Hi guys and gals! As Squid Drop was probably more visible in the Touch Arcade forums than anywhere else in the world I figured you might like to get some details about the launch-figures. I've commented some of the days below but I've received quite a lot of interest from different websites all over the world in addition to the ones mentioned below. I've advertised on these pages (as you've hopefully noticed) and a few other sites elsewhere. I've sent mail to friends, issued a newsletter, press-releases, tweeted and even bothered people on the local train-station. So, here are the figures to date: April 13th.: 91 copies. Sent out press relase through PR-Mac got a nice pickup over Twitter (it was my birthday remember). Hit more or less every forum I could find sent out email to all my friends, and anyone I know even remotely. Tweeted like mad. Got nice reviews from several sites, among these Touch Arcade. April 14th.: 119 copies. No new reviews, but due to time differences I believe the effect from the reviews got spread out over the two days. April 15th.: 55 copies April 16th.: 15 copies April 17th.: 233 copies(!) Vive La France! Got a really nice review on a major French website and sold nearly 200 copies there in one day. Entered top 25 games and reached 11th. in arcade/games April 18th.: 135 copies. France still kept me doing well. April 19th.: 83 copies. Was reviewed at SlideToPlay 4/4 hard to see any particular effect from this. April 20th.: 55 copies. April 21st.: 19 copies April 22nd.: 13 copies. April 23rd.: 8 copies. By far my best launch, but of course nowhere near actually making any money. (The money I've spent for the small banner-ad here alone has cost me a lot more). I am however currently working on the first upgrade and hope that if not Squid Drop is the game to actually turn a profit it might be an important piece of the jigsaw for some future money-making app. I hope the positive attention I've gotten will make it slightly easier for me to get attention for my future titles. I'm convinced my next* title will be a huge hit! *or the one after that, or the next-next-next title etc.
Congratulations, that's a pretty decent launch! So how do you think you could keep those number sustained?
Thank you for sharing. I hope your next game will sale a lot better. May I ask witch French website did the review for your game? thanks JC
You could try writing the words "Coming Soon!" somewhere in your game. That's becoming an increasingly popular move... I guess people feel safe buying games with the promise of it growing into an even better game.
@SinecureIndustries: Thanks. Not sure if they are sustainable unless I'm lucky enough to be featured by Apple. There is some visibility several places on the web and I expect I'll sell a couple of copies a day or so from now on. @Ovogame: Yes you may, it was iPhon.fr @MidianGTX: Interesting, but how exactly would this work? Only people who have already bought the game will see it, right? Wouldn't the news-effect of an update be the same if it came out of the blue?
I didn't spend too long thinking it through so I'm not sure about the specifics or how it would work in your game I'm assuming the whole thing started with Angry Birds, lots of people attribute its success to the free updates they keep providing so other people are trying to copy the formula by promising more content. A lot of app descriptions on the store mention "more levels coming soon" so that's probably the main way people who don't own the game would see it. I guess including it inside the game is just to keep the customers excited and talking about it. They feel like they've got a bargain so they'll be happy and possibly recommend it to others. My sister convinced me to buy Cover Orange because she told me about how the updates always had worthwhile content and that there was still a "coming soon" icon on the level select screen so I could expect even more in the future. It sounded like a good investment for the price so I bought it.
@MidianGTX I get it. I think Rovio is probably a bit more structured than me. I have goals for my updates, but I would also now want to wait too long before releasing it so I might have to delay some ideas. Also if the next update does not lead to any additional sales I'm probably better off moving onto the next title. @artcue Thanks!
Also would like to say thanks for sharing your sales figures. Pretty interesting. Congrats on the good reviews. Though I always thought a positive review on the touch arcade front page would be worth more sales.
French are the best I thought that a review on touch arcade will convert in lot more sale. I hope this will help you to get featured by Apple Thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much for sharing that, Nick. I am still learning the App Store ropes and I'm always interested in this kind of hard data. Funny you should mention. Coincidently, I am experimenting with the graduated release approach for my latest app. I can't wait to see the results (positive or otherwise.)
One could assume that the game just fit not the group most of ta visitors belong too.. They are more interested into the next action fps etc. So overall this was a pretty bad launch judging from the numbers, not sure why people are so congratulationing(sp?) about it. In context one can also come to te conclusion thats most banners on ta are pretty useless for the advertiser.. At least thas the notion ive got so faar from different devs. Well good luck with squid.. If it can stabilise its sales anywhere and you get constant sales even pocket change amounts to some money over time.
200+ sales in one day is pretty good from my experience (well for a $3 app it is). I only managed that many once in one day and that was just after an AppAdvice feature. I suspect many indie devs would be happy with consistent sales of 200 even for a $0.99 app. You don't have to be #1 in the chart to be a success. 200 sales for a $2.99 app is $420 per day after Apple takes their bite. So that's ~$153,000 turnover from a single app (before income/corp.tax). From a SINGLE app. So yes I would be happy to get 200 consistent sales per day.
Commercially the launch wasn't half bad it was horrible. That being said compared to my own, and I guess the majority of small time indies', experiences it was actually better than average. If nothing else it's the kind of information I believe can function as a reality check to some...
Looks like you did pretty well in France you got to 45 overall and 26 in games. I would have to agree that this is a good launch compared to most devs. Who would have thought the French love Squid? The iPhone market is massively geared to the top 200 games, and everything else is going to struggle to push more than 3 digit sales a week. Your launch was more successful than our launch in March, though the trick is maintaining your sales. We haven't flatlined and our sales are slowly starting to improve, and our new update is coming soon after having Easter off work! But it's tough being an indie dev.. a PowerPoint I saw 2 years back mentioned that 97% of indie devs in the iPhone market make less than a few thousand and many make next to nothing. I think it's even worse today. One thing that seems to work (Angry birds did this) is to release a flash version of your app. It's free marketing, even though you are giving your game away for free (although there are ways to monetize flash apps). Robot wants Kitty, Flick Football, Plants vs Zombies, Bloons, etc all started as Flash apps that were hugely popular. I haven't tried your app as I'm not a doodle jump fan, but I did dig the presentation it did look quite "fun". Good luck!
