The authors of Monument Valley published an infographic in which they told how much they spent on the development of the game and how much they earned on it. There were some curious figures.
Illustration: kevinjaystantonThe main number is 2.4 million.
That’s how many digital copies of the game the company has officially sold. However, something doesn’t add up here. The fact is that just below in the infographic it is specified how many purchases were made on each of the platforms.
- iOS – 1,736,431
- Google – 296,085
- Amazon (paid) – 92,247
- Amazon (free) – 407,560
Neither together, nor excluding Amazon (free), such a figure is not obtained when added together. The only reasonable explanation is that ustwo did not add another line that shows the number of those who downloaded the free version, but upgraded it to the paid one. However, we do not know whether Monument Valley had a separate freemium version or distributed the full free version for free during the free promotion on Amazon.
The second figure that raises questions is the number of devices on which the game was installed: 10 million. In other words, the developers set up, based on the analytics collected in Flurry, that the total number of downloads is 4 times more than real sales. Apparently, these circumstances were the reason for the recent scandal when ustwo stated that 60% of Monument Valley iOS downloads were not paid.
However, in the infographic, the developers explained what they mean by this number: installations on several devices after one sale, sharing among family members, as well as illegal downloads.
The Forgotten Shores paid extension has sold more than 575 thousand digital copies.
In total, the project earned $5.8 million. Most of the amount – 81.7% – fell on iOS. The Amazon Appstore market, despite holding a free promotion that brought a solid number of downloads, turned out to be less interesting for money than Google Play.
Most of the purchases by time fell on the initial iOS release in the spring of last year. After that, the strongest surge was observed in November, when the addon was released. The peak of sales at Christmas, by the way, was quite comparable to it in terms of money. Most of the sales – 38% – came from the USA. Another 12% was brought by China.
As for the game itself, it took $852 thousand to develop the original, another $549 was spent on Forgotten Shores. In other words, the project has paid for itself. However, interestingly, there is no talk of any huge ROI, despite the whole hype around the project.
From the interesting figures, we also draw attention to the fact that only 50% of the players passed the game. Considering that the project takes almost an hour to complete, this is, to put it mildly, strange.
Also on the topic:Ustwo: 60% of Monument Valley iOS downloads are pirated
- The games of the year on the iTunes Store were Threes!
- and Monument ValleyThe main question of Monument Valley (review)
- A source:
Founded in 2004. Its headquarters are in London. There are offices in New York and Malmo. The company employs about 187 people.