Rebuild: iPad 1 + 2 sales figures

Sarah Northway

Rebuild for iPad reached the US top ten in Simulation & Strategy.
After all sorts of whining about Flash’s poor performance on the iPad 1, I manned up and made it happen.

The iPad 1 version of Rebuild has less snantzy animations, the map doesn’t scroll quite as smoothly, and admittedly it does run out of ram sometimes and crash. But these issues don’t seem to have lowered the game’s ranking or sales. I’ve gotten more complaints about Air incorrectly listing 15 languages than about performance.

I’ve been tracking the figures on AppFigures.com and was excited to see Rebuild’s #1 app ranking in Anguilla. Well… just kidding, but it was in the top 100 games in the US and UK for awhile. Considering it was never featured by Apple, Rebuild did pretty well, and made $15k in the first month.

Rebuild for iPad now has Game Center Achievements & Highscores
Rebuild for iPad now has Game Center Achievements & Highscores.
It’s evident that Rebuild’s success on the iPad came from it’s previous success as a Flash game. The sales peaks came on days when Rebuild was reviewed on sites like TouchArcade, as well as AppTudes, AppSmile, iPaddisti, 148Apps.

Releasing iPad 2 then iPad 1 separately may have been better too, because the update triggered a second round of press.


Rebuild sales peaked during reviews and updates
Rebuild sales peaked during reviews and updates.
Likely it will earn another $15k from now on, possibly more if I put out an iPhone version or a content update and do some creative sales to get more press. But of course I’d rather be working on new things.

Like the Katakana crossword game Colin and I wrote for his mum for Xmas. Or the movie keywords parlor game I’ve been meaning to write for years. Or Word Up Dog (perhaps soon to be rewritten in Stage 3D).

Or, you know, Rebuild 3.

Share

7 thoughts on “Rebuild: iPad 1 + 2 sales figures”

  1. Thanks so much for sharing the numbers. These kinds of posts are incredibly useful for us fellow indies. Even more importantly, your results are inspiring and encourage me to try harder to someday achieve the amazing success that you’ve been skilled enough to experience. Keep up the fanfreakingtastic work!

    Reply

  3. Yes, but you do not throw away an iphone version, please.More bucks are good for your projects.Thank you anyway.

    Reply

  4. I know it was recent that rebuild 2 was released, But i was wondering is there going to be a Rebuild 3, as i am such a great fan of this game and it keeps me entertained for hours if so would it be late this year or 2013?

    Reply

  5. Glad to know that it’s making some sales. I recently played the flash version of Rebuild 2 and it is an amazing game. It’s a game about zombies that… well… turns me into quite a zombie. :) Needless to say, there would definitely be interest in a Rebuild 3.

    Reply

  6. While I know it was a lucky miracle that brought the game onto the iPad 1 to begin with, but I sure hope you’ll revisit the game at some point to improve the stability a tad more, thanks!

    Reply

  7. This is a wonderful game, though I can’t beat it past the second level. I am working on it though. If a new version comes out, I will buy it!

    Thanks for giving me a way to pass the hours. Gave five stars in the App Store.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.