Going from Paid to Free(mium)
Cut the Rope: Experiments could be making up to 15 times more in revenue, but it isn't. Continue reading and and you'll know why...
Few days back Cut the Rope: Experiments jumped in front of the line and became the most downloaded free game in App Store. Zeptolab, the developers for the Cut the Rope, achieved the top spot by making their previous $0.99 application free. And frankly this got me thinking... Can you make a profitable business case by turning a paid app into a free one? Sprinkle some monetization magic onto it financially successful.
Going Free > expect significant growth!
After going free Cut the Rope: Experiments' ranking jumped from 31 to 5 in just one day and on the following day it was the most downloaded free app in whole App Store.
No what does that mean in actual install is a very common question. Below is a table containing my rough estimates for daily downloads. The estimates are based on my experience and experience of my colleagues around the world (and we watch every day how are games are doing ranking and install wise). The numbers are for US App Store, which accounts usually for 50% of all installs.
So according to my calculations
Cut the Rope: Experiments went from roughly 2'000 paid downloads per day (4'000 worldwide) to approximately 100'000 downloads per day (200'000 worldwide).
Monetize on the growth
Personally, I think it's just sad that there are no in-app purchases, ads or even cross-promotional attempts within the Cut the Rope: Experiments. The way I see it is that they're just giving the app for free and not making anything tangible out of it. Just a good feeling of having the top downloaded app.
But there's a strong business case made out of it too. Check out the calculations below. Cut the Rope: Experiments would have added even the smallest in-app purchases reaching a conversion of 3% and Average Revenue Per Paying User of super small $0.99 they would be making more than before turning the paid version into a free one. In case they would have monetized it successfully
the revenue would have increased by 15 times
.
*Note
Cut the Rope: Experiments actually cross promotes Cut the Rope: Original ($0.99) via in-game popup, but according to rankings the downloads of Cut the Rope: Original have not improved. In fact, the ranking has slipped down a bit.
