one week, only 85 download,please help

We got a similar 2d game with Penguins Invasion, we put a lot of efforts to contact every major websites but only one made a review. We even offered a 100$ contest.
First week we sold only 30 units...

So with 5 reviews and 85 sales, it's bad but not thaaat bad


Making a LITE version may help your sales.

 

your game doesn't look bad. you are just a victim of the times (welcome to the club!) There is an avalanche of software coming out these days. If your screenshots look anything short of spectacular, then it's very hard to get anyone to pay it any mind. $1.99 is the icing on the cake - anything not free instantly gets thrown in the collective "meh" pile.

all you can do is put the word out the best you can, try to make something with a great name, with impressive screenshots, make a profound effort to show a strong YouTube vid, follow up your release with a lite version and further (better quality) releases - at the very least, this is what must be done to make any impact on the iPhone scene nowadays. Simply putting together a good game and releasing it is no longer enough.

Good luck!

 

First, I wouldn't say 50% game, 50% marketing.

More accurate would be to say:#downloads = visibility * appstoreimpression Impression includes placement in top lists, a distinctive icon/title, and your primary screenshot. User reviews are another part of that impression. Bad reviews are the mark of death, so be glad you haven't gotten any yet.

I hate to say it, but your 85 downloads in the first week may end up being your best week ever, no matter what you do on the marketing front. There are plenty of comparable games that have actually done worse than that. What kind of numbers were you expecting?

I would offer some advise:
- when looking at your game as described in the app store, it's really hard to get a sense of what the gameplay is like. It uses accelerometer, and involves dodging sharks and getting treasure, but it isn't clear if it's more of a puzzle or an arcade game.
- the graphics look ok, but they are nothing spectacular that make it stand out in the crowded appstore. The average shopper is extremely visual. A mediocre game with incredible graphics will tend to do much better than a deep game with poor graphics.
- if choose to advertise, please be careful and realistic about your expectations. You could easily spend more for adversing than you'll gain in visibility/increased downloads.
- lite version will increase visibility, but risks hurting sales of the full version if you give too much away. Lite versions are also a magnet for bad reviews

 

I agree that screenshots are huge, probably the biggest factor that I personally use for determining if I give a game a second look. Video is just as important, it's a surefire way to find out (approximately) what you can expect from the gameplay.

 

We got 1 or 2 sales / day for weeks. We changed the price from .99 to 1.99 and the sales are a little better. Go figure!

 

@fwish like the guy said above my advice would be bring the game down to a dollar and try to take more exciting screen shots. This sorts reminds
me of my dad,(I'm gonna get a bit of topic) he has
two books out, one on Twitter the other I think on photopreneur. Anyway one of his
his books sold about a 100 copies (in a month)
and the other only sold 10 in a month. He has aboustly NO idea why and can't figure it out. I mean, he advertsed it on twitter,plus amazon and other places. Anyway, I don't know if this is really related to your problem BUT, perhaps both have the same problem, people aren't imtersted or it doesn't catch their eye.

Anyway, hopefully lowering the price might work.

 

One of my games sold 30 the first week, the other one sold 300 the first week. It really varies game to game.

 

i dont think a price drop would help yoursales much so i would keep it at the same price. the problem is that the games doesnt sound very appealing. there have been a few variations on this type of game before and its not the type of game that people would be flocking to buy. if you really wanted to put some more work into the game and make it stand out i think it would be cool to add some elements to enhance the game play like maybe having other fish with different sort of behaviours that you can take advantage of to help you out. like sordfish that dart at you when you enter their line of site and if you dodge they can spear other fish or somthing. or maybe a little dangly lightbulb attached to the sub like an angler fish so that you can lure other sea creatures with and capture them with cables. you can get like turtles with it and swing em around to bonk sharks or break walls. i do admit that the graphics you have are really good so i can imagine all sorts of cool stuff in that environment that you created. but you should really think of whast people would find enjoyable that you can add. because i really cant imagine me having fun just collecting treasure and avoiding sharks 100 levels i would most likely be bored after about 17 levels

 

i dont think there's anything wrong with it. There's just a ton of games like that so you need heavy marketing or word of mouth.

toucharcade is not the right market for a game like this because the games people here are playing are pretty cutting edge.

 

That's good advice...it's kind of sad, but I think that's just the harsh reality as the iPhone space gets more and more crowded. It's kind of like fast food businesses...sure we could go out and start a brand new fast food franchise...but with all the competition you would really need something spectacular to get any notice and get people in the door...but when things are scarce people are more willing to try...

 

Hey @Fwish, more piece of advice I'll add to the bucket is that the screenshots on yoru homepage are a little small...and probably not the best laid out. I thought I could click on them to make them larger, but I couldn't...

I know most people like viewing games via iTunes, but I can't stand it...I like to check out the game's website as I'm hoping there would be some video or additional screenshots (since the app store limits you).