How My STUPID Game Made $2,000,000 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Recently, I made this mobile game.
2. 0:01Today, we'll take a look at the revenue,
3. 0:03some statistics, and how with a simple
4. 0:05game we made history. You know those
5. 0:07fake ads, right? When you click on it,
6. 0:09the game looks totally different. It's
7. 0:10been a famous game for years that made
8. 0:12billions of dollars. While working as a
9. 0:14cashier to repay my debts, I decided to
10. 0:16fix it by making the real game, and I
11. 0:18created this YouTube channel to promote
12. 0:20it. The plan was simple: make what
13. 0:22people asked for, get more visibility
14. 0:24than the scams in the top charts, and as
15. 0:26a result, beat the fake games. Listen,
16. 0:29this video will be crazy. So, you have
17. 0:31to stay tuned in. And before we start,
18. 0:32this is the percentage of my viewers
19. 0:34that are subscribed to the channel.
20. 0:36Guys, this video is not sponsored and
21. 0:37not monetized. So, if you want more real
22. 0:39games, just subscribe. In the first
23. 0:41three videos about Real War, I told you
24. 0:43I had big plans for it, and I promised
25. 0:45that I would share the revenue and my
26. 0:46promotion strategies with complete
27. 0:48transparency. Let's go back to the
28. 0:49beginning. First, I made a prototype in
29. 0:514 days, then I sent it to Apple and
30. 0:53Google, and it got rejected because fake
31. 0:55games were already showing fake
32. 0:56screenshots that looked exactly like the
33. 0:58ads. So, according to Apple my game
34. 1:01looked fake. I paid $99 per year for
35. 1:03Apple and $20 for Google Play. Then, I
36. 1:06spent months negotiating with both
37. 1:07platforms, and eventually, the game got
38. 1:09approved. Perfect. Now, it was finally
39. 1:12time to promote it. But first, I added
40. 1:14ads to the game. I wanted to make sure
41. 1:15that if the game blew up, it could help
42. 1:17me repay my 4 years debts. Then, I made
43. 1:19an 8-minute YouTube video in French
44. 1:20about the game. 30,000 views. To me,
45. 1:22that was huge. It brought some downloads
46. 1:25and generated $148
47. 1:28over 28 days. Then, I made several
48. 1:30TikTok videos in French using CapCut and
49. 1:32my iPhone 12. Together, they got 300,000
50. 1:36views and generated [music] $1,008
51. 1:39over 12 days.
52. 1:41That That was just amazing. Then,
53. 1:43inspired by a YouTuber who reposted one
54. 1:45of his French videos in English, I
55. 1:47decided to translate my entire video in
56. 1:49English. I had to train my English by
57. 1:51reading my script again and again and
58. 1:53again until I could finally understand
59. 1:55to speaking, even though some people
60. 1:57still don't understand me. Then I
61. 1:58created my English channel and uploaded
62. 2:00my first video, and you guys completely
63. 2:03changed my life. The video exploded,
64. 2:05over 400,000 views, and it generated
65. 2:08$22,000
66. 2:10over 64 days. At that point, I was in
67. 2:14shock. And honestly, if the story ended
68. 2:17there, $20,000 was already life-changing
69. 2:19money for me. I could repay my debts,
70. 2:21quit my boring job, and focus on my
71. 2:23passion, making games. Then I tried
72. 2:26short-form content in English. Instagram
73. 2:28worked surprisingly well. I got about
74. 2:30500,000 views there alone. The other
75. 2:33platform didn't work at all, but it
76. 2:34still generated about $500 over 7 days.
77. 2:37I thought the story was over. The game
78. 2:39was slowly dying, and I had already
79. 2:41started working on the next really good
80. 2:42game, which is a battle way. But then,
81. 2:44another developer friend came to me with
82. 2:45an offer, and that offer completely
83. 2:47changed the future of Real War. The goal
84. 2:49was simple, measure whether the game
85. 2:51could be profitable through paid
86. 2:53acquisition. And if it worked, he was
87. 2:55willing to spend over $10,000 per day to
88. 2:58promote it. In exchange, he would take a
89. 3:00share of the profit of the game. I still
90. 3:02own the game and make the decisions. So
91. 3:03first, I had to record and edit ads, a
92. 3:06lot of ads. Then he spent about $800
93. 3:09over 10 days. It got us about 3,000
94. 3:11players, and the game generated $500. So
95. 3:14yeah, we lost $200, but we got enough
96. 3:16players to analyze the game's market
97. 3:18potential. And the results were very
98. 3:20promising. At that point, acquiring one
99. 3:22player cost around 30 cents, and each
100. 3:24[music] player generated about 50 cents.
101. 3:26So every player generated about 20 cents
102. 3:28of [music] profit. In theory, let's say
103. 3:30we spend $300,000,
104. 3:32it should generate $500,000, which means
105. 3:35$200,000
106. 3:37of profit, right?
107. 3:39But it's not that easy. The more money
108. 3:41you spend, the more expensive players
109. 3:42become. So if you spend too much, you
110. 3:43can easily put yourself into [music]
111. 3:44debts. But I'm lucky, my friend is very
112. 3:46good at what he does. He managed to make
113. 3:48profit every day with my ads. He spent
114. 3:49[music] $28,000
115. 3:52over 50 days and we were making about
116. 3:55$1,000 per day. Before increasing the
117. 3:57budget to increase profit, [music] we
118. 3:58decided to wait. We wanted to really
119. 4:00stay small and focus on improving
120. 4:02retention and playtime first. For this,
121. 4:04my friend hired an entire team of
122. 4:06developers and artists. Today, we are
123. 4:08about six people working on the game.
124. 4:09They created a much harder version of
125. 4:11the game than mine with incremental
126. 4:13upgrades similar to the game Epic Mine
127. 4:15Evolution. You know, I thought my
128. 4:17version will win because it had skins,
129. 4:19quests, endless [music] mode, a
130. 4:20leaderboard, and 30 different levels.
131. 4:23While their version had only two levels
132. 4:25and upgrades, [music] that's it. So, we
133. 4:27AB tested both versions to see which one
134. 4:29was best and there was no doubt. I got
135. 4:31[music]
136. 4:32destroyed. People played their version
137. 4:34twice as much as mine. They played
138. 4:36longer, they came back more often, and
139. 4:38they generated at least twice as much
140. 4:40money per player with only two levels.
141. 4:43Normally, the game would have slowly
142. 4:44died, but this new version gave it a new
143. 4:47start. After adding more levels and
144. 4:49improving the juiciness, we released
145. 4:50[music] it to all new players. The
146. 4:52promotion budget kept increasing. One of
147. 4:54the team developers from Lawson's team
148. 4:55even created a playable ad. We kept
149. 4:57adding [music] levels, bosses,
150. 4:59environments, gems, levels like morphic
151. 5:01ads, soldiers merging into stronger
152. 5:03soldiers. We created tons of new
153. 5:05features that are continuously being AB
154. 5:07tested. So, many players have different
155. 5:09features even though they have the same
156. 5:10version. It's honestly surreal to watch
157. 5:13my little project become something this
158. 5:15big. Guys, I'm just a software developer
159. 5:18who has been making games since the age
160. 5:20of 14 and right now, it feels like a
161. 5:21dream. We also introduced in-app
162. 5:23purchases after many players requested
163. 5:25them, but the goal isn't to drain the
164. 5:26players' bank accounts. It's still meant
165. 5:28to be a casual game. So, now let's look
166. 5:30at the actual numbers.
167. 5:32As you can see, the numbers [music] kept
168. 5:34increasing and every day I became more
169. 5:37and more shocked looking at the
170. 5:38dashboard. Back in December, my friend
171. 5:40told me that the game will make $100,000
172. 5:43per month easy.
173. 5:45I didn't believe him, but then one day I
174. 5:47opened the dashboard [music] and I saw
175. 5:49this, $27,000
176. 5:52in one day, per day.
177. 5:54What? Even after deducting spending,
178. 5:56it's still $10,000
179. 5:59of daily profit. That's about 10 times
180. 6:00my monthly salary from my previous job
181. 6:03earned in a single day.
182. 6:05It doesn't feel real and eventually
183. 6:08the game crossed to $1 million in total
184. 6:11revenue over the period from 17 January
185. 6:14to 22 May, $1 million. Wait, for
186. 6:16clarification
187. 6:17receive $1
188. 6:20million. First, [music] we deduct the
189. 6:22advertising cost, which are huge. We are
190. 6:25currently spending $500,000
191. 6:27per month. Then my friend takes his
192. 6:30share and then all friends' taxes
193. 6:32combined take up to 70% before I get the
194. 6:34money. Most of it goes into my company
195. 6:36so I can build even better games [music]
196. 6:38in the future, but yes, this is
197. 6:40life-changing. I'm not planning to do
198. 6:42anything crazy with the money. I know
199. 6:43what it's like to struggle financially.
200. 6:45The craziest thing I'll do [music] is
201. 6:47take my family on a trip to Japan next
202. 6:48year. Oh, and even crazier, a big game
203. 6:51publishing company reached out to buy
204. 6:53Real War. They made an offer to buy it
205. 6:55for about $8 million.
206. 6:58This is insane, but we decided to
207. 7:00decline the offer. This way we keep
208. 7:02control over the game while betting on
209. 7:04its long-term success. Yeah, at this
210. 7:06point I'd understand if you don't
211. 7:08believe me. Also, before you ask what
212. 7:09makes the most money between inner
213. 7:11purchases and ads, here is one of our
214. 7:13monthly reports. As you can see 67% of
215. 7:16the revenue come from ads and 32% come
216. 7:19from inner purchases. And the most
217. 7:21purchased product is the one to remove
218. 7:22ads. While making this video, the game's
219. 7:24revenue has even crossed $2 million.
220. 7:28Thank you so much, everyone. Also, you
221. 7:30probably have seen my ads because we
222. 7:32spent already over $1 million
223. 7:34in advertising and my ads already have
224. 7:36got more than 100 million views. That's
225. 7:40crazy. The video is not over, you have
226. 7:42to watch till the end, really. Also, I
227. 7:43tried to be as transparent as possible
228. 7:45through this entire journey. I hope you
229. 7:47appreciate it. I was a bit hesitant to
230. 7:49share the result at this point, to be
231. 7:50honest, because that's a lot. But, I
232. 7:53wanted to share it with the community
233. 7:54who supported me from the start. At the
234. 7:56beginning, I never thought it would go
235. 7:58this far. Now, I guess it's time to turn
236. 7:59the other fake guys into new real games.
237. 8:02And that's exactly what I did in my last
238. 8:04video. Oh, and just one more thing, we
239. 8:06beat the fake games. [music]
240. 8:13>> [music]
241. 8:19[music]