Big events: 1. March 1st 2011, registered account at app store then I started to learn xcode, objective-c, cocos2d and work on my first game in my 15 years software programming . 2. April 6th 2011, my first game came out, submitted it to app store. 3. April 15th 2011, apple approved the game and it became online Crazy Find: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crazy-find/id430824702?mt=8 It's a very simple game, I think it's not that good, but not bad as my first game. 4. Sales: April 15th (First day): 21 April 16th: 39 April 17th: 22 April 18th: 4 April 19th: 4 I think from now on, every day sale will stay on less than 10 5. Promotion I didn't do any promotion and I have no idea about how to do that. I just gave some redeem codes to my friends. The story I have been a software programmer for about 15 years, from the beginning Turbo C, Borland C++, Delphi, Visual Basic to C#, ASP.net and Flash Actionscript today, but I had never made a game before. My son always ask me, dad why don't you make a game? And this is the reason why I started to make games . Next plan There are two themes in the current version of Crazy Find, I am going to add a Xmas theme, support Game Center and post scores to Facebook and Twitter. I also got two game ideas, one of them, I think its quite good , hope I can release them before this August.
Off to a good start. Have your friends write reviews on the app store, put out a press release on prmac.com and some of the other promotions sites, submit the app to some review sites (plenty of thread on those) and there ya go. There's a ton you can do, but it helps a lot to have promotions in place for your launch day. Good luck!
thanks for your reply, I'll follow this and try to do the promotion jobs one by one And yesterday's sale is out: April 20th: 9
For the sake of science: I bought it and found it quite nice Let me first explain, why I say I bought it for the sake of science. I'm currently carrying out a research project on indie developers in App Store, and feel very fortunate to catch your story just as it is happening! I'd be very happy, if you could share your experiences even in the future. Then the other thing The day before yesterday I visited my brother's little girl. She was very interested in my iPad, but all my games (even Tiny Wings) were still too "quick" for her. So yesterday I asked one of my sons, if he knows any games suitable for kids around 3 years. I immediately remembered that conversation, when I saw your game. I'm sure my brothers little daughter could have mastered the first couple of levels. So, I started wondering, could you make a kiddie version of the game (or rather, an option to choose "slow mode" for little kids). You already have nice pictures and a game mechanism that would work. All you had to do is, add a bit fewer images on the screen (after the first levels), make the images perhaps a little bit bigger, and make the game a little bit slower. After that you should try and get a feature on the "Mom forums", where mothers of small children meet (like you guys here in TA). Äh, it might be that was a rotten idea. I just somehow think that games for small children could be a good genre for a "one man's shop", since children don't yet expect a lot of complexity and shine from a game. Good luck! Sunaitis
MrLeQuack: thanks for your support Sunaitis: thanks for your idea, and yes I am going to make a kids version of the Crazy Find. Yesterday's sale is out: April 21st: 3 Frankly, I think it's quite difficult to make a living by making ios games. I am also a windows shareware developer, the price of every order is about $50, but for ios game, you can only get less than $1 for each order, this is difficult. Unless you can make a very very very good game, otherwise, you will drop to the very bottom of the list. I think there is no "long tail" in the apple store. Win or lose, its the rule.
Ha, reminds me of my story! Been programming for ~20 years, but never made a game before. Clarion, FoxPro, C++, Delphi 1,2-2007 and C#. Learnt XCode + Obj C last year and released my first game (in my signature). Was very pleased that Apple featured it. Sales wise is crap these days, but I don't mind. Good luck with your game making career mate, it's a whole new world!
The long tail could be achieved by having many apps.If you have 20 apps and each brings you 10 sales /day, you have 200 sales/day , 6000/month , that's not such a small number!These could get you going until your first big hit.It took Rovio 51 games until they made Angry Birds!
