How the App Store turned a simple idea into a steady income

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by edilator, Nov 15, 2009.

  1. edilator

    edilator Member

    Sep 18, 2009
    24
    0
    0
    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
     
  2. Uptown Arts

    Uptown Arts Well-Known Member

    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?
     
  3. edilator

    edilator Member

    Sep 18, 2009
    24
    0
    0
    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.
     
  4. cando

    cando Well-Known Member

    Jun 10, 2009
    148
    0
    0
    So "Associate this" was not featured by apple?
    How did u get that 1000 sales in a day? Or did U read it wrong?
     
  5. 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.
     
  6. edilator

    edilator Member

    Sep 18, 2009
    24
    0
    0
    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).
     
  7. GregH

    GregH Well-Known Member

    Sep 12, 2009
    479
    0
    0
    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 :)
     
  8. DaveMc99

    DaveMc99 Well-Known Member

    Mar 1, 2009
    4,761
    0
    0
    Seattle, WA USA
  9. edilator

    edilator Member

    Sep 18, 2009
    24
    0
    0
  10. DaveMc99

    DaveMc99 Well-Known Member

    Mar 1, 2009
    4,761
    0
    0
    Seattle, WA USA
    Ah that explains it. Wondered why the paid version was doing so much better than the free version.
     
  11. tukun

    tukun Well-Known Member

    Oct 7, 2009
    241
    0
    0
    #11 tukun, Nov 17, 2009
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2009
    thx for the story.
    im a dev myself, so its good to hear other;s success story once in awhile.
     
  12. Harpgliss

    Harpgliss Well-Known Member

    Nov 8, 2009
    792
    0
    16
    Here No More
    Hi,

    Nice to hear something positive about the appstore.

    Lately, it seems that most of the stories are rather negative.


    Congrats.

    David
     
  13. hyk

    hyk Well-Known Member

    Oct 6, 2008
    85
    0
    0
    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. :rolleyes:

    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. :(
     
  14. NJ Software

    NJ Software Member

    Sep 26, 2009
    19
    0
    0
    iPhone app developer
    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.
     
  15. sureshvs

    sureshvs Well-Known Member

    Nice article. It's always nice to see some behind the scenes stuff from other devs. Thanks for sharing ...
     
  16. Stroffolino

    Stroffolino Well-Known Member
    Patreon Silver

    Apr 28, 2009
    1,100
    8
    38
    Software Engineer
    Pennsylvania
    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."
     
  17. edilator

    edilator Member

    Sep 18, 2009
    24
    0
    0
  18. monk666

    monk666 Well-Known Member

    Nov 16, 2008
    574
    0
    0
    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. :mad:
     
  19. Theta-Omega

    Theta-Omega Well-Known Member

    May 5, 2009
    625
    0
    0
    Classified
    Wow, the title of the interview will ensure depression for quite a few devs. Interesting story though, thank you for posting it :)
     
  20. tukun

    tukun Well-Known Member

    Oct 7, 2009
    241
    0
    0
    thx for the article. i just checked appstore, look like iAssociate is doing well
     

Share This Page