It's no secret that developing a successful mobile game isn't easy in today's increasingly digital age, but I don't think that any of us gamers truly realized just how hard some of those challenges may be until now. The new App Developers Conference (ADC) has conducted an extensive survey that serves to show just how difficult it is to turn a profit with your latest mobile game, let alone to get mobile gamers to actually play it legitimately.The ADC surveyed over 250 solo- and small team-developers who primarily make games and other apps for iOS and Android platforms (other operating systems like Windows and Mac, in addition to web-based games also had a strong showing in the survey, although iOS and Android were in the majority by a clear margin, representing over 80% and over 60%, respectively).As some might have expected, the survey results show that app-based game development is not all that lucrative as it might initially have been cracked out to be. A staggering 40% of all developers surveyed made zero revenue at all from their latest applications, while an equally poor 49% made a disheartening profit of zero. And while most of the developers who participated in the survey work out of very small-scale studios and have only been in the development game for a handful of years, it's still a pretty tough pill to swallow.