New icon sends app from #400 to #4 Overall

[Tony@N3VGames]

I'm here to share we you all our story as we can't quite believe what has happened in the past 8 days.

Trainz Driver was released in August 2012. We have been up and down the charts, and last Wednesday, we were generally ranked around 4-500 overall and Top 30-50 Simulation app.

After some success with a new icon on other stores (Android), we got the approval from Apple Jan 30 and released our new icon (only visible change to our customers).

In just 8 days we have now hit #1 Family, #3 Sim & Games and #4 Overall on the Germany store.

USA has gone from Top 50 Sim and nearly out of the Top 1000 Overall up to #11 and Top 200 Overall (and climbing).

Most of this was due to an icon change, but our 99c special has been the icing on the cakle.

I wrote a blog piece about it here which gives you charts and shows you the old and new icon etc.

Gotta love this marketplace we operate in

[MrLeQuack]

It's obvious the second icon is more expressive and user friendly. The first one was to corporate as you said.

[Wizardo]

The new icon is great.

Congratulations, and thanks for sharing.

[Platyrrhine]

You just got yourself another purchase The game looks cool, and I've always wondered about train simulators. Guess I'll find out soon enough

[Blue Jungle Studios]

Sure do like the new icon! Can see why others feel the same!

[Rainier]

Wow, great story. Congratulations on finally getting noticed!

[bardbarian]

Wow thanks so much for sharing, I knew icons were important but I never figured they'd have that direct an impact on sales, first impressions really are important

[Rubicon]

I think too much overthinking is going on here. The only thing you need to worry about wrt icons is "don't have a shit one".

Frankly, the original one was the worst of the worst saying nothing to anybody about what the app might be. Now you've fixed it, the game's fulfilling it's truer potential which is great.

[KennyK]

Who said you shouldn't judge a book by its cover?

Congrats on your success Tony!

[Tony@N3VGames]

Originally Posted by Rubicon

I think too much overthinking is going on here. The only thing you need to worry about wrt icons is "don't have a shit one".

This may well be true (and according to the stats, most likely is true), BUT, how do you know that before you have tried something else?

No-one was saying "well the app is really great but the icon really sucks" etc.

And an update on the rankings after 3 days of our 99c sale:
- Switzerland # 2 Overall App
- South korea # 2 Overall App
- Germany #3 Overall app
- UK #3 Overall app

Only real issue now is USA = #9 Sim but still #100-ish Overall. Still puts USA as 3rd best market and 10X what it was doing two weeks ago.