Zeptolab missed a big jackpot, - says Rovio
One of Rovio’s employees, who is responsible for monetization in a Finnish company, said in his blog that Zeptolab could earn 15 times more on Cut the Rope: Experiments than it earns now.
From May 25 to June 1, Cut the Rope: Experiments was the most downloaded free game in the American App Store, and from May 26 to May 30, even the most popular free app. Zeptolab, which released the game, achieved this result due to the fact that it made the application free for a week (from May 24 to June 1).
But, despite such an impressive result, the authors of the game, according to Michail Katkoff, the monetization manager of Rovio, did not get anything from this, except for satisfaction.
Katkoff believes that on each day of the free promotion, Zeptolab could earn at least 15 times more on the game than it earned before it started. And, moreover, not zero, which she had all week since May 24.
Explaining his position, Mikhail shares two curious tables. The first one contains calculations on the number of downloads that Cut the Rope: Experiments could have while at the top of the chart. The figures, according to him, are “based on their own experience” (or, more precisely, probably on the experience of Angry Birds) and relate to the American version of the App Store, which, again, according to Katkoff, usually accounts for 50% of installations.
The figures show that, according to Mikhail’s calculations, the number of downloads of Cut the Rope: Experiments has grown from 2,000 daily downloads (4,000 in the world) to approximately 100,000 downloads (200,000 in the world).
A very good result, which Zeptolab could not use because there is no IAP in the game. Katkoff wonders why, in this case, the company decided to make its application free at all.
After all, if Cut the Rope: Experiments supported micropayments, developers could earn more daily on the game during the promotion with a conversion rate of 3% and a minimum ARPU of $0.99 than they earned on the application before it became free (actually, the second table).
“So if they had monetized the project,” Mikhail concludes, “their revenue would have increased by 15 times.”
By the way, in Cut the Rope: Experiments there was a popup advertisement for Cut the Rope: Original ($0.99), but downloads of the latter during the promotion not only did not increase, but even, on the contrary, decreased.
