USTWO GAMES, THE makers of the popular mobile game Monument Valley has released information about the game and its success, having generated almost €5 million in revenue since April.
Both the original game and its expansion pack Forgotten Shores, which cost costs €3.99 and €1.99 respectively, took more than 84 weeks to put together and cost $1.4 million (€1.2 million) to develop.
[image alt="Monument valley 1" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2015/01/monument-valley-1-630x391.jpg" width="630" height="391" class="alignnone" /end]
The amount it made overall was higher. Overall, 2.44 million copies were downloaded and it generated more than $5.8 million (€4.98 million) in revenue. Perhaps most interestingly, the vast majority of sales came from iOS devices – 1.73 million to be exact – while Google Play downloads made up 296,000.
Amazon’s efforts to make its app store more popular by offering the original for free worked for it as 407,000 downloaded it, while only 92,000 paid for it through that store.
The most successful day happened to be its launch on iOS where it earned $145,530 on that day alone.
[image alt="Monument Valley 2" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2015/01/monument-valley-2-3-630x411.jpg" width="630" height="411" class="alignnone" /end]
The main takeaway is how much of an effect media coverage has on sales. Its launch day was the most successful since it was previewed by a number of sites, and while it highlighted each major landmark, the only periods that came close to matching 3 April was the release of Forgotten Shores and Christmas Day.
[image alt="Monument Valley 3" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2015/01/monument-valley-3-630x472.jpg" width="630" height="472" title="" class="alignnone" /end]
Monument Valley has been widely praised for its design, game mechanics, and clever yet mind-bending puzzles. While it received a number of awards and accolades for it, it was criticised by some when it charged for Forgotten Shores in November and charged for it.
Earlier this month, it tweeted that 95% of Monument Valley installs on Android and 40% on iOS were not paid for. It later clarified that it included ‘unpaid installs’, such as those who have more than one device, use family sharing or downloaded it when it was offered for free, as well as pirated downloads.
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