Drinki is no longer available

A user has brought to my attention the fact that the latest BB10 OS update breaks Drinki. Therefore, I have withdrawn it from BB World.

If you're looking to try one of my apps, I suggest How Puzzling. It's fun, and it's free!

BlackBerry World Featured Data

On the December 5-12, while it was being featured in the BfB section, Completionist received 1090 downloads, or a daily average of about 136. Outside of that period, it received 178 downloads, or a daily average of around 8. Clearly, being featured in the BfB section of BlackBerry World will give you a boost in downloads. Sales are quite another matter, however. Despite reasonably high ratings indicating that quite a few people actually enjoy the game, it's never really sold particularly well. In total, the free version with paid upgrades has grossed around $12 this year, which makes my share a whopping $8.40. There were two sales during the week Completionist was featured, which means I earned around $1.40. A conversion rate of under 0.2% is really bad. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's any way to fix things, since people who own BB10 phones just plain don't seem to want to buy what I'm selling.

Featured

Finally, a little recognition. From now until December 12, Completionist will be featured in the Built for BlackBerry section of BlackBerry World.

Right now, it's up at the top of the list, too.

As always, I encourage all of you to download it and have fun. Just click the link or image in this post or open up BlackBerry World and tap the nice Built for BlackBerry tile.

What can Built for Blackberry do for you?

Two of my apps now carry the once-coveted Built for Blackberry designation: Completionist and How Puzzling. But, what exactly does that mean?

Well, I think it means I get some priority in search results, and I get the little Built for Blackberry icon on the apps' info pages on Blackberry World... and that's about it. Oh, they also might be sending me another Z10. But otherwise, BfB has been completely worthless to me. I haven't seen any increase in downloads or in-app purchases for either app. The simple fact of the matter is that not nearly enough people have purchased BB10 phones to make it a viable platform in the long term, and the ones who did just don't seem to care about BfB. I certainly don't.

How Puzzling

How Puzzling is both a puzzle game and a bit of an experiment for me.

The puzzle aspect is fairly straightforward: Each level of the game presents you with a set of coloured shapes and a series of clues that explains how those shapes fit on the game board.

I've always liked these particular kinds of puzzles, but I wasn't aware of any apps out there that featured them exclusively. They show up in Professor Layton games and things like that, but they usually only have one or two per game; I wanted a lot. So, I had to make the game myself. Unfortunately, that means that I know the solutions to all the puzzles, but we can't get everything we want.

The experiment portion is a little different for me. Rather making the game paid, using ads, or selling paid upgrades, I've decided to let my users pay whatever they want. After completing the final puzzles, they'll be presented with a screen congratulating them on finishing the game and asking them to kick in a few bucks if they'd me to make more levels. If the response is good, I'll make more, if not, then I won't.

That's all there is to it. How Puzzling, available now for Android!

June Data

July is here, so that means my June download and sales data is now available for your enjoyment. Enjoy it!

Downloads for June were down by about 30%, owing mainly to massive declines in Playbook downloads. As expected, BB10 overtook Playbook as the dominant source of my downloads, and BB10 downloads now make up 63% of the total. I expect that percentage to continue to increase as long as the platform survives.

There was a bit of a shake up in the devices realm this month as 41% of my BB10 downloads went to devices running the Qualcomm GPU, 39% went to Imagination GPU devices, 18% went to Q10 phones, and 2% went to Verizon Qualcomm phones. I'm not sure how things will change in the future, but even without having access to many of my apps, the Q10 tripled its market share in just one month. Also of note, the Q5 accounted for 6 of my downloads this month, despite the fact that it was only available for a couple days in June, and only in certain countries.

The top five download locations this month were Canada at 17.5%, Indonesia at 9.3%, the US at 7.6%, Saudi Arabia at 5.1%, and the UAE at 4.5%. Significant numbers also went to the UK, South Africa, Nigeria, Germany, China, and India. The UAE leapfrogged over the UK into 5th place, but otherwise the numbers were pretty much the same as last month.

Despite my pessimism, sales continued to rise in June, growing an additional 9% over May's massive increase. BB10 sales increased at a slower rate, growing only 2.5% and accordingly they only accounted for 75% of this month's total, but that's still far better than I was expecting. Perhaps the fall-off has been delayed until July.

By device, 51% of my BB10 sales went to Qualcomm phones, 26% went to Q10s, 18% went to Imagination devices, and 4% went to Verizon phones. Once again, the sales and download numbers don't match up, with Imagination phones accounting for less than half the expected sales. Additionally, proving that God is right to hate the Q10, despite going out of my way to port Word Scramble to the Q10, I sold but a single copy. Never again.

By country, Canada accounted for 37% of my BB10 sales, the US for 13%, Indonesia for 10%, Germany for 4.7% and Poland for 2.3%. The UK slipped a substantial amount in June, and I didn't get a single purchase from Saudi Arabia. If that continues into July and August, I may be forced to drop support for that location.

May Data

It's June, which means it's time for me to show off my fancy, new May data.

Downloads were up 55%. The total number increased at a faster rate than last month, but due to the larger number of downloads, the percentage increase was less. BB10 downloads made up 48% of the total, once again increasing their overall share by 20%. I don't expect the same kind of growth in June, but I do anticipate that BB10 will finally overtake the Playbook.

47% of my BB10 downloads went to devices running the Imagination GPU, 45% went to Qualcomm GPU devices, 2.5% went to Verizon Qualcomm devices, and 6% went to Q10 phones. Not all of my apps are available for the Q10, but I've added a couple, so I expect its share to increase a bit next month.

The top-five download locations this month were Canada at 16.5%, Indonesia at 10%, the US with 7%, Saudi Arabia with 5%, and the UK with 4%. Substantial numbers also went to the UAE, South Africa, Colombia, India, Germany, and China. Canada remains dominant, but Indonesia's much larger population may allow it to threaten for the top spot at some point.

For reasons I cannot explain, sales this month were up a whopping 94%. BB10 devices accounted for exactly 80% of sales, and the total sales to BB10 devices were up a ludicrous 157%. I expect sales to fall off significantly in June, but it was nice to get a single-month boost.

60% of sales went to phones with the Qualcomm GPU, 24% to the Imagination GPU, 6% to Verizon phones, and 10% to Q10 devices. The breakdown is very strange when compared to the download breakdown. I'd expect them to be roughly the same, but they're not even close.

Geographically, the top-five countries for BB10 sales were Canada with 35%, Indonesia and the US with 13% each, the UK at 6% and Germany at 5%. One of my apps is really only useful in Canada, so it makes sense that the purchase numbers there would be somewhat higher than other countries. I'm pleased with the growth in all of those countries, but a little disappointed that I only made a single sale to Saudi Arabia.

Surprisingly, Playbook sales remained stable. They're still far below their peak, but it may be a while longer before they finally hit zero.