Apptopia: iOS games peak quickly, and top 50 take 76% of revenues

Despite Apple’s annual WWDC announcements of massive payouts to iOS app developers, it’s well known at this point that it’s hard for individual games to make lots of money in the App Store. A new multiyear study from Apptopia quantifies the challenges for game developers today: Even if your game is lucky enough to hit the U.S. App Store’s top 50, it will typically make less than $1.5 million in its best month, then decline considerably.

Based on full-year data from 2014 through 2017, the study suggests that on average, top 50 grossing games average only 27.75 days on the U.S. App Store’s 50 top grossing list, and earn under $50,000 per day unless they’re in the list’s top 25. Notably, 64 percent of games that hit the top 50 grossing list stay there for only five or fewer days, with 33 percent of top 50 grossing games disappearing after one day. The median is three days.