1,887 mobile devs are making $1m per year

The general consensus among some developers seems to be that if you’re not among the Top 10 mobile games, you’ll never make enough money to keep your game going.

But Pollen VC’s CEO Martin Macmillan reveals that close to 2,000 studios are doing just that. While they may not be making as much money as Supercell, King and Machine Zone, they have managed to achieve profitability, GamesBeat reports.

During a talk at Casual Connect Singapore, Macmillan reported that 1,887 mobile developers receive more than $1m per year from players spending on iOS and Android titles.

He added that the reason for the general pessimism in the mobile market, and the assumption that you need to be in the upper echelons of app store charts, is that it takes longer than devs might think to make their games profitable.

“It gets to about a year before you have enough cash in the bank to start using your own money for marketing and re-invesment,” he said.

This is exacerbated by the fact that devs end up waiting a couple of months before Google and Apple send out payments – something Pollen VC specialises in assisting studios with.

Macmillan added that mobile devs should focus on user acquisition strategies that guarantee a return-on-investment.

“If you can acquire a user for $1 and that user is going to give you a lifetime value of $2, that’s like going to Las Vegas and finding the machine that pays every time,” he said.