Update: Top 20 Movie & TV iPhone Games By Revenue

Update Nov. 2, 2010: Based on some welcome feedback I've tweaked my model very slightly and added one major title to this list... EA Mobile's The Simpsons Arcade. As a result of this combination of changes, Sony's iZombieland has dropped out of the Top 20. Also, just a quick clarification, since it's come up several times... my model uses the estimated average price over an app's lifetime (not the current price, shown above) to calculate estimated revenue.

It's been about 11 months since I last looked at how movie & television based game titles were faring in the App Store... so I figured it was about time to update my spreadsheet. This time 'round I'm showing my estimate of the Top 20 performing paid iPhone titles currently available in the US instance of the store, sorted by total publisher revenue. I've elected to hide my current title-by-title revenue estimates, but what I will tell you is that I think they range from $600k up to about $3mil, and the average for the lot is about $1.3mil.

One of the most shocking things to note is that 9 out the 10 titles on my December 2009 list are still in this Top 20... and the Top 3 are exactly the same. There are a handful of new strong performers, including, on the film side, Avatar and Iron Man 2, both from Gameloft and Predators from Chillingo. From TV, the new stars are Family Guy and, in the biggest surprise on the list, Dexter from Marc Ecko Entertainment (who knew they made games, right?). But in general my take is that paid movie and TV game titles aren't playing a particularly important role in the App Store, and are certainly not the revenue stars of the show... as is evidenced by not one of them currently appearing in the Top 150 of Top Grossing Games. This clearly presents challenges to studio/network digital & licensing groups, who are undoubtedly saddled with unrealistic expectations about how their properties should be performing in a climate of smartphone exuberance.

As usual please let me know if I've missed any titles, and I'll make the appropriate changes.

Top 10 Movie/TV Games For iPhone By Revenue?

Here's my stab at the Top 10 movie or TV based mobile games for iPhone and iPod touch, ranked by my latest guesstimate of the revenue that they've generated from inception to date... based on my notion that 1% of game downloaders post a review. In the spreadsheet above EAP = Estimated Average Price over the lifetime of the game on the iTunes platform, which I inferred from price movements listed on Appshopper.com. PubRev? = Publisher Revenue (caveated) which is calculated by multiplying EAP x Rvws/1% x 70% (publisher share of retail). Let me know if you think this is accurate and how well you think this model explains the performance of other iTunes App titles.

Assuming the data above is correct, it points to the value of publishers maintaining a higher price point for Apps. As you can see, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is basically tied for the most revenue with The Price Is Right despite having 43% fewer downloads than the game show title... because it's retail price has been 75% higher on average. Actually, I must say, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much price testing publishers are doing on the platform. With a couple of exceptions, the price of each title on this list has changed (up & down) more than 3 times since launch.

By the way, it looks like Montreal based Ludia, which currently is only publishing 2 Paid Apps on the platform, made a solid bet with Fremantle's The Price Is Right.

Updated: Movie & TV Paid Game Apps For iPhone

Click on the eye chart above for a clearer image of my latest version of this list. I've sorted this iteration by the product of the number of reviews and average score. Also, I've added a CatRnk column which shows in-category ranking from Mobclix. Highlighted titles are those that are either Top 100 Paid, Games or Grossing Apps on iTunes. You'll notice some new titles and some titles that I missed (oops...thanks for the feedback!) in previous versions... notably the #1 performer "The Price is Right" from Fremantle and #2 "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" from Lucasfilm. Please keep the feedback coming. So, based on this list, who would you say is the most successful entertainment company in terms of iPhone games?

Updated: Movie & TV Paid Game Apps For iPhone

Click on the image above to see updates to my post from last Monday. I added Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant and America's Next Top Model by request (thanks for the feedback!), and highlighted the 7 titles that are in the Top 100 Paid Games Apps... but otherwise there isn't much change. Let me know if I'm still missing any titles or if you have anything in the queue for which I should keep an eye out.

Movie & TV Paid Game Apps For iPhone

I've recently been looking at games based on entertainment industry brands in the iTunes App Store. I've been paying particularly close attention to Paid Apps, because they're generally much higher quality and less ephemeral... and contribute directly to those oft-discussed, yet oft-elusive digital revenues the old media companies crave. The most striking thing I've noticed is how few of these Apps there are on iTunes. I could only find 40 (let me know what's missing from my list below), which is a measly 0.29% of the 14k Paid Games Apps that Mobclix claims are available in the App Store. Remember, back in the day, when all the operators had Movie/TV categories on their game decks that were chock full'o titles?

Does this mean that entertainment brands are less important on this platform? That seems counter-intuitive considering how cluttered the store is and how critical off-channel marketing is to gaining awareness... and when you consider that 4 of these 40 titles are currently in the Paid App Top 100, these brands can legitimately claim that they over-index in terms of popularity. Perhaps it's that a lot of the smaller developers, who are directly publishing game apps, can't afford licenses for premium brands. Perhaps it's that ongoing perception in gaming circles (some, but not all of it warranted) that games based on entertainment brands are crap. Whatever the reason, it looks like the studios seriously need to step up their distribution into the App Store via licensing or self-publication... to the extent they believe it's important place to own mindshare and a real opportunity to make money (it is and it is, btw). Let me know what you guys think.

When you click on the eye-chart above you'll see that I've sorted this list of 40 by the number of reviews... which gives an indication of popularity over lifetime. The most important thing to look at the star rating in relationship to the number of reviews. Currently the highest rated title is the Twilight Scene It? from RealArcade/Summit Entertainment with 4.5 stars... but it's only been out for a week and I'm sure most purchasers so far are delirious Twilight fans.

Self Published Film Apps for iPhone

Here's a tally of the current film-based (not TV) applications, self-published (not licensed) by the studios, that are currently live on the iTunes App Store. The only title that is currently in the Top 100 (Paid or Free) is Paramount's Top Gun (#62), which has been live since May 5, 2009. In terms of licensed film titles (which I'll cover in more detail soon), there are currently two Top 100 Paid titles: Gameloft's Shrek Cart (#25), from the Dreamworks Animation title and RealArcade's Scene It? Twilight (#64) from the Summit Entertainment title. These two titles are also currently #7 and #40 respectively, in terms of Top Grossing Apps.

Does Paramount's iPhone Games Strategy Make Dollars & Sense?

PocketGamer.biz observes today that iPhone games based on Paramount movie titles are doing particularly well on the iTunes App Store UK paid App charts, with 2 titles currently in the Top 20. One key factor seems to be the bargain price point of £0.59 ($0.99). The same is true in the US and in addition to the titles that PocketGamer mentions, "Shooter - The Official Movie Game" (developed with Artificial Life & currently #5 in US) and "Iron Man: Aerial Assault" (currently #85 in US), Paramount is also doing extremely well with the library title "Days of Thunder!" (developed with Freeverse & currently #30 in US). "Days of Thunder!" is currently an App Store WHAT'S HOT title, loitered in the Top 10 all last week and is receiving solid reviews from the major gaming sites. This title was originally priced at $0.99 and increased to $2.99 this week (accounting for it's move out of Top 10)...which is actually a retreat from the original plan (according to IGN) to take it to $4.99 on February 8th. I have mixed feelings about the success of these titles. On one hand I'm glad to see that there is clearly an audience for quality movie based mobile games and I think this should help elevate industry perception of the genre (or at least of some titles from some studios). On the other hand I think Paramount's aggressive pricing strategy is contributing to the price erosion in the iPhone channel. Unfortunately we're seeing the price floor and ceiling of viable Apps converging at the floor, and I believe it's going to become increasingly difficult for publishers to successfully launch iPhone games at any price greater than $0.99.