Effects of Price Cut during Black Friday

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by munir, Nov 23, 2011.

  1. munir

    munir Member

    Nov 18, 2011
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    Hello Developers,

    Is it a good idea to cut your app price (or even sell it for free) during Black Friday to get attention on AppStore?

    I would appreciate if you share your experiences and marketing tips.

    Thanks.
     
  2. Blackharon

    Blackharon Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2010
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    Game Designer for Ludia
    Canada
    I'd think not. All the big guns are doing it - it's very tough to be seen.
     
  3. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    you might try to raise your price instead to compensate for lost sales numbers the big holiday charrade is causing (like every holiday)
     
  4. Blackharon

    Blackharon Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2010
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    Interesting idea. Buck the trend!
     
  5. munir

    munir Member

    Nov 18, 2011
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    It worked for me.. I wonder what happens when you change your price back to some dollars from free? Does it transfer ratings from Free Apps to Paid?
     
  6. Blackharon

    Blackharon Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2010
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    No - ratings for each chart is completely separate.
     
  7. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    how is it going with the sneaky cat? you have or had a free promo too right?
     
  8. munir

    munir Member

    Nov 18, 2011
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  9. Blackharon

    Blackharon Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2010
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    Much better than before we went free, but we're still working on it to make it even better. We've come to the realization that <20mb is more important than we imagined.

    When Pickpawcket went from free to paid we went from top 100 free games to obscurity (below the top 400). Our cat is slowly clawing it's way back up the charts but it's taking it's sweet time!

    The link you provided is talking about the 'ALL TIME' chart, not the top charts. The top charts people see on their device are weighted that recent sales are all that counts.
     
  10. XperimentalZ

    XperimentalZ Well-Known Member
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    Jul 20, 2010
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    Unless something changed or there's a bug, I confirm that free and paid rankings are separated. We had a few free campaigns with one of our games, and everytime we went back to paid, the rank went back where it was before going free. Anyway, this is quite reasonnable, otherwise everyone would try to exploit it.
     
  11. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    you found an article that speculates, nothing more.. so in fact.. you found nothing..

    i can point you to articles that would paint an apple user as the devil himself..


    if the article would be even the slightest true.. every even average free app would turn up into the top10 paid charts after switching back.. because generating 10,20,50k of downloads daily is easily possible and the top paid apps do not have even close the download numbers the free charts top guys boast.. not even close..
     
  12. PikPok

    PikPok Well-Known Member

    Nov 26, 2009
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    The article is wrong.

    Download/sales volumes used to carry over when you would switch from free to paid. People starting gaming the system. Then Apple changed it.

    Now when you switch between free to paid, none of your previous downloads count, so you essentially "start from scratch".
     

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