Hi guys, I was hoping people could share some stories of what happened with their sales/numbers when they either rose or lowered the price while being featured. Our 1-week sale just ended coincidentally at the same time we became featured on itunes, and our team is torn between going through with the regular price plan (raising price back to its normal rate), vs leaving it as is and extending the sale to maximize downloads and hope to get on a chart. I personally find it obvious that you should want to do everything you can to get the most AMOUNT of downloads you can in order to maximize your chart position so that after the feature, you can hope to continue to exist on a chart. But some of our other team members think that the discrepancy in sales at 1.99 vs 2.99 wont be significant enough to cause any serious harm in download count, and will simply end up earning more revenue with a comparable chart position. What are peoples' experiences/opinions on this?
My personal experience is that it will still rise to a comparable position on the chart, regardless of the price (assuming it is within reason). Gain as much money as you can, because once that feature wears off you will either sink immediately or remain afloat. However, since you are already featured and your price is low, I think the general rule of thumb is to not mess with anything. Just ride it out for as long as you can.
So you think its more important to milk it for as much money as you can as opposed to setting up for possible long term visibility at a lower price?
The long term visibility will either be there or it won't. There is a misconception that lowering the price will help you get higher and stay higher, but that isn't the case. However, in your case it is a hard call. You are already featured, and you really shouldn't mess with it, which means DO NOT change the price, wherever it may be right now.
Definitely leave the price alone. People are willing to try out featured games under the preconception that Apple thinks they are worth checking out - but if they have to choose between yours at $1.99 and someone's at $0.99 they may choose the cheaper one because at the end of the day, they're taking a chance on an unknown. Once you're more establishing, have a strong brand, brand following, etc. that sort of stuff changes.
I have the same dilemma today! (nice to have that dilemma!) Super Juicy HD just got the center spot in the spotlight in the iPad games store !!!!!! I had been thinking about raising the price since iPad games are generally 1.99 or more.
Pricing If the price isn't low I simply put the app on my 'watch list' until it becomes cheap. Why buy one app for $5 when you can have 5 for that price? Quality in the app store has not (to date) correlated with price paid.
Well, we had it scheduled to change to 2.99 last night, which was the day we got featured. We went ahead with the price change (sigh, much to my disapproval)... Without a feature we were holding steady in Japan at #35 overall, and #15 in Taiwan, and the price change has so far garnered a bit of a drop in those countries (to #39 and #22 respectively). Its hard to tell whats a regular fluctuation, or whats a trend at this point (11 hours into the price change). For the countries that have been featured, it hasn't been the dramatic boost I thought it would be, be again, its still very early to really make any statement on that (its definitely noticeable though). I just feel like when we're dealing with this kind of exposure, its much better to have a lower price and get those extra impulse buys, which would probably amount to more overall revenue AND a higher rank then if we had a higher price and alienated the impulse buyers.
Back when we released Silent Swords, the game was featured by Apple on the Hot New Games list. The jump in sales and rank was significant. Following the same feeling you have, we went ahead and dropped the price to 0.99 (from 2.99). As a result, the jump in rank was very noticeable, but the higher number of sales didn't compensate for the lower price. Plus the rank just went down again when we returned to 2.99 (while still featured), so I don't think the move was really beneficial. We have Silent Swords ZERO (the prequel to Silent Swords) featured right now, and we won't be changing the price this time.
Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience. What I was most afraid of is that the countries we AREN'T featured in (Japan, most notably) which we were doing well in, would drop in rank from the price increase. But so far, I'm surprised to see that our rank is continuing to stay the same despite a dollar increase.
Having been through this myself, and lost money due to my mistake, my advice is simple. NEVER lower your price while you are being featured. The fact that you are being featured is what is driving sales, not your low price. There is also evidence that consumers correlate the price of an app with its quality. Since Apple is featuring you, AND you have a higher price, that is double the proof to the consumer that your app is something special. Of course some people will still balk at the price, so you MIGHT sacrifice a few chart positions, but once your feature is over, it is rare for an app to maintain its position for long. If your app really is that hot, being at position 20 or 25 in your category won't make much difference. If you're hot, you're hot. If you're not, you're not. Sorry I didn't get to you sooner.
Thanks for the advice! I never imagined it would be as stressful as it is to make these kinds of decisions... before you're here you're just thinking "Whatever -- if I get featured, that's just a huge bonus!" Then you get there, and you start thinking of the possibilities and all the possible decisions you can make and how to maximize your feature time and it makes you a little nuts. Looks like we're going to stick with 2.99 and see what happens. Thanks again for the input guys, keep them coming if anyone else has any lessons to be learned or specific experiences!
For what we've experienced, sales at 1.99 and at 2.99 are about the same. (It appears that the only impulse-purchase price is 0.99/free. Anything higher makes people think about it a bit more). Even if you lose a couple of ranks at 2.99, the higher price tag will compensate in terms of revenue.
Do you have some data to back this up? I've seen other comments like this on the forum, and the skeptical part of me thinks it's just developers reacting to the low prices on the appstore. I'm looking forward to being proved wrong though. For instance, games like Angry Birds and Zombie Smash were out for a fair amount of time (nearly two months for the former), at $1.99, and their high chart positions only occurred after they dropped to 99c. I realise though they might be bad examples, as they are both quality broad-appeal games that would likely be doing well anyway. However, the developers obviously felt that dropping the price gave them an edge, and who's to say it didn't?
This is not always the case. I think it's really guesswork on a per app or game basis on who would benefit from reducing the price. Last year when Rogue Touch was featured I was at normal price. Sales went up 2-3X normal. I took the private advice of a fellow dev and placed it on sale for 99 cents for the remainder of the feature-week. That caused sales to go up another 10x, for average daily sales 25-30 times my normal volume the previous week. Clearly it was in my best interested to go on sale because I made more money than if I'd left it alone. Also, Rogue Touch wouldn't have hit #1 RPG in the USA and Japan last spring at my regular price. Honestly, I think a one tier rise or fall in price won't matter much, it's when you go from $3 or more to 99 cents, or free, that things turn into a "feeding frenzy". The other thing to keep in mind, is a 2+ tier jump UP in price will usually drop you back out of the charts so fast your head will spin Final note, if you're not ranking on any of the "Big 8" country charts, you might as well charge whatever you want for your game. It'll make you more money for those few sales you do get per day.
This reminds me of another important, but probably quite obvious point. Assuming a particular game is not aimed at a niche market, then 100 sales at $0.99 is worth considerably more than 50 sales at $1.99. Not in revenue, but the fact that you have twice as many people possibly talking about it.
Also 100 sales means higher rank vs 50 sales. The other thing to consider is, does your game have staying power if it DOES get to a higher position on the chart. Does it have mass appeal to sustain itself? If you can honestly say it does, then it probably IS worthwhile to lower you price.
I'm not sure where to start. What MindJuice states is true, across a variety of apps, those that are consistent top 100 and those who are faltering. Do not change price when FEATURED. amroc, you don't state that your game was featured during that period, so I will just assume that they weren't featured during he price drop. Being featured is an entirely different world and does not succumb to normal laws. Climbing the charts when you are featured is because YOU ARE FEATURED. It has absolutely nothing to do with your price. Climbing the charts when you drop your price happens because you dropped the price. They are not in the same ballpark. CommanderData, how long ago was 'last year'? The app store changed significantly at the time that MindJuice and I entered the app store around Nov-Dec 2009. Anything previous to that, the laws were completely different in what could be done to get exposure. I think your final statement is the most important: "Final note, if you're not ranking on any of the "Big 8" country charts, you might as well charge whatever you want for your game. It'll make you more money for those few sales you do get per day." amroc (again), the difference between 100 people talking about your game and 50 people talking about your game is so insignificant that it isn't even funny. You need tens of thousands of people before you start seeing a significant 'word of mouth' presence. I'd go so far to say that you would need at least 100,000 sales/downloads before you see a significant word of mouth increase, but I do not have significant data to back it up.
Again, I'm just wondering what it is that makes you think this is true (that is, changing price when featured is a definite no). I'm not saying you're wrong. I have had some very unpredictable results with my game, being featured in Canada barely got my game into the top 100, whereas I've had no marketing and no featuring in Italy, and my game is currently at no.2. I'm suggesting that there are so many variables at play, it surely can't be so simple as that in all cases, changing your price while featured is a bad idea? I realise though my own experience isn't directly relevant, as I have never changed the price of my game. Yeah I agree, I was just using some small numbers to illustrate the point.
Yeah but I think his word of mouth example was just an example. In reality, the amount of people that are looking at your featured app is going to be huge per day, and the % that might buy your app at 1.99 and not 2.99 would SEEM to be a significant amount of individual downloads (even if it was only 10-20%). Sure 1.99 might not equal the amount of revenue at 2.99, but in the long run will it pay off if you manage to stay in the top 100 after being featured? Obviously I could be wrong, and again, I appreciate your guys experience. So far we are rising the charts slowly despite the price increase... except in France They don't seem to like us. Mind you, I also want to make the distinction between lowering your price, keeping it the same, or raising it. I would probably agree that LOWERING it is a bad idea. But I'd be curious to see if anyone RAISED their prices on being featured and what happened (this is the situation we're in now).
