Hi guys, Can someone help me understand what's going on with my situation? OpenFeint originally listed my game as having 16 or so iOS users. Which is what I expected from the 30 or so sales reported. Two days ago, OpenFeint suddenly reported 1000+ iOS users and hundreds of new high scores. AppAnnie reported my game featured #1 in New and Noteworthy for Australia for Sports and Action. I thought the two correlating must have meant the new users were actually coming in as sales. So the last two days I've watched my iOS users grow by thousands every day. AppAnnie was telling me the game was still #1 in New and Noteworthy and I was stoked! My daily ranks were showing my game just outside the top 100 in Australia and 200ish for the USA. iPad stats were a lot better. However, Apple's sales reports tell a completely different story. The last two days have been 30 and 15. I have no idea what's going on. If it's piracy then it's gone viral there, which is hugely ironic and disappointing. Or, both AppAnnie and OpenFeint are wrong. This is my first app. Any ideas? The game is Galaxy Bowl. Thank you.
I don't think AppAnnie reports piracy; only rankings. And to place first in NZ you probably only need 15 sales a day.
Great Little War Game is on the front page in Oz and NZ and our sales didn't spike at all. Clearly our Antipodean friends are all too busy having a life to be stuck indoors playing computer games. lol App Annie has tracked perfectly (ime) with what it reports as money owed and what we actually got from Apple some time later, so I think that at least seems reliable.
For example App Annie says for the iPhone: Games > Sports > Paid > See All #9 United States. #9 Australia, and so on. I thought that would be a good spot, right? It was #5 yesterday. Meanwhile OpenFeint says: ~2000+ users every day. However APPLE says: 15 sales yesterday. Assuming these are all correct, my game is being pirated 40 to 1. Is that normal? Is that just something that comes with the territory in iOS? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Sure, well AppAnnie is just showing what Apple reports. But what about the feature ranks? For example: Games > Sports > Paid > See All Galaxy Bowl is in the top 10 there. It was 2 on iPad. Generally across all countries. I would think a high rank there would be really great for sales? My sales numbers suggest I should be ranked 500th or something. Shrug. I'm new here. No idea.
well if we look at the same game in appannie you are only ranked in subcategories for iphone games in the us (action/sports) with places of #961 and #336 and placed at #96 in sport on the ipad.. which is also dead in the water since the ipad does not allow for games sub category browsing not sure where you get your top20 numbers from.. if you mean feature ranks they are meaningless.. you can completely ignore subcategorie features. so your sales numbers make completely sense with the rankings i see on appanie
I doubt very much that a game that is by your own admission unknown is being pirated up the wazoo like that. Are your sales figures worldwide? tbh I've never even looked at these as AppAnnie makes Apple's crap redundant and painful, but the statements they don't send me each month are per territory. Are you sure you're not just looking at sales from Oz and next week you'll get a monster receipt from USA sales or something?
It says all territories. I was hoping for some reveal like that as well. Unless they're not reporting the sales yet for some reason. If this is an unusual level of piracy, I think I should lower my price. I priced it to match the other bowling games on the platform. There are literally thousands of high scores submitted. I want to top the leaderboard to spite them, haha.
Hopefully someone has had the same thing happen and can shed some light on the problem. I've lowered my price to .99 to rule out the possibility people find it an enjoyable game but feel it costs too much.
well a big chunk is surely piracy.. but keep in mind that you can install a game to more than one idevice.. so if dad, mom, daughter and son all have their own idevices and play the game one has bought.. also creating new users in open feint is a matter of seconds.. so give anyone a half hour and you have a few hundred new users.. no matter if legally obtained or not.. but thats the reason thoose numbers do not represent your sales.. but your "userbase" no matter if legally or not..
Yes, that's true. But the ratio of paid versus users is 40 to 1 on average and growing! So while it's possible someone is sitting there creating new accounts and over and over, it doesn't seem likely they'd waste their time doing that. (I hope.)
like i said the big chunk will probably be warez.. a quick google search and you will find dozens of websites prodiving your game.. as for the amount of users..2k each day does not sound like much .. you can get more than tenfold thoose download numbers for average joe free apps.. in the end.. i would suggest ignore then.. fighting them is pointless since they won't buy your game anyway.. they just take the next of the hundred thousand apps out there.. focus on your customers and what you can offer them.. , good luck.
Really? That's great. I made a quality game. I'd be happy with 2,000 new sales every day. Also, on Android, I have over 3 million users in less than 12 months. New to iOS only.
Its definitely Piracy. Your Openfient new users will spike for a few days. My game did something very similar to what you see. It also happens when you release new versions.
Is it worth trying to convert them? It's apparently fairly easy to detect when your app has been compromised. I was considering a nag screen or something.
We're thinking about switching to adverts. In a pirated copy only, so the tech support moaning about the ads could get interesting
