As I’m writing this, Pocket Dogfights has been live for iOS and Android for two weeks (more or less).
It’s certainly been a heck of a ride. I think a thanks is a bit of an understatement to everyone who helped spread the word, bought it, enjoyed it, and generally been supportive over the last year or so of development.
To break down some of the statistics, in the ~2 weeks since launch (at least until Tuesday, April 16), there have been 571 downloads, with a rough split of 80% of the sales being for iOS, and the remaining 20% being for Android devices. In most regard, this has actually been much higher than my initial expectations - mainly because I’ve not done the best of jobs with my initial press outreaching.
In terms of popularity, it’s primarily been in Australia (for obvious reasons) - although after being mentioned on a German app blog, there was a small spike in downloads in Germany over the launch weekend.
However, since I ended the launch sale, it seems the sales have slowed dramatically. In some regard, this doesn’t surprise me, with the nature of the fickle mobile market. As someone who prefers games which aren’t based around buying skips/unlocks/boosts, the fact that being at rock-bottom pricing to get any traction is worrying on a number of levels.
Overall, if AppFigures is correct, that’s around $370 coming into my pocket in the next month or so. Which, truth be told, is something I’m actually happy with. Whilst a large chunk of the goal with release was to get it out there for feedback, and to get it out there in peoples minds, it’s also been something I have wanted to make some money with. Granted, it’s a long way in doing that - which is just an artifact of the costs involved in production, but it’s making progress.
As for plans? Primarily, I’ve spent the time since launch working towards a release for Windows & Macintosh. Based on some recent news, I’m afraid the Windows version will be postponed a bit, with the Macintosh version to be released through the Mac App Store - at least at first.
This has come down to circumstances meaning that I most likely will be planning to sell them via direct sales (which I had not planned for during development), and being correctly set up for that is going to take some research & planning. This is something I regret dearly, as I had hoped to get it out there as widely as possible.
Beyond this, I’ll be back to working on the 1.0.1 release - this is intended as a small bug-fix & balancing release, taking into account the feedback I’ve received since launch. I can’t confirm a date yet, but as I submit it to Apple, I’ll be sure to keep everyone in the loop via the Twitter & Facebook pages.