Richest fifth ‘take 97% of all iOS game revenue’

Four fifths of iOS games developers share just 3 per cent of total revenues generated across the business, a new survey suggests.

The non-commercial study, conducted and written by an independent developer in his spare time, also discovered that just one per cent of mobile games developers take more than a third of total revenue the games business makes.

Owen Goss, the founder of Canadian group Streaming Colour Studios, found that more than half of mobile games developers make less than $3,000 in lifetime sales.

Four per cent, conversely, have made more than $1 million.

The study exposes a rich-poor divide across the mobile games landscape; a relatively unexamined phenomena due to misinterpreted data.

Goss (pictured) points out that, had he based his findings on total mean-average revenue figures – a common technique – the data would have suggested each developers makes about $165,000 .

Deeper research, however, found that 25% of mobile games developers have made less than $200. Another 25 per cent have made more than $30,000.

From total mobile games revenues;

* One per cent of respondents claimed 36 per cent of total revenue

* 19 per cent of respondents claimed 61 per cent of total revenue

* 80 per cent of respondents claimed 4% of total revenue

Goss drew the conclusions from an online survey of 252 developers during September. Over 90 per cent of respondents said they were either a full-time (36.1%), part-time (33.3%) or hobbyist (20.2%) game developer.

In a disclaimer, Goss said “I make no claims as to the statistical validity of this data. There is a good chance that the sample population is not representative of all game developers on the App Store”.

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In June, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed that the App Store market has grossed some $3.25 billion in total revenues worldwide.