Are mobile games still profitable?

Caius Julius Caesar said:
My man, you need to understand 2 things: First, you need to have luck. Second, marketing is more important than the game.

I've been doing it for a while now, I have more than 15 games on my portfolio (most of them casual games), and my most downloaded game stood at 500+ downloads.
I haven't made any money so far ( maybe a few cents, but I don't count that)
I think my games are pretty good, I make them from scratch and I put a lot of passion.
I don't have money to market them so my faith stands on organic downloads. I use social media also but I have only my friends following me...

So it's definitely not easy.
I think most people fail before succeeding: Henry Ford, Michael Jordan, Oprah, or freakin Einstein.

Like Walt Disney said: “All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”


Good luck brother
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I have a marketing strategy and I'm not talking about hyper casual games. I was thinking about action games and for monetization, I will use in-app purchases like to buy a gun or character etc. I will allocate some funds if required for the paid marketing.

rafark said:
I think I read somewhere that the mobile game industry is right now the most profitable in the entire industry (video games), much more than computers and consoles. So I think there’s a lot of money to be made, just not as easy as it was in 2010 since there’s a ton of competition. If I was going to develop a mobile app or game I’d choose the AppStore over android though since it’s MANY times more profitable.
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Since I will use Unity to develop an game, I can publish same game on both of the platforms.

nakamura said:
Well, it really depends. If you talk about "small games" then what do you actually mean? Tetris? Space Invaders? A visual novel? RPGs?

Making a video game is extremely difficult because you have to find the perfect balance between:
- a great story (why should people play the game?)
- great graphics (nobody likes shitty looking games)
- an adventurous feeling (nobody likes boring games)
- flawless gameplay/mechanics

and most importantly: the best possible way to monetize it without being too aggressive in showing ads or pushing the people and this is a dilemma because you don't want people to hate your game and give you shitty reviews, but you also want to earn as much money as possible.

Forget about banner ads. They earn you a few cents and are worthless. Interstitials are okay, but they are more annoying than anything else.

The real money is in adding a reward system or in-game currency, which players have to increase by purchasing, using an offer wall or by rewarded videos.

Or you could just make hypercasual games, but this is a hit and miss and you better have a great marketing strategy
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Yes, I have marketing strategy and I will use paid marketing as well. I was thinking to approach small youtubers as well to promote my game.
 
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Good luck! I have same situation, except I'm making my games in godot engine.
 
If they're still running ads then i assume yes, otherwise they wouldn't invest in mobile games ads, am i right?
 
Everything digital is profitable since the pandemic
 
androiddeveloper said:
I was thinking to develop small games and publish them on playstore. I was wondering if anyone here had any success with this.
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Yes they're still are! I'd advice you very simple games that attract old people too such a sudoku as it's old people that have credit cards and can pay for things.
 
I was wondering the same thing but i still see ads running on subway surfers so i believe that the answer is yes
 
Its just too much competition, if you want to see noticeable money, you have to make your games:

1: fun to play and very addictive
2: good marketing, means people should KNOW your games

You need have this both factors to succeed, ads or in-game purchases to make money are not important since you have to have user base first.
 
There wasn't a time like now for mobile games, people are indoors due to the pandemic therefore spend more time playing games.
 
whatever works online, and especially as entertainment, is profitable ever since covid more than ever
 
Yes still profitable, you cannot imagine how much people are making on mobile games.
 
Based on the ads that I keep seeing when I play game apps on my Android, the answer would be a resounding ‘yes.’

You have to understand that a lot of those heavily advertised games basically use the same game mechanics.

I can boil them down to maybe 5 different major variations.

The reason for this is obvious: a lot of these games are cranked out by people looking to make money off ads.

It seems that there is a very healthy ecosystem of game app ads.

You come up with a game using the same formula that other successful games are using and then you fill your game with ads.

Then, you promote your game with ads, get enough of installed base, and start making money off the ads.

Once you have enough money, create more games.

This can be a sustainable model if you know what works.

I would suggest that if you want to get into mobile games, download as many games as you want.

Pay attention to the ads; you’ll notice that they tend to advertise games that share certain design features.

Design those types of games, and then make sure that you have a budget for ads.

It’s pretty straightforward, and I don’t think people will continue to do this if there’s no money in it.
 
I even saw recently Snoop Dog and other celebrities promoting on mobile games.
 
When you make pvp games that are slightly p2w then yes, you could make plenty of money since theres many chinese people dropping thousands to crush others in video games, especially mobile ones.
 
yes, it is still with affilliates, if you could have a lot of installs run ads on it
 
Luck is also a factor in this. Most of the games go unnoticed.
 
We are at the peak of the digital error and android devices are locally available. Definitely mobile games are a perfect choice.
 
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