My Windows 8 App Monetization

It's been three weeks since Windows 8 GA, and I've had several fellow developers ask about my luck on the Windows Store. So here is some usage and monetization data for "Physamajig" - an app which I developed in my spare time using the Physics Helper XAML and Farseer Physics Engine projects.
Physamajig has two types of monetization:

• PubCenter ads which show on the main hub and play screen
• In-App purchases (which unlock additional games and remove ads).

3 Week Summary for "Physamajig"
Total Downloads since publish</ P>	177,372
Total Downloads since GA (10/26)	19,509
In-App purchases	$25.32       (21 in-app purchases)
Ad monetization (pubcenter)	$419.24     (482,912 impressions @ 0.87 eCPM)
Total for 3 weeks	$444.56

So I suppose there are several ways to look at this data. Obviously the amounts are modest and undoubtedly there are better opportunities in competing platforms and app stores. But this is just the first three weeks after GA, and with the holiday season coming up you can bet there will be lots of people moving onto Windows 8 devices very quickly - so perhaps there is nowhere to go but up. On the other hand, competiti on in the store is quickly ramping up with names like Rovio and Halfbrick joining in, so the chances of your app getting buried in the store will increase.

Some More Detail

Some of the reports provided by the Windows 8 Store are quite interesting. Take for example the App Downloads chart below. Look at the nice spike on 10/26 at GA. It's no surprise that the top 5 apps - which are featured apps with dedicated tiles - get a much larger number of downloads than my app!

However, if we look at the App Usage per Day report, we can see that my app does keep user's attention longer than the average. By the way, if you are wondering why every 3 days in this report has the same data value, it is because this data is aggregated every 3 days only. So the repeating value you see is the average for those 3 days.

Summary

One thing I hope that the Windows Store makes better use of is an editorial process that highlights apps from all over the spectrum, not just the bigger game studios. In the early days of the Store they had "Apps that Cure Boredom" for example - which highlighted a few apps that weren't necessarily chart-toppers, but might interest certain people. So why not add category tiles for "Games with Creativity" or "Quirky Games" - and have editors swap different games in and out of these?

These are the very early days of the Windows Store, and I am sure there will be some great success stories for developers in this new platform. I hope this gives you an idea of where monetization is at now, and I look forward to seeing all of your cool apps on the Store!