4 ms·

Amazon Underground, and as a hobbyist game developer it's the most money I've made on a mobile platform. I was sad to see it go. I put the same game on Amazon,

Amazon Underground, and as a hobbyist game developer it's the most money I've made on a mobile platform. I was sad to see it go. I put the same game on Amazon, Play, and App stores, with the same (minimal) advertising, and underground was an order of magnitude more profitable.

ALittleLight 6y ago
Is that more profitable per user, or more profitable total?
- OJFord 6y ago
  How can you have either without the other?
  - strombofulous 6y ago
    $1 per 1000 users on a store that gets you 100 users pays more than $0.01 per 1000 users on a store that gets you 1000.
    - OJFord 6y ago
      Right, I think I missed some implicit context here.
  - entropicdrifter 6y ago
    Easy. You get a publisher who takes a cut of the per-user profits but who promotes your game and gets you significantly more users, enough so that you end up making more total profit than you would have without the publisher.
    - OJFord 6y ago
      I wouldn't call that 'profit', if it's before deducting an expense like that.
- mysterydip 6y ago
  More profitable total. Took a lot more users to make the same profit as one sale on the app stores, but because it was free for the end user a lot more played it. Something like a couple hundred paid on the stores, but over a hundred thousand played the underground version.
giancarlostoro 6y ago
That's a shame, I wondered if it was just not profitable for Amazon's end, it sounded too good to be true. I remember the model was... the longer people play your games, the more you make... I guess they didn't think that one through? I don't like subscriptions for games, but a subscription for mobile games I might consider if it keeps the spyware off my phone. I usually opt to pay to remove ads from any games I play long enough. I'm sure I'm one of the rare few though.
- mysterydip 6y ago
  Yeah I didn't understand how they planned to make it work long-term, but it was great while it lasted.

ALittleLight 6y ago

Is that more profitable per user, or more profitable total?

OJFord 6y ago
How can you have either without the other?
- strombofulous 6y ago
  $1 per 1000 users on a store that gets you 100 users pays more than $0.01 per 1000 users on a store that gets you 1000.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    Right, I think I missed some implicit context here.
- entropicdrifter 6y ago
  Easy. You get a publisher who takes a cut of the per-user profits but who promotes your game and gets you significantly more users, enough so that you end up making more total profit than you would have without the publisher.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    I wouldn't call that 'profit', if it's before deducting an expense like that.
mysterydip 6y ago
More profitable total. Took a lot more users to make the same profit as one sale on the app stores, but because it was free for the end user a lot more played it. Something like a couple hundred paid on the stores, but over a hundred thousand played the underground version.

giancarlostoro 6y ago

That's a shame, I wondered if it was just not profitable for Amazon's end, it sounded too good to be true. I remember the model was... the longer people play your games, the more you make... I guess they didn't think that one through? I don't like subscriptions for games, but a subscription for mobile games I might consider if it keeps the spyware off my phone. I usually opt to pay to remove ads from any games I play long enough. I'm sure I'm one of the rare few though.

mysterydip 6y ago
Yeah I didn't understand how they planned to make it work long-term, but it was great while it lasted.