TL;DR
- The $200 Meta test ran out on 19 October. Since 21 October the ads have spent nothing.
- The ads brought new players while the money ran. When it stopped, new players dropped off.
- A second store is a way in that needs no ad budget, so Halfsies 1.3.2 for Android is now in Google review.
- The Android build is the same 1.3.2 as iPhone, offered in 177 countries plus the rest of the world.
- A second ad test is still an open question. If it happens, the Sheriff ad leads.
Halfsies is my daily cutting game. You slice an object and the scale tells you how close you got to half. For eleven days in October I paid Meta to show it to people, and the fifth Jeje Studios ad diary has the final count: $200, 17,319 views, 364 link clicks at 55 cents each. Then the money ran out.
What the idle days showed
The daily chart is the plainest thing I have. About $20 a day, then $27 to $34 a day once Meta found the gamers, then nothing. The new players followed the same shape. They came in while the ads ran and dropped off after. I am not sharing player counts yet, but the direction was not subtle.
So paid ads work for Halfsies, and they stop working the minute I stop paying. That is fine for a test. It is not a way to keep a game alive.
Why Android is next
Halfsies has only been on the App Store. Anyone with an Android phone had no way to play it. A second store is a way in that costs nothing per visitor, and when I run ads again, Android owners will have somewhere to land.
The Android build is not a cut-down version. It is the same 1.3.2 that went live on iPhone on 22 October: seven trick shots in the daily puzzles, the hats, frames and badges that had gone missing are back, and when you are out of replays you can watch one short ad for another go.
Where it stands today
On 23 October the release went to Google for review. It asks for a full rollout in 177 countries and regions plus Google's rest-of-world setting. Google can still come back with questions, so it is not public yet. The sixth ad diary has the screenshot and the day's ad numbers, which are all zeros.
The decision I still owe
The six ads are sitting where they stopped. The Sheriff warning ad won the test, so if I fund a second one it will lead. I would rather run it with Android live, so the people who tap have two stores to land in. Until then you can play Halfsies on iPhone, and see it at halfsies.jejestudios.com.