Hey, for those of you developing for the App Store, or thinking about developing, I thought I'd share my story, how I've gone from not even owning a Mac, nor knowing any Objective-C, but just having an idea, to a ready game that is now earning me a solid income. The games I've developed are iAssociate and Associate This, both word association games, with iAssociate being a version that is selling for $1.99 and Associate This being a free version that includes a small set of the levels found in iAssociate. I submitted my first version of these word association games back in April this year, and since then I've gone from getting just a few sales per day to getting hundreds of sales per day, in fact far surpassing my salary from my day job. If you are interested in reading the full story behind this then you can find it at my homepage at http://www.wahrman.fi If you want to check out the games in iTunes you can find them from the following links: iAssociate in iTunes Associate This in iTunes
Thanks for taking the time to write that up! It's always great to read a success story. Interestingly, nearly every success story I've read is one of working the app store itself, rather than through external marketing. How do you think the recent store changes, where updated apps no longer make it into the new releases list, would have affected your outcome?
Well, the recent store changes do make it a bit harder in reaching the top, as it makes it harder to get into those Top 100 lists for the first time. But, on the other hand, if you have a solid game, then maybe it might in fact becomes easier, since now you won't be competing against hundreds of updates but instead only the new apps. I think that the move apple did was correct, in removing the updates from the What's New list. Sure, I myself would have profited more if the system would have stayed as it was, but I think that would have been really bad for the App Store, as the only thing Apple's reviewers would have been doing then would be to review no content updates, and the more apps there are out there the more updates there would've been coming, especially as more people would've noticed that sending in an update with nothing new gets lots of "free" downloads / sales. As for how this change would have affected my outcome, hard to say. It would definetly have made it much harder, but even still, the triggering factor for my climb up was not an update, but the release of Associate This, which started the positive spiral.
So "Associate this" was not featured by apple? How did u get that 1000 sales in a day? Or did U read it wrong?
Thanks for that story. My story with "Charmed" was fairly similar, except for the part where it hasn't replaced my current income (yet). In my story though, I got screwed in two major ways: Even though I submitted my Lite version after my paid version, the Lite version came out first. Those first 5 days of release there was no paid version to capture the conversions of the hundreds of lite downloaders. Neither the paid or Lite version got into the New Releases list because of the now-well-known (but stupid) release date behavior on iTunes. These were partially my own fault for not researching more about the way the store worked in advance, but it is what it is and it is done. I am focusing now on how to get my more exposure for my new update (submitted and "Waiting for Review"). I am hoping the OpenFeint integration will help with that.
So far I haven't been able to quite get to 1000 sales in a day yet. I do get thousands of downloads for the free versions daily, but so far I haven't quite reached the 1000 sales per day limit (I'm getting closer all the time though...) The only lists I've been on, as far as I know, are the regular Top 100 lists, no other featured list. (Except in some smaller markets, but the main sales comes from US and UK).
Great story and congratulations on your success! Mine parallels the beginning of yours somewhat. I'm getting an *amazing* conversion rate from Lite to Full but since the game is lost in the app store, it only gets a few downloads each day. I can see there are different demographics at play too. For example, my game gets only around 30% conversion when I post a bunch of info on this site; of course the game is more casual and this site is for more 'hardcore' gamers. I recently got some excellent reviews from causal game blogs and got incredible responses of 80-90% conversion rates. Literally every day, the number of Lite and the number of Full versions are almost identical. I have a major update on its way right before apple changed its policy. On top of that, they rejected the update because I had the word 'demo' in my meta-data. (I quoted a user who said "this is going to become my demo app!") Oh well, I'm marching on, planning new ideas to try to get more downloads
http://www.topappcharts.com/320946435/app-details-iassociate-lite.php Best Chart Rankings* #36 in Word Games on Aug 21, 2009 #165 in Puzzle Games on Sep 12, 2009 http://www.topappcharts.com/317780382/app-details-iassociate.php Best Chart Rankings* #8 in Word Games on Nov 15, 2009 #28 in Puzzle Games on Nov 15, 2009 #153 in Top Games on Nov 14, 2009
That version that you have there is the old one, Associate This is the version that I'm currently promoting as the free version, it's stats http://www.topappcharts.com/331583557/app-details-associate-this.php Best Chart Rankings* #8 in Word Games on Nov 15, 2009 #27 in Puzzle Games on Nov 15, 2009 #159 in Top Games on Nov 15, 2009
Hi, Nice to hear something positive about the appstore. Lately, it seems that most of the stories are rather negative. Congrats. David
Hi, when you say steady income, how *long* has it been steady? If it isn't any period longer than 3 months, i wouldn't call it a "steady income" at all. Heck, some people wouldn't even consider anything as steady if it isn't longer than 6 months. I don't know about your situation, but i suspect your day job is probably "superior" when it comes to stability. Know that as with any normal distribution, the sales graph will never stay a straight line. It is bound to go down sometime, and with the Appstore, it seems to happen pretty rapidly.
Your app, iAssociate, is/was being featured in "What's Hot" of the Games category in the US store. That's likely why you're seeing the spike in sales, more so than just being in the top 100.
Nice article. It's always nice to see some behind the scenes stuff from other devs. Thanks for sharing ...
Interesting story. From reading the blog, advertising had no real impact on sales. Lite versions, sales, and pricing experiments had no serious impact on sales. The app appears to have leapt into top 100 list not because of a meaningful improvement, but because of clever experimental exploiting of itunes - a "rebranding" update which caused the game to appear near the top of the new releases list. Inertia is a powerful thing, and it can sustain itself nicely for an evergreen title like this. However, unless you can sustain sales after you're no longer featured on Apple's "New and Noteworthy" list, I would be wary of assuming this is "steady income."
For those following this a quick update, Associate This has made the Top 100 list for Free Games today (95th right now, even though Top App Charts still says it as being 101st) and so far my climb is continuing... I also had an interview with iphonesavior.com, you can find it here: http://www.iphonesavior.com/2009/11/rookie-iphone-developer-hits-gold-with-iassociate-word-game.html
Nice of you to share your story. No fault of your own, but the title of that article is just downright irreponsible: Rookie iPhone Dev Hits Gold With iAssociate Game It should be something more sensible like your thread title. I wonder how many unknowing indie developers that article alone will ensnare into the spiraling darkness of 0-sales despair on the app store.
Wow, the title of the interview will ensure depression for quite a few devs. Interesting story though, thank you for posting it