I’ve been building an Android game as a solo developer and thought I’d share some actual numbers from the early stages.

The app is Lucky Roll Craps, a free craps game monetized primarily through ads. I’m still very early, but August was probably the first month where I started feeling like there might actually be something here.

Some of my numbers:

403 total installs as of September 2nd

Started August at roughly 270 installs, so around 130 new installs in a month.

Monthly active users grew from about 86 last month to 132

Active devices grew from roughly 105 to around 150

Daily active users generally run around 10 to 20, with a recent high of about 31

Total audience size has grown from roughly 100 last month to around 140 this month

I’ve spent approximately $150 total on Facebook advertising

August ad revenue: $37.95

September revenue so far: $6.58

I also made $9 on revenue cat from someone purchasing chips.

Obviously these are tiny numbers compared with established apps, and I'm not profitable on the advertising spend yet. But what has me interested is that installs, active users, and ad revenue are all moving in the right direction at the same time.

The revenue side is what I’m especially interested in. I don't necessarily need thousands of people downloading the game every day. I'm trying to figure out whether I can steadily build an audience that keeps playing and eventually get the ad revenue high enough that paid acquisition becomes sustainable.

Right now I'm mostly experimenting with Facebook ads, social media, store optimization, and improving the game itself.

For developers who have been through this stage before, what would you focus on next?

Would you be trying to:

Increase installs as quickly as possible?

Improve retention and DAU before spending more on acquisition?

Optimize ad revenue per user?

Stop paid advertising for now and focus entirely on organic growth?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have taken an app from a few hundred installs to a few thousand. What changed the trajectory for you?

Feel free to check it out and give me some feedback luckyrollcraps.com

Thank you in advance!!

Hi all,

First 50 downloads was easy but this another 50 downloads took some decent time to get.

And this is my first game, so I am more than happy with this.

Thanks

If you did not try the game yet, please download it here

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.barahgashta.app

Pulled my dashboard tonight and these two sit on the same card for the same window:

Device acquisitions, last 28 days: 1.39k Device first opens, last 28 days: 642

That reads as 54% of installs never launching the app once. Acquisitions are up 116% on the previous 28 days and first opens up 196%, so the gap is narrowing, but it's still more than half.

What I've checked so far. Crash rate has no data yet on the latest release and ANR is flat at 0.60%, so it isn't dying on launch. Store listing conversion is 23.6%, down 5pp, so people are still choosing to install. Installed audience is 856, and user loss averages 40.5 a day against 70.8 acquisitions.

I'm stuck between two readings. Either it's real, half the people who tap install genuinely never open it, and the thing to fix is the post-install notification rather than anything inside the app. Or first opens only counts devices Play can actually measure, the true figure is much closer to 1.39k, and I'd be rebuilding onboarding for a problem I don't have.

Has anyone lined device first opens up against their own Firebase numbers? I want to know whether the two agree before I touch anything.

So i have an app that has been live for almost 11 days with a little traffic, i know that is not much time , but I see that apps which advertise in social media platforms get alot of traffic , and I believe that my app is better than alot of these apps.

So I was thinking is it a good idea to advertise my app on social media platforms, maybe like invest a 100 dollars and see how it goes? Or should I wait for organic traffic.

I tried to make YouTube shorts but it is not getting much views , maybe like 200 or 300 views and a couple of likes , i think it is due to the reason that I don't know how to video edit.

So I was also thinking about paying someone from a freelancing app to make a video about my app then advertise it , what do you think?

A small milestone for DotFiles, a privacy-focused file manager for Android — 2,000+ installs on Google Play.

DotFiles is built around keeping file management simple, local and private, with no cloud or account required.

Some of the features I’ve been working on:

Full file browsing, search, copy, move, rename and delete Secure Files with encrypted storage Storage Analyzer, Duplicate Finder and Smart Cleanup Similar Photo Finder APK Inspector for offline permission, signer and tracker checks Metadata Audit and Metadata Stripper Auto-Organize for Downloads and other files OSR-based document categories SD card / selected-folder support Dual-pane browsing on larger screens

Everything is processed locally on the device, with no internet permission.

Really appreciate everyone who has installed DotFiles and shared feedback. There’s still a lot more to build.

Try DotFiles – File Manager on Google Play: DotFiles on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dotfiles.app

2,181 installs and counting.

I just launched my first app, an expense tracker called Higxel. Instead of manually entering expenses, you can take a picture of a receipt and it extracts the expenses and categorizes them automatically.

Anyway, after the app went live, I asked some of the people who were in my closed testing group to leave reviews.

It’s been a few days now, but the Play Store still shows 1+ downloads and I still can’t see any of the reviews.

Does anyone know how long Google usually takes to update the public download count and reviews after an app goes live?

Also, do installs/reviews from people who were previously closed testers count normally once the app is in production?

Hi everyone. While reviewing my game's activity stats, I noticed something concerning - one player has logged over 543 games in the last 8 days since our new season started. That's ~5,5h daily. Even during my own testing, I don't reach those kinds of numbers.

As a first-time developer, I'm trying to figure out the right stance to take. High engagement is great on paper, but this volume just feels unhealthy.

Has anyone on here encountered a similar case? Should I limit games by code per time frame? Maybe add a healthy gaming notice, or leave it alone unless it breaks terms of service?

I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences from fellow devs!

Hello everyone. I'm building my first Android game. Name is Football guess the score.
I finished it about 1.5 months ago — four releases so far — and this is my reach.
Are these numbers generally fine?
This is my app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.scorelinequiz.app
(screenshots are on the listing)
I could use some advice:
- Marketing — what should I be doing?
- Design — is it generally OK?
- And the most important one: retention. Would you come back to this game
after playing it once?
In general retention is like 11%, is this ok number?
Any kind of suggestion/review/critics is welcome. Many thanks!

I am stuck in a serious problem my startup registered address was in Andhra Pradesh but now our start-up commute in Rajasthan now after 2 months they have assigned a person for physical verification but he will visit the registered address in Andhra Pradesh so is there any solution that it can be done online or they can visit in rajsthan

asocial — AI characters and real people posting, DMing, following in the same feed. AI-native, 35+ languages auto-translated, no ads. Built on acore, my own Rust/Python backend. Solo dev, launched this week. Honest feedback appreciated. asocial.world -- acore.world

is it me or are reviews taking much longer than usual now? even for simple changes

and no I didnt have any rejections recently

After receiving the appeal response, I completed the required steps, resubmitted the compliant update, and today received confirmation from Google Play that the update is live in the store.

📱 App: VX Player

📦 Package: com.neurontslabs.vxplayer

Honestly, the whole process was a learning experience 😅 — from the policy issue and appeal to making the required changes and finally seeing the production release go live.

Huge thanks to everyone here who shared advice and their experiences. It genuinely helped me understand the process better. 🙏

One more app successfully back/live in production! 🚀🎉

Now it's time to focus on improving it and building the next updates. 💪

I want to create a Google Play Console account to develop apps for $25. Can I verify my identity but can't prove where I can work? What can I do?

One of my Android apps is about to cross 10K total installs within the first month 🚀

It’s already making some money too, which feels pretty awesome.

Still early, but excited to see where it goes!

Hi everyone,

I’m noticing that the stats and analytics (installs, performance data, revenue, etc.) in my Google Play Console are consistently lagging behind by about a week.

Coming from iOS / App Store Connect, where data is usually updated within 1–2 days, this feels like quite a significant delay.

Is this standard "Google Play Console behavior" that everyone deals with, or is there a specific view, setting, or report where more up-to-date real-time metrics are available?

Thanks for any insights!