After spending months or years of your life developing a mobile game, it's natural to think that it'll be appreciated by the world and instantly recognised for its genius.

But time and again, great games launch onto the App Store and spend weeks struggling to break into the Top 10.

Trademob's taken a good hard look at what it takes to achieve a Top 10 rank in the App Store, and the results are surprising.

According to its data, Trademob states that an app "must achieve a high number of downloads within 72 hours" to crack the Top 10 - with the last 24 of those 72 hours being the most significant.

Further, it's estimated that you'd need 80,000 installs to break into the US Top 10. The UK follows next with 26,000 installs, with Germany in third place with 15,000 installs required.

Swings and roundabouts

The good news is that to actually hit the mark, you only need to splash out on half as many installs.

Trademob identifies a "100 percent organic uplift" for game apps, which translates to 1 additional organic install during the first three days of an app's launch.

In other words, for every install you pay for (via app marketing campaigns) in the first three days, you'll actually receive two installs.

In the US, the cost per install (CPI) is $1.40, while in the UK it's closer to $1.20. In Germany, the CPI is 60c.

Thus, if you're interested in cracking the Top 10 with a boosted launch, it will cost you an estimated $56,000 in the US, $31,200 in the UK, or $9,000 in Germany.




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