Learn My Name - Teaching game for Kids - iTunes, Amazon, Nook, Google Play

brad.herman · March 9, 2012, 2:00pm

I am happy to Announce that my new app has gone live. This is the first app I have made post class. It has about 80 hours of work into it over the course of 2 1/2 weeks. That’s a lot of late nights. Without the support of my wife and family I could have never gotten this done.
This was done in Corona and supporting all four of these stores / platforms was relatively painless. I wrote several new libraries that should make my next apps easier including rating pop-ups and social network integration. Jeff Sullivan, who works with me at my day job at Dreamworks Animation, was the composer for the music. Jeff happens to have a gold record from his days as a drummer in the band Drivin’ N Cryin’. No joke, he has sold over a million albums and I feel lucky that he wrote the score for my game.
My son Elijah did all the dialog in the app, and he sounds awesome in the game.

So what is this app?

Learn My Name is a silly, cute, & rewarding teaching tool for young children.
* Help your preschoolers learn to spell their name.
* Add 4 custom names or words.
* 100 Key words for preschool or kindergarten children to learn to read based on Early Reading Research at Warwick University
* Learn the A to Z Alphabet.
* Learning modality of I say, You say, I say combined with the physical interaction with the letters is designed to motivate, entertain, and engage.
* The 100 words and Letters are all spoken by a child to help engage your child.
* It’s fun for children and adults to fling the Letter Kids all around the screen [import]uid: 110373 topic_id: 23068 reply_id: 323068[/import]

brad.herman · March 12, 2012, 10:35am

If often comes up asking how the stores compare. I wanted to post these to help other people find hard numbers.

Percent Numbers from my first 2 days in release of Learn My Name at the $1.99 price point with Amazon App Store being the baseline.

400% iTunes
118% Nook
100% Amazon
1% Android Market / Google Play

[import]uid: 110373 topic_id: 23068 reply_id: 92800[/import]

martin.edmaier · March 12, 2012, 10:45am

you should make different languages what would be great [import]uid: 86417 topic_id: 23068 reply_id: 92805[/import]

sondlerd · March 12, 2012, 11:17am

Brad,
Thanks for posting info on the sales of your game (great idea and implementation, by the way). I was surprised to see that the sale trends at the different app stores played out surprising similar to my game (with your given data). I released my app (December 15th, 2011) on all four app stores, as you show above. My game is also a children’s game. I saw an initial surge in purchases in iTunes and then a complete drop off about two weeks later. The Amazon app store did really poorly at first and then has gotten a little bit better. B&N has consistently had the best sales per month. I have experienced almost zero purchases on the Android marketplace/ Google Play. I didn’t calculate the percentage of purchases across app stores. That is a great idea. I am still shocked that the Amazon store has done better than the Android Marketplace. I didn’t publish my game with sales as a large factor but it has been fun to see where my game has sold the most copies. If I get a chance, I’ll post the percentage of sales per distributor for my game.

I’d be interested in seeing an update to your sales figures/ percentages in a month and then 3 months.

Cheers,
Rob [import]uid: 38348 topic_id: 23068 reply_id: 92822[/import]

brad.herman · March 14, 2012, 11:18am

Nook sales holding steady, big fall off on iOS, Amazon is tracking up, a pleasant surprise. It’s up to #20 on the overall paid kids chart.

#20 puts it on the front page, got another great review too, hopeing this trends it up even more.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/mobile-apps/2478846011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_mas_1_2_last

More numbers on Friday when I have a Launch full weeks worth of data to post. [import]uid: 110373 topic_id: 23068 reply_id: 93322[/import]

sondlerd · March 14, 2012, 7:05pm

Great job Brad. #20 on Amazon is a big deal. I hope your making good money.

I experience the same thing with iOS sales dropping huge after the first two days. Apple must put the game on the “What’s New” page or something. Getting that publicity really helps. I wonder how B&N will work for you. Unfortunately, I got a 2 star rating by some guy and it really hurt my Amazon sales. I’m not sure how I combat that other than posting a comment below the rating. Oh well. [import]uid: 38348 topic_id: 23068 reply_id: 93426[/import]

magadistudio · March 14, 2012, 8:15pm

Yes!! Barnes and Nobles market seems to always be very consistent. My apps sell more in the B&Ns store than in the Android market, iTunes and Amazon all combined!.

So, Viva Barnes and Nobles.

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brad.herman · March 16, 2012, 9:10pm

Hit number #1 today on Amazon hot new in kids and #18 in overall hot new, saw a 2x spike in sales already!

As Promised here is the Breakdown by App stores:
Apple: 40%
Amazon: 33%
Nook: 27%
Android Market: 0% (1 copy sold)

An interesting thing to me is the graphs.

Apple had a big spike on the first day and then dropped like a rock. Most of the sales where from the launch day and 2 days after. It only sold 2 copies on all of apple app stores yesterday. Amazon has been a nice and even sales that have gone up most days, That looks a lot better longer term. Nook is the same way, sales starting slow then going up. The Android Market / Google play has been a total bust, 1 copy sold in a week.

What I have learned from the reviews are some small things I need to tweak in the app and make better. When I have that version out I need to do some real marketing on the iOS side if I want to see any sales at all. It seems like once it falls out of the new release date section the app just gets lost in the pile. [import]uid: 110373 topic_id: 23068 reply_id: 93999[/import]