What I would really like to see is some sales figures on these apps. Apple needs to hire a consulting firm (or release the data) so someone can apply some basic statistics and analyses. Just off the top of my head, I can think of a ton of questions that would probably help this industry a bundle: What genre of game sells the best? What is the effect of an 'introductory price' versus free for a very limited time? What is the effect of a drastic price drop for a short period of time ($5.99 -> $0.99) Which major publisher is producing the largest sales? How do the different ways of promoting affect sales? What is the effect of reviews? Do a large number of reviews really help? TouchArcade effect? Anything else? Do ports really sell that well versus on original ip? Non game app sales? An entire company or dissertation could be created here! Since these are all direct digital downloads, these numbers have to exist in a database somewhere...
Apple can't release specific sales figures because they're not Apple's to release. They can speak in broad abstracts as they pertain to the App Store as a whole, but only the developers/publishers themselves can release sales figures for their own products, as it is with any company. If Apple released someone else's sales figures it would be an enormous breach of privacy, never mind the ethics involved. The only way to obtain any metrics is for the developers and publishers themselves to release some numbers. You might be able to find hints and clues from which you can infer certain bits of data, I suppose, but that's about the only alternative, such as it is.
Apple should write a clause into their contracts that sales figures will be anonymously released in terms of price and sales factors to either a specific company or for their own use. That way there would be no way to identify which app sold how much and so forth. The data would really help the industry for both the developer and the consumer!
I'll answer a few of them. I'd say arcadish stuff, something to pickup and play in short bursts (<5 min). It does help if it's innovative in some way, too! Don't know how it affect sales as we haven't done it. But what I do know is that you'll end up with a lot of dissapointed people who missed it. And those will probably not buy it at full price, they will wait for the next sale, if any, which means they perhaps never will buy it. Don't know how it affect sales as we haven't done it. But what I do know is that you'll end up with a lot of dissapointed people who missed it. And those will probably not buy it at full price, they will wait for the next sale, if any, which means they perhaps never will buy it. Not sure about banners, ads in magazines etc etc, I'd guess slim to no effect at all, but what I know that DO help a lot is a) getting featured by Apple in the AppStore and b) getting your game used in their TV commercials. Very little, I'm afraid. We have had stellar reviews of Sway everywhere, and it didn't do very well. I've read others say the same about their games. Don't know what that is. Closing words: don't go roller coaster with your price, it'll just make your customers confused and will probably not buy your future games if they got "burned". And with that said, the $0.99 is the new 666.
In short, $0.99 is killing the appstore. Long story, but do a search here on TA on price drops etc, or on Google, and see what the small to medium sized devs think about it. It's bad for both comsumers and developers in the long run (consumers might think it's good to get good games for next to nothing, but before you know it, you have no games to play at all).
Ander's I'm shocked to learn Sway didn't fair so well!! It hit the top sales chart. Also anyone know if Apple's featured list is random, or what? How does one get featured? And last but not least, does anyone know how the top 25 really works. Is it calculated daily, weekly, monthly, overall sales, sales up to the minute etc.???
Lol do Apple actually have to hire someone to teach you how to do business? I think these data is something that you have to acquire from research firm yourself.
There is considerable debate whether the iphone/ipod should be taken seriously as a gaming platform or just a flashy trend. People who follow industry trends and sales figures can make strong statements about the effectiveness of products. Further, then can speculate and compare how a product fairs versus competition across other platforms. With no such data, it's impossible to tell what kind of competition and standard the app store is having on the gaming community in terms of sales/marketing. So, it's not just to learn how to market your own game, but rather to understand more about the gaming industry in general.
Well, I think it was too hard to understand what was so great about it, that's it. Apple choose the games to feature based on what they like. Top 100 is a window of one week of sales. It doesn't take rating etc into account, just sales. This is the sole reason you see apps priced at $0.99.
Here's one example of a fresh thread that discuss the issue, the post linked is by Hodapp: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=354212&postcount=6 There are many other threads like it.
Yeah, there's the people who understand that if the devs do well we do well, and then there's those who don't. One word. Entitlement.... EDIT: Ander's thanks for the reply.
