I finally released an update to Traffic. I addressed some of the complaints about the stars being too small and changed some of the levels that were very similar. I didn’t realize that GTLevel (the level generator I used) will actually repeat levels once the move counts get too high. I think this is because there is a much smaller number of original levels with total move count over 35 so repeats happen more frequently.
I updated the UI slightly to follow the WP7 guidelines better (24 pixels from the left, etc). I considered putting in more time to improve graphics and maybe add sound effects but I’m not sure how much this will actually improve the game. So let me know, would you enjoy playing these games more if there was better graphics and sound? Would you rather I work on new games or on improving my existing games?
I’ll share some of my data to give others an idea of how often my apps gets downloaded:
In total Traffic had 78569 total downloads at the end of February, 20667 in January and 57902 in February. About 68% of the downloads are in the US market.
In the US market Traffic reached the top 10 on February 2, peaked at #6 and is currently at #7 . Slideout broke the top 100 in late February and has been around #90 for a week now.
Like many independent WP7 developers I reached the conclusion that free games with advertisements are the best option. The ad revenue from Microsoft’s ad control has been great so I don’t think there is a good reason to make a paid version of my games. I know some people are willing to pay 99 cents not to see ads and I’m sorry that this isn’t possible. I don’t want to release a separate paid version since any user switching from free to paid would lose all their progress. I could use the trial API instead but I want my games to stay in the free section of the marketplace since this is where most people look for games. Hopefully the trial API will change in the future so it becomes a better option.
I made some changes to the ads in version 1.1 to test more categories and change the ad frequency. The data is starting to come in, I’ll make a blog post about it in a few weeks when I have more to report.
Again, thank you for supporting my apps and leaving positive reviews! I do read your reviews and appreciate your feedback.
-James
Beigomon games 
WOW, your game’s download data is very impressive. I am also planning to release a game soon, can you please tell me what average ecpm/impressions are you getting? and what size did you define for Ad Control ? Your ans will be very helpful to me.
I’d rather not share total impressions, you can probably get an idea based on how other high rated apps are doing.
One thing I will share is that decreasing the refresh time from 1 minute to 30 seconds increased the impressions without affecting the ecpm at all, so you definitely want to refresh your ads frequently.
Also, both apps use the 480×80 ad control, I’ve heard from others that this is the best choice.