The #13 Photography app in Indonesia is a short-drama app: DR Dramas runs on a clone-pack pipeline, not a product

In Nov 6, the #13 free app in the Photography chart on Google Play in Indonesia wasn't a camera or a photo editor. It was a vertical short-drama app called DR Dramas: Watch & Earn. It launched in Aug 31, and its installs went from 21k to 67k in a week. It looks like a dark horse. Take it apart and it's a clone-pack production line: an earlier short-drama pack under the same developer account has already reached 2.5M installs, and this one is a copy. Below: what it is, where the traffic comes from, where the money comes from, and whether you should take this path.

A suggestive ad, a Photography category

In Jun 2026 2, a Google Play user left a one-star review on the store page of DM Short Drama (DR Dramas' sister pack, same developer): "The ads on Facebook Reels are Indian adult clips, but the app itself is just ordinary short dramas. I don't like ads shoving nudity and sex in my face." The review got 28 "helpful" votes and was still the top review on the Philippines store page as of Nov 6.

Three months later, the same account published DR Dramas. The first line of the store page reads "Short dramas. Big emotions", followed by "Hook in the first seconds. Cliffhanger at the end" and "Every episode you finish can unlock rewards. The more you watch, the more you earn", word for word the same playbook as dozens of similar apps. The only difference is the category field: Photography.

What it is

An Android short-drama app: domineering CEO romance, revenge, palace intrigue, urban stories. Each episode runs a few minutes, and finishing one earns coins that are supposedly exchangeable for cash. The store lists "Contains ads" and "In-app purchases", with IAP priced at $19.99–$199.99 (Google Play, 11-06). That most likely means coin packs or VIP. "Watch dramas, earn money" is the retention hook. The revenue sources (ads and IAP) are inferred.

How much it grew

(Google Play installs and rating count, daily observations)

Installs jump in steps, with stretches of 0 in between. That's the store's refresh cadence for the numbers, not a sudden spike on any one day. Rating count rises steadily by 40–63 a day, a smooth, even climb that looks like steady paid traffic. The ratings-to-installs ratio is about 1.8%, high for an entertainment app; apps like this often prompt users to rate. The Philippines store page shows 11-06 with 4.9 stars.

It only charts in the Photography free chart for 6 Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia ranks 13–19 (on the chart every day), the Philippines 49–99, Singapore 57–80, Vietnam 77–128, while Malaysia and Thailand sit beyond #100. It has never entered an overall chart or the Top Grossing chart.

Where the traffic comes from

One account, a string of packs. The developer name is an individual in São Paulo state, Brazil, but the phone number is an Indonesian +62 number, the support email is Chinese pinyin, and the privacy policy is hosted on Google Sites. Under the same account there are 4 packs: DM Short Drama (2.5M installs, filed under Video Players), Vivid Shortify (also short dramas), DR Dramas, and a diary tool. The DR Dramas website drdramas.info is a copy of a user-review page from a game-earning app (GAMEE) with the name swapped to "DR Dramas". Another pack's website points to an unrelated exchange domain. This is the typical playbook: bought individual developer accounts, one team batch-uploading packs, creatives, content sources and ad accounts reused, and when one gets banned, the next takes over. Inferred with high confidence.

Facebook paid acquisition, suggestive creatives. The review above is the evidence, though it's about the sister pack. DR Dramas' own ads weren't found directly. Same team, same playbook, so the same channel is inferred.

Parking in the wrong category to climb the chart. Short dramas sit under Entertainment, alongside ReelShort, DramaBox and Melolo, which have hundreds of millions of installs, so a few tens of thousands of installs don't even register. Put it in Indonesia's Photography category, and a few thousand daily installs can hold a top 20 spot and pick up some organic chart traffic. Filing it elsewhere would likely draw more scrutiny from review for "watch-to-earn" apps.

Users are there for the money. Nearly every review on the store page says the same thing. One from Oct 18: "Decent for killing time. Giving 4 stars for now, will come back to change it to 5 once I've proven I can actually cash out." Another from Oct 15: "Haven't cashed out yet, hope it's real, don't waste our time... will come back after I withdraw." Judging by the names and writing, the core users are lower-income audiences in the Philippines and Indonesia.

No content channel. Searching TikTok for "DR Dramas" turned up no relevant videos, nobody mentioned it on X in 30 days, and the web only has APK download sites and auto-generated pages from app-data sites.

Who it's competing with

This isn't new, and the space is crowded (Google Play installs, 11-06):

The big players have already trained users in Southeast Asia to expect "free dramas that pay you back", and below them sits a long list of identical packs from individual accounts. DR Dramas ranks near the bottom of that list. It is itself a follower.

What it doesn't tell you

• Where the content comes from: bought licenses, short-drama distribution deals, or questionable sources. Not verified.
• Whether coins can actually be cashed out, and what the thresholds are. Not verified. Reviewers are all "waiting to cash out", and if withdrawals go badly, the rating will drop. The sister pack DM Short Drama already sits at 3.8 stars in the Philippines, and Vivid Shortify's reviews complain that videos won't play.
• How much it earns: it hasn't entered the Top Grossing chart, and whether paid acquisition pays back is unknown. Still, a team willing to launch a second and third pack in a row suggests the first one likely pencils out (inferred).

If it were you

One-line verdict: Don't copy this app. It sits near the back of a niche crowded with giants and clone packs. What's worth learning is its distribution playbook, which you can apply to a niche that isn't saturated yet.

Who it suits: Small teams that already buy traffic on Meta / TikTok in low-CPI markets like Southeast Asia, Latin America or South Asia, that have ready-made content or an SDK pipeline, that are used to running many packs across many accounts, and that can live with packs getting taken down.

Who it doesn't suit: Indie developers who want to build a product with word-of-mouth and long-term retention; anyone who has never run paid ads and is counting on organic traffic; anyone without access to licensed short-drama content (licensing and the content volume of big players are out of reach).

How to do it: Change the niche, keep the playbook. Pick a category with demand in Southeast Asia that is squeezed by big players in the mainstream category. Use "reward for watching/using" as the hook. Launch one pack first to validate creatives and unit economics (DM Short Drama only got copied after reaching 2.5M). Then split it into a second and third pack, file them in lower-traffic categories, and use a few thousand daily installs in smaller countries' category charts to get into the top rankings.

How to acquire users: Paid traffic on Facebook Reels / TikTok short video. Test 20–30 creatives per country, find the few that bring cost per install below what ads and IAP return, then scale those. Suggestive creatives can buy cheap clicks, but they bring in one-star reviews like the ones above, and they're a major reason accounts get banned. Weigh that yourself.

When this window closes: The wrong-category trick depends on the store's loose review, and it could tighten at any time. If you're going to try it, do it now, and get clarity on unit economics within three months.

Signs you've misread it: (1) DR Dramas or DM Short Drama is taken down within a month or two, or moved back to Entertainment: that means the loophole is closing. (2) Its installs stall around the hundred-thousand mark and stop growing: that means paid traffic isn't paying back, and the team has moved on to the next pack. (3) The reverse: if it enters any country's Top Grossing chart, these clone packs monetize better than they look, and following them could pencil out.

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Data and sources: Google Play store and developer pages (Philippines storefront, 11-06). Installs, rating counts and category chart rank are daily observations from 10-29 to 11-06. Competitor install figures are from Google Play data for 11-06. Sister-pack reviews come from the DM Short Drama store page. Website content is from drdramas.info (11-06). TikTok and X searches as of 11-06. Anything labeled "inferred" is inferred.