Money Makes the World Go Round: The Monthly Revenue of Interactive Story Apps - Part Two
Back in December 2020, I made a post sharing the data I had been collecting on a number of interactive story/visual novel apps from Sensor Tower every month since April 2020. I thought it was due for an update six months on, and I’ll probably update again in December.
There is a vast array of interactive story/visual novel apps in the market and I think a lot of us are curious as to where Choices ranks financially against the others.
All the amounts listed are in US dollars. Please note that the figures are the total monthly revenue generated for a particular month and are not their total monthly profit figures.
I want to make it very clear that I do not intend this post to be some kind of “authority” on Pixelberry’s financial situation. This is simply a compilation of gathered data and I will not be making inferences on the financial situations of any app beyond what the numbers show.
I have arranged the apps into three distinct tiers – apps that earn a revenue over $3 million each month, apps that earn a revenue between $100,000 and $3 million each month, and apps that earn a revenue under a $100,000 each month. I also have separate tables for apps which were launched/revamped in 2020 and in 2021 to showcase how new/revamped apps do as they try to distinguish themselves and compete in an already saturated market.
The market leaders have remained the same – Chapters, Episode and Choices. Each has seen their overall revenue decrease from the respective figures noted back in April 2020. Chapters began at $9 million and has steadily decreased since, plateauing at $6 million from November 2020 onwards. Choices was at $7 million back in April 2020 and has steadily decreased to $3 million. Episode has also seen a decrease, albeit the pattern is more up and down. Episode began at $7 million in April 2020 and was at $4.6 million in May 2021.
Choices appears to be holding its own against the other two top tier apps, and Choices and Episode appear to constantly interchange between which app holds the number two spot right after Chapters.
EDIT: I know how a lot has been said about how the decrease in revenue was likely linked to the decrease in the amount of content offered - a decrease which is not seen in other interactive story apps. However, it's the fact that Choices has released fewer (not less 😆) books than usual BUT has still managed to remain competitive - they're still among the top earning apps - that I find rather impressive.
The apps in the next tier – the ones whose monthly revenues have mostly been between $3 million to $100,000 – are Tabou, Love Sick, Love Island, Romance Club, Lovestruck and The Arcana.
In my previous post, these apps were separated into two separate tiers – apps that earn a revenue between $1 million and $3 million each month, and apps that earn between $100,000 and $1 million each month. However, 2021 saw the monthly revenues of some of the apps decrease to the point that they crossed into the other tier – hence, why I decided to combine the two.
They all experience ups and downs but an overall revenue decrease can be noted for all of these apps. Out of the three apps that originally recorded monthly revenues between $1 million to $3 million in December 2020, only Tabou can still do so. Both Love Sick and Love Island have seen their monthly revenues drop to $500,000 as of May 2021.
The final tier are the apps whose earnings are under $100,000 – Fictions, Secrets, Fictif.
Fictions has seen a dramatic decrease in its revenue, but – as of May 2021 – both Secrets and Fictif have a higher revenue figure than what they earned in April 2020 respectively. It should be noted that the figures for Fictions from February 2021 are estimates since Sensor Tower does not provide a specific number if an app’s monthly revenue is under $5,000 for either operating system.
ADDENDUM I: Sensor Tower tracks the monthly revenue garnered by an app via iTunes separately from the revenue it gains via GooglePlay.
Both maybe and Lovelink were first released in mid 2020, while Romance Fate has been around prior but it was originally called Romance: Stories and Choices. I hadn’t included it when I began collecting data back in April but it caught my attention when it was apparently revamped to Romance Fate and I started tracking it from June onwards.
maybe earned a revenue of $110,000 in June and had initially seen a relatively steady increase as 2020 progressed. However, a downward trend began from December 2020 onwards and as of May 2021, its monthly revenue is at $180,000.
Lovelink’s monthly revenue figure shot up from $15,000 in August 2020 to $1.4 million in September 2020, but it was not able to maintain this momentum and it saw a decrease for the rest of 2020. The figure did go up to $700,000 in January 2021 and plateaued there until it dropped to $600,000 in April 2021.
Like Lovelink, Romance Fate saw a massive increase in monthly revenue. It jumped from $280,000 to $1 million in October 2020 and then to $1.8 million in November 2021. However, unlike Lovelink, it has been able to maintain its monthly figures above $1 million even though it has seen a decrease between December 2021 and April 2021. May 2021 saw its revenue increase to $1.8 million again, and I’m particularly interested in seeing if the app’s monthly revenue will continue to plateau between $1 million to $2 million or if it will eventually go over the $2 million mark and become a challenger for the reigning top three apps.
I began tracking apps like MeChat (which is very similar to Lovelink) and Spotlight (which was created by the same developers of Chapters) in December 2020 to January 2021. Dorian: The Future of Fiction! also came to my attention then but I couldn’t include it in the graph as all of its monthly revenue figures from Sensor Tower so far have been estimates – the app has yet to have a revenue of more than $5,000 in both iTunes and GooglePlay.
Spotlight appears to be performing well for a relative newcomer to the market. It saw an increase from $80,000 to $180,000 in January 2021 and although it experienced a decrease in February and March 2021, it is currently seeing an upward trend.
While the initial monthly revenue figure for MeChat in January 2021 was only an estimate, it did experience a steady increase between February and April 2021. It dropped down to $300,000 last month and it remains to be seen where it will go from here.
An app that would have been included in this section was Ivy: Stories We Play, which was an app created by the same developers of Episode. I began tracking its figures in November 2020 but it was unfortunately shutdown in March 2021. The final monthly revenue figure that I had for it was $14,000 from February 2021.
I suppose what I hoped to do with this post – beyond sharing the collected data – is to showcase just how competitive the interactive story/visual novel app market is. u/kori_no_ryu's post (which I linked above) makes it very clear just how overcrowded the market is.
We’ve already seen the demise of both Storyscape and Originals in 2019 – although it should be noted that the reasons behind why both apps were shut down were numerous. I mention them merely to remind everyone that a shutdown is a very real possibility that all apps face. As we saw with closure of Ivy, just because an app is created by the developers of an already successful app does not guarantee that it will also do well.
This is the market that Pixelberry has to compete in and while Choices is doing incredibly well, it needs to keep up with the likes of Chapters and Episode in order to maintain its position in the top three.
ADDENDUM II: I don't have the figures for Storyscape prior to its shutdown but I do have them for Originals. In April, Originals had a monthly revenue of $80,000. It decreased to $60,000 in May and decreased again - this time by half - to $30,000 in June. It remained at $30,000 for July and August. So it was earning more than some of its other competitors by the time Ludia announced its shutdown.