Paid to Freemium

[Rubicon]

These games are not my thing, but judging by the pics it looks appealing enough and has had some polish applied, so it's not the app letting you down.

That's the biggest hurdle faced by people posting about failed games. Usually games sell nothing because they're shite, frankly. The good news that this probably isn't your problem, which means it might be fixable.

So, to get constructive:

Firstly, fixing this is not about monetisation methods at all. If you get no eyes on the paid chart you have zero, here it is again in caps, ZERO, chance of monetising a "free" game. You just don't. What you don't see is the endless marketing that the Zyngas of this world have to do to get these megahit games we all hear about. It usually starts with a newsletter to their 3 million subscribers.

Also, it's worth noting that if nobody noticed your launch, then it wasn't launched! The word is justified by the result, not the intent.

But that's good. Put something new in and launch it again! Only this time, launch it.

Put it on FAAD - you're not losing money if you have no sales and the exposure is amazing. Other services will offer to do it for free. Ignore those and pay to get it done properly. We had half a million people download GLWG in a single weekend and they've spent WAY more than the campaign costs on iap that were truly optional. Result being we got tons of vis and it even made a financial gain in the end. Everyones a winner.

Get a facebook page going, post on similar pages about your own game.

Keep on bombing the reviewers, give them something to talk about - "hey, we got 100,000 players in a week already" (avoid mentioning they were giveaways)

Its too late to help now, but before doing FAAD etc add a link in your app to join a newsletter or something so you can advertise your next game to more people at launch.

You did send the codes to the reviewers, right? It does my head in when I see devs listing them out in the forum. What's that meant to achieve?!

Think about your market. Not as gamers but as people. Likely all women? Post on some womens websites. If you feel bad about that, have your wife/gf/sister do it. All fishermen?, join an online angling forum - buy a rod first.

Having been a member here for a while, I was starting to get the hump when TA wouldn't pick up my game for months after release, which has hot on the forum at the time too. But after a while they did review it and gave it five stars. That would not have happened if I didn't regularly keep reminding them about it - they see hundreds of apps a day and could lose your mail simply because the doorbell rang and their eyes moved.

Just keep banging away and it'll work out.

[Mobula]

I'd recommend converting your Paid game to Freemium rather than releasing an additional Freemium app to coexist with the Paid one (like how Words/Scramble with Friends or Draw Something does).

Like other people said, you should supply some starter pack or something for those customers that have already paid as well. Also, don't forget to keep updating your game with better features and more content if you want the player-base to grow.

[mapacible]

thanks for the insight everyone!

well, all features of the game are available aside from the additional 3 floors that would be used as my revenue source. the player could still finish the entire game with just 3 floors if they wish to do so. it will be harder but it's still doable if they really want to play it free.

yeah, i did give out promo codes for reviewers in my emails but of the 15-20 i sent out, there were only 3 instances where it was used based on my itunesconnect sales list. it does seem like some reviewers do not use promo codes because i sent one for appadvice but they did not use it on their review.

i'll try re-sending requests to reviewers as what rubicon suggested. i did not do it before because i thought it would be considered spamming and dont want to get put on a blacklist or something.

so far i'm leaning on upgrading the existing game to freemium. might have to check out if i can launch the change on FAAD. how much do they cost nowadays?