iDracula #1 in U.S. App Store

[arn]

So,

I know there's a thread in the games forum about iDracula's success. But I thought it was interesting to post a thread here from a developer's point of view.

I mean... Here's a true "indie" game with (no offense Chillingo :) ) not a huge name publisher. Chillingo did a good job with some grass roots promotion here.

I think most of the credit, of course, is a solid game with very visually appealing graphics. But still, somehow it gives hope to smaller devs that an "indie" game can rocket to the #1 spot immediately after introduction.

arn

[Burton]

It got to the spot really quickly. It's a great game, this spot is well-deserved. :)

[WellSpentYouth]

It got to the spot really quickly. It's a great game, this spot is well-deserved. :)
I don't have it (I haven't bought anything since november. I have plenty of money, I just couldn't find any games, so why buy something I don't want?) , but the screenies look good! Yes, I am glad that smaller devs are making it up there! Blocked is another example. I hope my first game that I will be releasing a month - 2 months will do well! If you want more info on my game, look at my signature!

[Diablohead]

They designed the game well and it carries lots of playability, looks great and is overall fun, they did a real good job with iDracula.

I find a lot of the games on the app store are thrown out either too early or just there to make money, this game though deserves to do well from the start.

[wastedyuthe]

Yep- I suppose some of the success is down to it's cheap price of $.99, however good the game actually is (I'm not saying it's not good- just saying the price is one aspect). I hope to have similar success with my first game (going really well btw!)- however, I am dubious about charging such a small fee for something that has taken many hours of my life, however much I have enjoyed it. See what I mean? I was thinking more a $4 price tag, with a lite version available and a YouTube vid for all to see.

What kind of return could come from such a small charge of $.99 per sale? Are we talking hundreds of dollars in a week still?

[Diablohead]

Yep- I suppose some of the success is down to it's cheap price of $.99. I hope to have similar success with my first game (going really well btw!)- however, I am dubious about charging such a small fee for something that has taken many hours of my life, however much I have enjoyed it. See what I mean? I was thinking more a $4 price tag, with a lite version available and a YouTube vid for all to see.
I read somewhere that while $1 get's you instant sales, in the long run it will die down quickly so a slightly higher price is more evenly spread, but that will change depending on how your app is and if it's worth it :)

promote it well I guess, paying for a few website ads might help you.

[wastedyuthe]

promote it well I guess, paying for a few website ads might help you.

Yes that is one thing I should look into more- I can't just rely on TA to promote it.

[arn]

What kind of return could come from such a small charge of $.99 per sale? Are we talking hundreds of dollars in a week still?

The #1 spot is in the 12,000-14,000 sales per day range last I saw. So iDracula is making $8000-$10,000 a day in that spot.

Yes that is one thing I should look into more- I can't just rely on TA to promote it.

But TA is the biggest :)

http://www.quantcast.com/toucharcade.com/traffic

arn

[wastedyuthe]

The #1 spot is in the 12,000-14,000 sales per day range last I saw. So iDracula is making $8000-$10,000 a day in that spot.

WOW!! Blimey, I could quit my day job with sales returns like that! Perhaps I should rethink my business strategy.

But TA is the biggest :)

arn

I just hope I can get some support from you Arn, in posting it on your main blog- I would appreciate it. Can you PM me details on advertising on your blog too? Thanks.

[Diablohead]

Is that #1 spot, 12-14k daily sales across all the nations? Still that's a fine number of sales to have if you can sit up there for a week or three.

[InsertWittyName]

The average sales per day for an app is 16.

Bear that in mind.

[spawn12345]

You can sometimes if not most of the times get more money by selling the app cheap than expensive.

Gabe and Valve has come out with an report on that some week ago.
When they have their weekend deals on the Steam platform and the game/games cost less they make much more money then they did at full price.

Like the recent sale with 50% off L4D. They saw a 3000% increase in sales! (no there arent extra zeros in there)

So I think iDracula is making more money now at $1 than it ever would if it released at $3
The $1 also puts it up fast in the top25 which makes even more people buy it.

[Diablohead]

That though all depends on many things, the game was near full price for ages so a drop attracts tons of people who want to save money, where as selling the game low priced to start with might make people react differently. Also full retail games come out around £40 and not £1-3 :P

I understand what you are saying though.

[spawn12345]

That though all depends on many things, the game was near full price for ages so a drop attracts tons of people who want to save money, where as selling the game low priced to start with might make people react differently. Also full retail games come out around £40 and not £1-3 :P

I understand what you are saying though.

yeah but dropping the price on apps isnt as effective on app store. There is no big sign saying to everyone this app is 50% off :)

I think starting cheaper and then setting the price higher after some days is the best strategy on the app store.
This is for indie developers who dont have 1million dollor marketing campaign ;)

[Misguided]

They made a great looking product with a great name.
There aren't 300 clones of the game on the app store already (an untapped market).
They have a unique control scheme that's fun to play (though I suck at it).

[RPGGuy]

Personally I didn't think iDracula was very fun. From a developer's standpoint it is a very simple game to make. The enemies come at you from all directions and have little AI. The gameplay is soooo simple. I could have written it in 2-3 days. The artwork is the best I've seen on the iphone however. Since it was the same style as my next game I wanted to check out what they did.

I am not sure if pricing at $.99 is always the best way to go. I'm on track to making the same kind of money as ishoot over the course of a year without having a #1 app.

[HandheldGames]

Good luck!! The critics are pretty tough out there. ;-)

WOW!! Blimey, I could quit my day job with sales returns like that! Perhaps I should rethink my business strategy.



I just hope I can get some support from you Arn, in posting it on your main blog- I would appreciate it. Can you PM me details on advertising on your blog too? Thanks.

[wastedyuthe]

Good luck!! The critics are pretty tough out there. ;-)

Hehe! Is that a little nudge at me there? Perhaps I shouldn't be so tough on devs in the future now I am becoming one myself. :D

[Chillingo]

http://www.chillingo.com/images/comingsoon/newscreen_idracula.jpg

[wastedyuthe]

Interesting discussion guys. Is there any more opinions on cheaper prices? I must admit, I am a little torn- with some people saying it would be good to start cheap and increase price in time, and others saying to start as you mean to go on, with a sale price later. Hmmmm....

[arkanigon]

well deserved! I was surprised it was created by such a small team.

[Vende]

Time to start thinking about Idracula 2

[Knight]

Interesting discussion guys. Is there any more opinions on cheaper prices? I must admit, I am a little torn- with some people saying it would be good to start cheap and increase price in time, and others saying to start as you mean to go on, with a sale price later. Hmmmm....

Depends on the game really. If you have a game that people can buy on impulse and is pretty enough, then make it $1 and see how high you can go. You can always increase the price any time. Assume that your sale price difference from the real price is your marketing expenses.

We tried the other approach, even though we didn't mean to. We actually thought we were doing a sale. You can't blame us though. When you have worked on something for so long and poured your heart into it, it is very hard to convince yourself that you need to sell it for $1. Very very tough the first time. I guess it gets easier as you make more apps.

Personally I would try the approach that worked for iDracula ;) Although getting featured by Apple (Blocked) or a kick ass Lite version (iShoot) does work too. Good luck.

[Knight]

http://www.chillingo.com/images/comingsoon/newscreen_idracula.jpg

I love Orions and iDracula. I hear you are making a Tower Defense game though :( Don't make me love that too. :P

Screenshot looks awesome. The red theme looks sick. Kudos to your artist(s).

[VirtualPool]

Is that #1 spot, 12-14k daily sales across all the nations? Still that's a fine number of sales to have if you can sit up there for a week or three.

That #1 spot (all apps) includes sales from all countries.
Position 56 in Top Apps list (38 for games) for US is about 700 units a day. Total of all other countries usually (depends on title) is a factor of 3x, thus one would expect 2100 total sales (all countries) for an app at #56.
A pretty big fall off from #1 to #56, BUT, still a bit of sales to be had.
At $.99 for the app that works out to about $44,000 a month. One should be able to get by on that. ;)

[wastedyuthe]

I have been thinking hard about this now, and after reading all the comments on this thread (sorry to take the topic away from the actual iDracula app itself- congrats to those guys!), I have decided to do the same thing- release the game at the nice cheap price of 59p/$.99. After all, I haven't got a big brand name to rely on for reputation, and there are plenty of excellent games out there at this cheap price, so charging more than those for mine (not saying mine isn't going to be as excellent ;) ) doesn't sound logical.
This leads me to thinking about the lite version I was going to do. I really don't see the point of a lite version if the full game is so cheap. Quite often I have just thought 'sod it' and spent the 59p. Look at iDracula as proof that a lite version for a 59p app is not needed. Lets face it, that time spent re-programming the app as a lite version (ie cutting out or down on the career etc) may be better spent on making the full game even more polished!

[arta]

There's absolutely no reason to make a Lite version. The game already made its name on a 99 cent value and when it goes up to 2.99 it will have the previous buzz from 99c buyers, the reputation of being #1 in nearly all appstores worldwide in less than a week and new updates. And you know the guys that do the Appstore commercials are going wild over this and saying: holy shit, imagine when we show this, we won't need to quickly flip through 20 games, we could just show this one and a few other outstanding games.

Lite versions are for those $5 and over games that need a little push to get over the initial hump. No, iDracula is pretty cool where it is. All that's left is dreaming of a premium Zelda like RPG story game, with devious bosses and long pathways... someday.

[IUGOME]

I haven't played the game yet either but it looks fantastic. Good for them. I am happy to see other small devs make it big. Of course the overall launch plan was effective, but I believe essentially this proves that great games DO rise to the top.

It also does not mean it guarantees your game will react the same way. Sometimes the 99 cent price point or sale works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes a lite version helps boost sales, sometimes it doesn't. Here at IUGO we're still on a learning curve, but we're optimistic that we too can have a hit game on the App Store, despite all the noise and poor discovery method for the user.

I'm personally routing for all small devs who put out quality games to make it big. There's room for all of us, and it's our time to shine.

[wastedyuthe]

I'm personally routing for all small devs who put out quality games to make it big. There's room for all of us, and it's our time to shine.

Very nicely put. Well said.

[lithiastudios]

This leads me to thinking about the lite version I was going to do. I really don't see the point of a lite version if the full game is so cheap. Quite often I have just thought 'sod it' and spent the 59p. Look at iDracula as proof that a lite version for a 59p app is not needed. Lets face it, that time spent re-programming the app as a lite version (ie cutting out or down on the career etc) may be better spent on making the full game even more polished!

Yeah, this is a tricky part of the App Store. I've paid $.99 to buy an app outright based on just screenshots and a good description.. while other times I've been wanting a lite version even before spending $.99.

As much as I would love to have some hard and fast rules about what definitely to do when releasing a game, it still seems like there is some feeling around in the dark to do. :)

What might help is when you're developing a full version to keep a lite version in mind. Try to structure things in such a way that you can more easily scale things back for the lite version instead of having to really customize your code for a lite.

[CBraun53]

Interesting discussion guys. Is there any more opinions on cheaper prices? I must admit, I am a little torn- with some people saying it would be good to start cheap and increase price in time, and others saying to start as you mean to go on, with a sale price later. Hmmmm....

I'm not a developer, but from a consumer's point of view I like Team Phobic's (prior) method for Bounce On. By starting low, and increasing the price as they add more value to the game and providing free updates to the current owners, it really rewards the early buyers. As long as the game justifies each price point that it's at, I think that this is the best method (at least for the buyer). However, I guess this method may not have worked as they recently put the game on sale.

Back on topic. As I posted in another thread, I bought iDracula the day it came out, but finally got around to playing it today and I really like the game a lot, so I am very happy for the game's success. The update looks like it's going to make the game that much better.