Hi all, I have an app ready for release but im pondering whether to optimize to get it to fit under 50mb, it will take alot of work but i should be able to do it, but it it worth it? Ill be selling the app for $1.99, how many more downloads would I get if it was under 50mb, obviously I don't mean exact numbers, just a general thing. Its kinda hard to explain what i mean really. Thanks in advance!
Well I think it depends on the game how much it matters. If Modern combat 4 was under 50mb then people would think that there not getting much content for their money. But I would say for most games it's an advantage to be below that. I guess you have to cost the time it would take to cut it down. Usually it's sounds and music. You could just make some sounds mono. Be careful you don't break you game in the process. You will have todo all your testing again.
Hard to say how many extra downloads it will translate to when its impossible to know how many downloads any game will get these days, but being under 50 MB is pretty important, IMHO. I dont see there being a huge rush to get your game to apple right now due to the apple store closing very soon for the holidays. Might as well use this time to get it under 50mb. As ThreeCubes noted, just make sure not to break things in the process and test well after any changes.
I would recommend making it less than 50mb. As far as I know 3G in some countries restrict the file size to 50mb or less so this means that people can only really download the app when they are on wi-fi. So all those people waiting for the bus who want something to play will have to choose another game Anyway, there is a little article here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57393448-37/apple-raises-3g-4g-download-limit-to-50mb/
I worked hard to get ShootStorm under 20 MB when it was released (20 MB was the 3G limit then). I followed it up with a free version that required a little more optimisation to include the advertising code and stay under the limit. The free version was being downloaded about 5 or 6 times as much as the paid version, but an update pushed the free version to 20.1 MB. Downloads on the free version dropped to match the paid version. More optimisation to get back under returned the downloads to the original ratio.
While not as dramatic, when we reduced Pickpawcket from 100mb+ to under the 3G limit at the time we saw a jump of 2-3 times the daily downloads.
I think it's the difference between being able to download something on impulse or having to do it when a person really thinks about it. In most cases you'll probably only get one chance to get that impulse buyer. That's worth something.
I think you're right Rainer. If a 3G download failed due to being over the size limit then a lot of users will still be on 3G when they return home. I noticed this on my daughter's phone even though I had setup wifi for her when she first had the phone. Her reply was along the lines of "I dunno".
The original version had 8 songs, 4 versions of each painting (small version, retina small version, full screen version and retina full screen version). Changing it to only 1 song and 1 version of the painting (as well as other optimisations) helped a lot! Edit to add: We had exactly 1 complaint about the paintings no longer being full screen and 0 complaints about the lack of song selection... so the rest was obviously superfluous
Has anyone ever heard of an over 50mb non AAA title becoming successful? Unfortunately, there's no way my upcoming game will be under 50.
Yeah, I'm pretty curious. At any rate, when my game comes out in a couple months, I'll share the good or bad news.