Today I crossed the two million total downloads mark. This is a pretty cool milestone for a small indie developer.

At the moment every 7 days more than 100’000 users are downloading my apps, every month I get around 400k to 500k downloads.  Here is a chart how my downloads developed during the last months:

So the big question is: How did I manage it to improve my downloads so much without any marketing and advertising.

Well, the popular app stores like iTunes, google Play or amazon are complex, very dynamic ecosystems.

It’s very hard to make good predictions. Often you’ll hear things like “Make a quality product and you will make money!”.

I’m very sorry to disappoint you but in my experience this is NOT true.

I’ve seen so many developers that worked hard on their game for many, many months. They created a fantastic end result. They released their amazing game and…… NOTHING happend. No Downloads. And “no downloads” equals to “no revenue”. So sure, quality is important, but it doesn’t guarantee you anything.

With this in mind I choose another strategy. My assumption was: Make more apps and you will get more downloads.More downloads = more revenue.

So with this in mind I focused to improve my workflow and tried to cut down the development time of my apps. I don’t want to get too technical but what I’ve mainly did to achieve this was:

• I’ve created a “framework/codebase” for fast prototyping and developing games (reusable components, cross platform, data driven, a scripting language for easy customize existing games/components, tools/editors that integrate well into the workflow)
• An easy workflow with lots of automation to create, maintain and publish an app as well as maintain assets and marketing material (description, keywords, screenshots, icons, resolutions for different stores etc.)
• Re-Skin existing apps for another target audience (with no or less coding involved)

Our game Animal Run was reviewed on kinderappgarten.de.

The page has a lot of good articles on apps for kids, so make sure to have a look at it.

This weekend I released my new app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch: Bass Constructor. If you’ve ever dreamed of creating your own club/dance/house hit record without any prior knowledge this app is for you.

It was the best app start I’ve ever had and people seem to LOVE this little gem.
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I recently released my new app Beat_Machine for iOS. A fun drumpad-computer simulation with great sounds. Here are the first reviews I got from my users so far. Thank you so much:
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Captain Backwater is released. This is one of the most exciting parts of developing his own games. The day of the release. The day when you find out if the players love or hate your game. » more

Captain Backwater, the new indie hit puzzle game, is near completion. This sunday evening I will start a closed beta test. For this I need you to have a look at the game and provide some useful feedback (if you’d like to).
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Wheew… Gameforge (the coolest game company in the universe, where I’m working fulltime) just released a brand new facebook game: Funfari. » more