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Deleted member 2146493
Guest
Hi, all!
Been reading most of the journeys here on the forum and thought I'd share my experience with Android Apps with some of you.
Lots of things that I've learnt, failures have been part of my Journey, as most ppl, but at the end of the day you just want to make something that makes good cash and you find a way to make it work if you have perseverance.
When i started with mobile apps around 2016, honestly i had no real clue what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to get into something online that could grow over time. At first, I was making small apps like utilities, simple tools. Nothing fancy. Mostly just to learn.
Then at some point i figured, alright games are where the real money’s at. I mean everyone’s always on their phone, playing some random game. Even my mom was addicted to Candy Crush back then lol. So I decided to move into mobile gaming. My first try was an endless runner built in Unity. Basic, just swipe to dodge obstacles, collect coins. Took me like three months to finish cause i had to learn everything as i went. C# scripting, Unity’s UI, even basic animations.
Published it on Google Play. Expected big things. Reality check: maybe 30 downloads first month. Made like $1.75 from Admob ads. Honestly it hurt but I just thought, ok whatever, it's experience.
Costs were low though. Android developer account was a $25. Hosting cost me like $5/month. I used free Unity assets or cheap ones from the Unity Asset Store (some really good stuff there for like $5 to $15). My first banner ad setup with Admob barely worked, I had no clue how fill rate or eCPM worked. I think my eCPM back then was around $0.50.
After that flop, I switched to a puzzle game. You know, clean minimalist style, calming music, easy levels etc. Better results, around 500 downloads first two months, maybe $45 made from ads. Still not amazing but i started seeing a pattern: if the game iq simple, addicting, colorful, people stay longer. And retention matters a lot for ad revenue. My Day 1 retention was maybe 18%, which now I know is super low, but at the time i thought it was great.
So through 2017 I just kept grinding. I made like 10 small games that year. Most of them failed honestly. Maybe 2 or 3 actually made money, the others barely even covered the $25 Google Play listing fee. But in 2018 things clicked. I made this hypercasual stacking game like you tap to stack blocks perfectly on top of each other. Simple, addicting, satisfying (according to people)!
That game blew up (for my standards back then).
20,000+ downloads first month
Made good results with Admob ads
Average eCPM went up to like $3.50, huge difference
That’s when i realized actually itt’s not about making something super unique. It’s about making something simple and LIKE almost what everyones doing. If you can make someone open your game on the toilet or while waiting for coffee, you win. (yeah, dont forget we re targetting kids/young peeps here)
From there i doubled down. I made more hypercasual games, like tap timing games, swiping games, reaction games. Between 2018 and 2020 I built around 30 games total. Maybe 10 of them made decent money, 5 were solid, and 2 were real hits (at least for me).
By end of 2018 i was pulling around $3k/month profit from this business. (I was also into YT and dropshipping) Not life-changing yet but enough to think, alright this can work.
Back then I was using stuff like Unity to build, Google Play Console to publish, Admob to monetize, Canva to make the store screenshots, Firebase for analytics. For keywords I was using SensorTower free tools, App Annie sometimes. Not paying for anything fancy. My first good ASO (app store optimization) move was just adding "Addictive, Fun, Hypercasual" into my game titles. Boosted installs by like 20% with zero cost.
Then after a while even hypercsual started feeling crowded. Tons of clones, ad costs rising, competition everywhre.
So around 2021 i shifted into something different , "hot" games. Thats not NSFW, not porn games or anything, but stuff with a kind of "flirty" vibe.
Dress-up games with sexy characters (think anime style but softer)
Romantic choice based games (pick the right answer to charm the character)
Makeover games, "date night" games etc...
Still safe enough for Google Play (if you didn’t overdo the visuals) but way more eye-catching. Especially with ads, thumbnails, app icons. Trust me, a thumbnail with a cute girl gets clicked 3x more than a generic blob.
Problem was, platforms like Facebook and Google were stricter for that sort of game, actually its worst nowadays. Ads for these games kept getting rejected.
That’s when i started learning cloaking. Obviousyl it was tricky at first. Honestly I lost a few ad accounts, spent over $1500 on campaigns that just got rejected, got frustrated like crazy. But I just kept tweaking and learning and eventually i figured it out.
Learned everything, from A to Z. Lots of mistakes, etc.. but the goal was to master all that because a lot of guys were hitting big back then with BH ads.
Now i got my own cloaking system set up. I do everything myself and trust me when you know what you are doing it is just life changing and very easy. But again its easier said than done for someone that is not into all that game.
Here’s an example:
One small flirty dress-up game, promoted with cloaked ads, with like $200-300/day on Google/FB
ROI around 300%
CTR on ads was around 8-10% (insanely high compared to boring games)
my target was mostly WW. But you want to target kids, dont forget.
Back in the days when I was using normal tools, even with account bans every couple months, it was super profitable. You just learn to move faster,and backup everything. Having multiple ad accounts ready saved me a few times.
By mid-2022 i was making around $6k/month, mostly a mix of clean hypercasual games and spicy games running cloaked ads. A good month went up to $10k profit, a bad one maybe $4k, depending on bans and how many fresh installs i was getting.
Now today, I'm averaging about $8k/month in terms of profit, just from that business as I also got other businesses to take care of and this is not something Im putting much effort into.
I use Flutter as well now. Working like a charm. Most of my partners have always used it.
About 20 games live on Google Play that I have, 7 are flirty "hot" games. 13 are clean hypercasual
Average monthly spend is like $3-4K.
Regarding ads, I mainly run ads on Google, FB and Tiktok.
As I said, around $8k /month after costs
Now I've also implemented in app purchases; and some of them are subscription models. but since we're mostly looking for young guys to play our games theyre not big spenders, or spenders at all. But it is still decent.
honestly if you’re starting today, best thing you can do is just get going.
Don’t sit around planning for 6 months. Build a small game, even if it’s bad. Launch it. Get real users, even 50 downloads, watch what happens.
See when they quit. See if they click the ads. Fix the boring parts. Try new ASO keywords. Launch updates.You’re not gonna hit $1k/month right away unless you have some solid experience with ads, tools to make the games, etc. I made like $17 my first full month. Took me almost two years to see steady money.
If i had to start again, honestly i’d build 2 or 3 hypercasual tap games first. Since its fast to make, fast to test. You can use Unity if you want full control but you need to know how to use it, you can watch some tutorials but you'll need a few months to understand the basics, or Buildbox if you dont want to get into coding. Which is what I'd recommend.
Start with Admob but be careful sometimes they can be a little strict. It’s still the easiest to set up and pays decent (average eCPM now is around $2 to $5 for casual games, higher for flirty ones).
And if you're thinking about hot/flirty games, just be smart about it. Cloaking is a MUST but you gotta be ready for bans, account issues, rising ad costs if you use basic tools.
Biggest thing though: don’t quit too early.
Your first 5 games probably wont make real money. Your first 10 ads might suck. Your first account might get banned. So what. If you survive long enough to figure it out, you're gonna win. It’s that simple.
Is that a business I'd suggest to people that want to make quick and easy money? Well, probably not.
This is not the best niche if you want to run ads without much hassle as there are multiple other niches that are way more profitable.
In my opinion and from my experience, gambling, casino and crypto ads are the most profitable niches. I also work with Gambling / casino platforms and run ads for them and the profit is much better there. IPTV is also a very profitable niche to get into. Personally I run ads for IPTV platforms but I have never launched platforms myself.
When I was a teen I always wanted to become a game developer and build colossal games like GTA and stuff. Thought I'd make my own big games and become a billionaire. Ah, teen dreams! Lol... Obviously today I'm not that sort of guy but I can make pretty decent stuff, although I mostly specialize in mobiles games. Basically only Android as IOS is too much of a pain in the ass.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them and I'll be glad to help out!
- Colton. (WasTaken, jeez!)
Been reading most of the journeys here on the forum and thought I'd share my experience with Android Apps with some of you.
Lots of things that I've learnt, failures have been part of my Journey, as most ppl, but at the end of the day you just want to make something that makes good cash and you find a way to make it work if you have perseverance.
When i started with mobile apps around 2016, honestly i had no real clue what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to get into something online that could grow over time. At first, I was making small apps like utilities, simple tools. Nothing fancy. Mostly just to learn.
Then at some point i figured, alright games are where the real money’s at. I mean everyone’s always on their phone, playing some random game. Even my mom was addicted to Candy Crush back then lol. So I decided to move into mobile gaming. My first try was an endless runner built in Unity. Basic, just swipe to dodge obstacles, collect coins. Took me like three months to finish cause i had to learn everything as i went. C# scripting, Unity’s UI, even basic animations.
Published it on Google Play. Expected big things. Reality check: maybe 30 downloads first month. Made like $1.75 from Admob ads. Honestly it hurt but I just thought, ok whatever, it's experience.
Costs were low though. Android developer account was a $25. Hosting cost me like $5/month. I used free Unity assets or cheap ones from the Unity Asset Store (some really good stuff there for like $5 to $15). My first banner ad setup with Admob barely worked, I had no clue how fill rate or eCPM worked. I think my eCPM back then was around $0.50.
After that flop, I switched to a puzzle game. You know, clean minimalist style, calming music, easy levels etc. Better results, around 500 downloads first two months, maybe $45 made from ads. Still not amazing but i started seeing a pattern: if the game iq simple, addicting, colorful, people stay longer. And retention matters a lot for ad revenue. My Day 1 retention was maybe 18%, which now I know is super low, but at the time i thought it was great.
So through 2017 I just kept grinding. I made like 10 small games that year. Most of them failed honestly. Maybe 2 or 3 actually made money, the others barely even covered the $25 Google Play listing fee. But in 2018 things clicked. I made this hypercasual stacking game like you tap to stack blocks perfectly on top of each other. Simple, addicting, satisfying (according to people)!
That game blew up (for my standards back then).
20,000+ downloads first month
Made good results with Admob ads
Average eCPM went up to like $3.50, huge difference
That’s when i realized actually itt’s not about making something super unique. It’s about making something simple and LIKE almost what everyones doing. If you can make someone open your game on the toilet or while waiting for coffee, you win. (yeah, dont forget we re targetting kids/young peeps here)
From there i doubled down. I made more hypercasual games, like tap timing games, swiping games, reaction games. Between 2018 and 2020 I built around 30 games total. Maybe 10 of them made decent money, 5 were solid, and 2 were real hits (at least for me).
By end of 2018 i was pulling around $3k/month profit from this business. (I was also into YT and dropshipping) Not life-changing yet but enough to think, alright this can work.
Back then I was using stuff like Unity to build, Google Play Console to publish, Admob to monetize, Canva to make the store screenshots, Firebase for analytics. For keywords I was using SensorTower free tools, App Annie sometimes. Not paying for anything fancy. My first good ASO (app store optimization) move was just adding "Addictive, Fun, Hypercasual" into my game titles. Boosted installs by like 20% with zero cost.
Then after a while even hypercsual started feeling crowded. Tons of clones, ad costs rising, competition everywhre.
So around 2021 i shifted into something different , "hot" games. Thats not NSFW, not porn games or anything, but stuff with a kind of "flirty" vibe.
Dress-up games with sexy characters (think anime style but softer)
Romantic choice based games (pick the right answer to charm the character)
Makeover games, "date night" games etc...
Still safe enough for Google Play (if you didn’t overdo the visuals) but way more eye-catching. Especially with ads, thumbnails, app icons. Trust me, a thumbnail with a cute girl gets clicked 3x more than a generic blob.
Problem was, platforms like Facebook and Google were stricter for that sort of game, actually its worst nowadays. Ads for these games kept getting rejected.
That’s when i started learning cloaking. Obviousyl it was tricky at first. Honestly I lost a few ad accounts, spent over $1500 on campaigns that just got rejected, got frustrated like crazy. But I just kept tweaking and learning and eventually i figured it out.
Learned everything, from A to Z. Lots of mistakes, etc.. but the goal was to master all that because a lot of guys were hitting big back then with BH ads.
Now i got my own cloaking system set up. I do everything myself and trust me when you know what you are doing it is just life changing and very easy. But again its easier said than done for someone that is not into all that game.
Here’s an example:
One small flirty dress-up game, promoted with cloaked ads, with like $200-300/day on Google/FB
ROI around 300%
CTR on ads was around 8-10% (insanely high compared to boring games)
my target was mostly WW. But you want to target kids, dont forget.
Back in the days when I was using normal tools, even with account bans every couple months, it was super profitable. You just learn to move faster,and backup everything. Having multiple ad accounts ready saved me a few times.
By mid-2022 i was making around $6k/month, mostly a mix of clean hypercasual games and spicy games running cloaked ads. A good month went up to $10k profit, a bad one maybe $4k, depending on bans and how many fresh installs i was getting.
Now today, I'm averaging about $8k/month in terms of profit, just from that business as I also got other businesses to take care of and this is not something Im putting much effort into.
I use Flutter as well now. Working like a charm. Most of my partners have always used it.
About 20 games live on Google Play that I have, 7 are flirty "hot" games. 13 are clean hypercasual
Average monthly spend is like $3-4K.
Regarding ads, I mainly run ads on Google, FB and Tiktok.
As I said, around $8k /month after costs
Now I've also implemented in app purchases; and some of them are subscription models. but since we're mostly looking for young guys to play our games theyre not big spenders, or spenders at all. But it is still decent.
honestly if you’re starting today, best thing you can do is just get going.
Don’t sit around planning for 6 months. Build a small game, even if it’s bad. Launch it. Get real users, even 50 downloads, watch what happens.
See when they quit. See if they click the ads. Fix the boring parts. Try new ASO keywords. Launch updates.You’re not gonna hit $1k/month right away unless you have some solid experience with ads, tools to make the games, etc. I made like $17 my first full month. Took me almost two years to see steady money.
If i had to start again, honestly i’d build 2 or 3 hypercasual tap games first. Since its fast to make, fast to test. You can use Unity if you want full control but you need to know how to use it, you can watch some tutorials but you'll need a few months to understand the basics, or Buildbox if you dont want to get into coding. Which is what I'd recommend.
Start with Admob but be careful sometimes they can be a little strict. It’s still the easiest to set up and pays decent (average eCPM now is around $2 to $5 for casual games, higher for flirty ones).
And if you're thinking about hot/flirty games, just be smart about it. Cloaking is a MUST but you gotta be ready for bans, account issues, rising ad costs if you use basic tools.
Biggest thing though: don’t quit too early.
Your first 5 games probably wont make real money. Your first 10 ads might suck. Your first account might get banned. So what. If you survive long enough to figure it out, you're gonna win. It’s that simple.
Is that a business I'd suggest to people that want to make quick and easy money? Well, probably not.
This is not the best niche if you want to run ads without much hassle as there are multiple other niches that are way more profitable.
In my opinion and from my experience, gambling, casino and crypto ads are the most profitable niches. I also work with Gambling / casino platforms and run ads for them and the profit is much better there. IPTV is also a very profitable niche to get into. Personally I run ads for IPTV platforms but I have never launched platforms myself.
When I was a teen I always wanted to become a game developer and build colossal games like GTA and stuff. Thought I'd make my own big games and become a billionaire. Ah, teen dreams! Lol... Obviously today I'm not that sort of guy but I can make pretty decent stuff, although I mostly specialize in mobiles games. Basically only Android as IOS is too much of a pain in the ass.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them and I'll be glad to help out!
- Colton. (WasTaken, jeez!)
