Kids App Market | Hacker News Reader

Kids App Market

bjornjeffery.com

64 pointsimartin2k36 comments

The most frustrating thing to me is that I can't just find a good app for my daughter without there being some sort of dependency on 1 or 2 of the following: Ads, Links to other games/apps, microtransactions. I want to buy a full app experience for her wether it's just for fun or education and I'm willing to pay it just doesn't really exist. Even the best apps I can find always have these and they interrupt her experience to sell her/me more.

I understand your frustration. Can you point me any of those apps (with that pattern you mentioned)? I’m interested in kids apps (I’m a developer and a father of a little one). Maybe putting IAP before the kid start playing?

toca boca. everything.

How old is your daughter? I'd be happy to give you some recommendations.

Do you have any suggestions for 2 year olds? Anything simple and interactive.

Sago Mini is a good bet for preschoolers in general (disclaimer - I was part of starting Sago Mini, but have no connection to them now). You can buy them individually and then I'd probably start with Sago Mini Pet Cafe or Sound Box. There's also Sago Mini World, which is a subscription that has loads and loads of things in one place.

Other good options for this age group is the Peekaboo-series from Night & Day Studios and Petting Zoo from Fox & Sheep.

If you're looking for something more educational, take a look at Khan Academy Kids which starts at around age 2. Fantastic and completely free.

Thank you so much!

Try lego duplo games.

My daughter doesn't quite have the dexterity to assemble duplos yet, she is still in the "knock the tower over" and "destroy everything dad builds" phase. I am very excited to get her some when she's ready for them!

I meant lego duple games on phone or tablet. They are for that age range. One of them is about mama duck searching for 5 baby ducks. Another about rabit going to buy ice cream, yet another us train. Kind of adventure games for toddlers.

There are duple animals waving when you touch them and happy music.

The bricks assemble themselves in those games.

Oh, I misunderstood. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

I'd recommend avoiding any kind of screen at all. Just physical toys.

"W.H.O. Says Limited or No Screen Time for Children Under 5" https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/health/screen-time-kids.h...

Screen time is very limited in our house, but having it for traveling is absolutely necessary. We have had some very long and very loud flights with my daughter and I am willing to do anything to prevent that again, including setting an iPad in front of her for the entire flight.

A modest proposal: physical toys.

Physical toys are the default, but in some situations, like airplane trips, a screen is much more practical.

Apple Arcade might be of interest to you. It's going to be a curated selection of games that are kid friendly. No micro-trasactions. No Ads. No in app purchases. Privacy focused, and all games must work offline.

https://www.apple.com/apple-arcade/

Give Kidomi a try. We offer curated list of premium content devoid of any ads, trackers, social network components, or links to external sites and content (fully COPPA compliment).

Disclaimer: I work for the developer of the platform, Fingerprint Digital Inc.

Depending on age, lego games, Monument Valley (awesome), Minecraft, anything from Amanita Design, scratch junior, Where is my Water, Fold the World.

Minecraft has micropayments for new outfits, skins and themes. It isn't a "one payment for everything" game any more.

You don't need outfits, skins nor themes.

No, I agree, but kids might not see it that way :)

I'm about to launch a series of games I created for my own daughters that does exactly this. No ads, no in-app purchases.

https://dutchdad.com/

You can leave your e-mail there to get notified when I launch.

The first three games are: Simon says, a memory game where the images are drawings that my daughters made themselves (I am planning to open a 'Custom app for your child' section where you can have drawings by your own children put into the game) and a altered version of 'Shades and Hues - a game of color gradients' that I created for my wife last year (published on the Android appstore with ads currently, my children love it, so I'll create a no-ads version under the 'Dutch Dad' brand for children. An updated version of the first version is here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nkcss.shad... (was taken down a while because I had no privacy policy link, has 1000+ installs), so I created a new version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nkcss.shad... that has a different menu, but works mostly the same (10+ installs)).

I make the My PlayHome series of apps, in case you want to try them out.

Not enough people are willing to actually pay for apps. Piracy, especially on Android, is extremely high. The few kids who don't pirate apps are constantly emailing me asking for the app to be free because they have a device but their parents don't let them buy anything.

Apple and Google are recently getting very tough and starting to regulate all apps that have children as their target audience, which is obviously a good thing. However, it seems they still haven't made much progress in actually promoting apps for kids.

To give you an idea of how few people are actually paying up front for kids apps: My PlayHome is currently ranking at 20 in the USA Paid iPad kids category. That means only 19 apps in the entire app store are selling specifically to kids using the upfront paid model on iPad are more successful than this. How many USA daily sales is My PlayHome getting on iPad? Around 50.

Until something changes, and it probably won't, even though the demand for quality, non-exploitative kids apps is out there, the big money somehow isn't.

>> To give you an idea of how few people are actually paying up front for kids apps: My PlayHome is currently ranking at 20 in the USA Paid iPad kids category. That means only 19 apps in the entire app store are selling specifically to kids using the upfront paid model on iPad are more successful than this. How many USA daily sales is My PlayHome getting on iPad? Around 50.

Is this a "long tail" issue? Granted 20th isnt that long but perhaps sales are concentrated at the top few spots?

50/day is still great. about $72k/year gross. THats not huge, but thats still quite a bit

What are you hoping to get out of this app? In my experience with my kids I'm better off just exposing them to real-world stuff - they'll get their online education soon enough either way.

This is an area I've spent a lot of time researching and trying to find good solutions in over the last 6 or so years. I agree, the kids app space is by-and-large awful because of the the economics apps have nowadays. Here is a pretty decent list that should provide enough entertainment to last your kid(s) until the age where they can handle regular games:

- The Endless Alphabet/Endless Reader/etc. series of games.

- Toca Life games and other games by Toca Boca

- Lego Juniors for toddlers, Lego Harry Potter/Star Wars/etc. for 4+ year olds

- The My PlayHome apps mentioned in another comment

- PBS Kids Games app

- Elmo Loves ABCs

There are also ad-free apps that come with a bunch of games and have a monthly subscription fee. I generally avoid these because I wouldn't pay $80/yr for a full AAA game, let alone a collection of Flash-like games, but if that's what it takes for the company to be sustainable without resorting to shady tactics who am I to judge. One I recommend in this space is Starfall.

I understand your frustration (I'm a father of two young boys).

However, as an app developer it's super tough to make any money if you aren't the top 10 paid kids apps or games. The market is not huge.

For my own kids, I've resorted to drawing apps. Simple calligraphy apps with very few options can keep a toddler busy for a while. Plus you can draw and have them guess, pictionary style.

Check out Zen Brush 2 and also Khan Academy Kids.

It's a bit of a shame that the shareware model has died out so badly. As a child of the 90s, I had all kinds of shareware games and sampler discs that got passed around; there was some great stuff like Carmen Sandiego, the various X Trail games, Dr. Brain, Math/Word Rescue, Mixed Up Mother Goose, Treasure Mountain, etc.

A nag screen showing the option to buy the additional episodes seems almost quaintly non-invasive today.

Article author here. Happy to answer questions, if you have any.

Fantastic article, thank you.

Separately thanks for Toca Boca games! We still occasionally use the radio music from Toca Tea Party for real-life picnics :)

Seconded, it was a rare gem in a sea of awfulness!

Fun fact - that music was custom written for the app by a musician in Stockholm! And the jazz track can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/tocaboca/tea-party-jazz

The marketing aspects are particularly interesting. Kids don't really have the power to buy or convince an adult to buy. Parents are also only subject to things that are "learning" while users/kids only want things that are "fun". The product intersection of those two areas with quality are likely very small. Additionally, when kids and adults are generally excited about the same thing, it becomes less cool.

This is a good overview of a complicated market. And it highlights what I’d say is one of the biggest opportunities in the space: a trusted and highly curated recommendation service for kids content. (I don’t want to build it, but someone else should!)

I’m building a kids app (an interactive picture book series -www.featherbubble.com) that intersects a 5th major industry: publishing. My marketing toolkit/plans lack any obviously strong tactics for many of the reasons outlined in the article. Instead, my strategy is to build a brand on strong characters and content, as it seems like episodic tv has the closest thing to a winning model for apps.

"(I don’t want to build it, but someone else should"

Me too! I'd pay for a weekly newsletter!

I used to work on a kids-friendly app and gave it up after 2 years. But I still own kidsfriend.ly. If anyone feel it's a good name and is interested, pls let me know.

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