occurred when Krashlander was featured in the marketplace.

The actual numbers for the paid version of Krashlander break down as follows:

Total downloads (including trials): 21,147

Total purchases: 4,477 (I get 70% of that which is $3133.00)

Conversion rate : ~21%

Krashlander Free (2/22/2011 to 5/19/2011)

Krashlander Free Total Daily Downloads

As you can see, Krashlander Free has substantially more daily downloads than the paid-with-trials version of the game.

Since this is a free game, the downloads give no indication of revenue. Microsoft’s Pub Center is what I used for serving ads in Krashlander Free. Here are the revenue charts for that. (Note, I’m purposefully not showing impressions and/or eCPM as I believe that is against the terms of Pub Center)

Krashlander Daily Ad Revenue

This chart requires a bit of explanation. 

The beginning of the chart is very low due to a bug with my Pub Center account.  A couple weeks in March were really high do to what I can only assume were inflated eCPMs.  The rest of the chart is a bit more “normal” in my mind.

Total downloads: 187,298

Total Revenue from ads: $15,011.37

Krashlander Free and Paid Totals

So, combining things here is what things look like.

Total downloads (Free, Trial, and Paid): 208,445

Total revenue: ~ $18,144.00

There you have it, all my numbers… well almost.  I actually also made some money from a special promotion deal with LG.  The contract does not allow me to disclose the amount, but lets just say it was a solid number.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post. If these numbers scale with the phone sales, which I think should start to take off when Nokia gets in the game, then Windows Phone is going to be a great place for developers.

What’s Next?

Mango! That's what’s next.   I’m currently working on the framework that will be used for my next few games.  Certainly a Krashlander sequel will be one of them.  I’m targeting sometime close to the Windows Phone Mango release this fall.

-Jeff Weber
@jeffweber
http://www.facebook.com/Krashlander
www.farseergames.com

Thanks to all who made this happen.

So, why do this?  Why release a full version of the game for free?  Read on…

Ads (Pub Center) Work

Pub Center is basically Microsoft’s version of Google’s AdSense.  Now, with Windows Phone, Pub Center is available for use in Windows Phone games and apps.

Krashlander has been available as a paid game since the Windows Phone launch.  If I had to throw out a sales-per-day number, I’d say it averages around 25-35 sales a day.  I get about 70 cents per sale.  Not bad. Makes for some nice extra cash.

However, a recent blog post by Elbert Perez of Occasional Gamer shows that it’s possible to make substantially more than that using Pub Center Ads. The graphic below is from his blog post (Note, Elbert has 7 or 8 games in the marketplace which partly accounts for his great numbers)

Image comes from blog post by Elbert Perez

Now, I’m not delusional and I don’t think by flipping my game to free I’m going to be rolling in the dough, but my “bet” is that I can make more per-day with Ads then by selling my paid version of Krashlander.  Also, Elbert’s not the only one claiming to make good money with Ads.  Others have also hinted they have had better luck with Ads then with paid games.

Since Elbert published his blog post, it appears the eCpm and therefore revenue from Ads has gone down a bit.  Even so, I think they are still, currently, a better bet than paid games/apps

Trials Do Not Move Games

The hope, both Microsoft’s, mine, and I think most others was that by baking a trial api into the Windows Phone and making it easy for everyone to offer a free sample of their game or app, developers would not need to go the iPhone route of making both a “Lite” version of their game and a full, paid version of their game.  The trial version was suppose to make the free/lite version un-necessary. 

Good plan, but it’s not working.  Best I can tell, free games and apps get anywhere from 10 to 100 times more downloads than games and apps with free trials.  People actively search out free Apps.  They don’t (and in fact CAN”T), search for apps or games that support trials.

I don’t know what the solution to this is, or if there even is one, but right now if you want to build a user base for your games on Windows Phone, free is where it’s at.

XBox Live Ceiling

As I mentioned above, Krashlander has been available as a paid (99 cent) game since launch.  And, for pretty much this whole time, it has sat right at the bottom of the XBox Live titles in the Marketplace.  In fact it is actually above a number of them.

Krashlander living under the XBox Live Ceiling

Now, in some ways this is great and I am happy Krashlander is doing as well as it is. However, given how XBox Live games are promoted and positioned in the Marketplace, I don’t see Krashlander, or any other indie game for that matter, ever being positioned anywhere but below a long (and getting longer) list of XBox Live games.

I’m not here to complain about this.  It is what it is and I’ve voiced my concerns to those that matter.  I just want to express my opinion that as things currently exist, routing around the XBox Live games by going free seems to be a better bet.

Let EVERYONE Play

There are a lot of countries that have the Windows Phone but are not able to purchase games.  They can play all the game/app trials and the free games, but they can’t purchase them.

Releasing a free version of Krashlander will let these folks play my game and hopefully help build a “following” for my games. 

I’m getting blog-fatigue, so I’ll wrap it up.

Conclusion

It’s still early days with the Windows Phone ecosystem.  I expect things to change often as Microsoft figures things out.  Someday it may make more sense to focus more on paid games again instead of free Ad based games. If that is the case then I’ll adjust.   Staying fluid, I think, is the key

With the Nokia deal there will hopefully be a momentum push for Windows Phone and it will reach critical mass.  If it does it’ll be a whole new game for us developers.

-Jeff Weber
www.farseergames.com
@jeffweber

Look for Krashlander and Krashlander Free in the Windows Phone marketplace.

Hopefully watching these vids will help.

Apologize for the poor quality. I currently do not have a good camera for recording live gameplay.  These were done with my iPod touch.

Here are the vids:

Krashlander Level 13 Triple Kill on Samsung Focus

Krashlander Level 16 on Samsung Focus

Check it out here: http://www.bestwp7games.com/windows-phone-7-game-review-krashlander.html

Includes video review/gameplay.

Thanks to the folks at 1800 Pocket PC for the review.

-Jeff Weber
@jeffweber

I just finished my first new level.  Since the new levels are a bit more difficult then the original levels they take a bit longer to build and test.  This first level took me about 8 hrs total to create and test. This, of course, is spread over several days as I only get about 1.5 hrs. a day to work on my games.

One more thing you may notice is that I’ve relaxed the need for “realism” in the landscape.  Many of the slopes and such are just “floating” in the sky.  This was done for 2 main reasons.  I get more performance because I don’t have to render quite as much, and it allows for more interesting and intricate levels.

Here is a sneak peak of the first new level.  The first image is what the level looks like as I build it out in a sort of wire-frame mode.  The 2nd image is what it looks like after I add all the graphics.

Wireframe view of level

Finished level (no background)

For right now I’m just looking for level design ideas rather than new game features.  If you have do have some ideas, please sketch them out in your favorite drawing tool and send me a screen capture.

You can send your ideas to farseergames@gmail.com

No promises on whether I use your idea or not but I do promise I’ll look at and consider all ideas.

-Jeff Weber
@jeffweber

Thought I’d share.

For some perspective, Krashlander currently sits in position 32 of all paid apps. 

Overall the numbers are about what I expected.  I think WP7 and app sales should climb over time as the general public figures out just how great the phone is.

I think a lot of the blogs will claim these sales are low, but given that the phone is just getting started, I wouldn’t agree.

Here are the numbers.  This is a raw dump as I don’t have time to pretty them up.

-Jeff Weber