How successful is the children's app category?

Player_E

I am an old developer who took a 1-2 year break from GS. Previously I made apps purely as games that I hoped would do well.

I have currently changed my focus to the children's category, making apps that help kids learn simple things like their abc's and counting etc...

I remember a few years back there was a GS dev that focused on a similar audience and had very good success doing so.

I was wondering if anyone else has some current experience in the children's section that they could share with me.

KnightStar

I've built and published a number of games that have been placed in the Kids' section of the App store and I can tell you there are distinct Ups and Downs.. First off, it's a really crowded market (like which part of iTunes isn't, right?) and there are already a number of 'early educational apps' out there. On the upside, if you can find something that kids can immediately attach to, you can go to town..

Here's an example - a few years back, I decided I wasn't going to be like every other parent and give their kid a toy for their birthday only to have it shoved into the closet 3 hours later, buried with all the other toys. So I thought about what my son liked, and like every 4 year-old, he loved Garbage Trucks.. So in two short weeks, using a great template from @DeepBlueApps, I built him a simple Garbage Collection game which I made free to DL and called it "Johnny's Trash Day" so all the parents / kids at his party could also get the game. To my surprise, a month later I noted that it was getting downloaded like crazy.. So a few months down the road, on a whim, I went in and changed the price to $.99 - and it kept selling! No Marketing, no ads, nuttin'! To this day, I've only gone in and updated the app to make it a universal binary and it still is getting sales. (as a side note, he brags to all the kids he meets at school that he has his own game, which is kind of cool in it's own right..)

Take Away - Find something kids dig, like Fire Trucks or Garbage Trucks, etc..if you want to wrap educational elements into it, great, but make something attractive and appealing to kids first and slide the learning part in subtly. That way you can stand out from the flotsam already in the marketplace.

-- J

Player_E

Nice feedback. Would you mind sharing an estimate of downloads you were getting while it was free versus paid?

I am currently struggling on the decision to make it a paid app or do free with ads.

It seems like we are on similar wavelength because I am also in the process of using a template from deepblueapps to make a race car learning app.

I totally agree with you and think the app should have a theme to it with the educational part included.