Does it suck? or did marketing efforts failed?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by givenstage, Apr 16, 2012.

  1. givenstage

    givenstage Well-Known Member

    Dec 9, 2011
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    Game Artist
    Singapore
    Hi all,

    To me, not all popular / famous games with millions of players are good games. Not all games that failed and vanished into a dark corner of the App Store are bad games as well... I always believe that an average game with super effective marketing would always outdo a great game with bad marketing, if you would agree?

    My question is, when a game isn't doing well, how do you tell if your marketing efforts are not working, or is it the fact that your game sucks?

    (This also adds a sub question I had in mind, when do you continue to update and improve a game that isn't doing well, and when do you decide to move on?)
     
  2. Moonjump

    Moonjump Well-Known Member

    May 17, 2010
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    Game designer
    Lincoln, UK
    If you are getting good reviews, then it is probably a good game. But without visibility you are probably not getting the reviews in the first place.

    Outside of that, there are so many unknowns that you may never know.
     
  3. blitter

    blitter Well-Known Member

    For me and my second game it was obvious that marketing efforts were virtually non-existent, downloads were single figures, game was incomplete but is a lot better than the response it hasn't generated. I moved on (made the game completely free) when I ran out of motivation to update it with the orignal ideas. Though for third effort I still have no idea if it's worth expecting a response at all - regardless of what I release! Just in it for the fun now, else it's a disappointing experience after 6 months graft.
     
  4. givenstage

    givenstage Well-Known Member

    Dec 9, 2011
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    Game Artist
    Singapore
    @blitter, so what happens after it went free? anything positive happened?
     
  5. Seong Mi-na

    Seong Mi-na Active Member

    Apr 11, 2012
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    It's probably both of those reasons, I'm pretty sure of it, since if you're good at least in 1 part, the game must not selling badly.
     
  6. blitter

    blitter Well-Known Member

    Initially I went free in the hope of finding reviews as the press release didn't generate any. There was a day 1 spike (just a few hundred free downloads) which did generate *user* reviews, only like 4 of them but it was good to see still.

    Seems silly mentioning what happened the second time I went free, as most readers have gold fever! I would say cross-promotion has generated 2 sales per day, though I could be wrong as I'm on a roll of zero's atm!

    The other positive is that I was able to let go of what had became a downward-spiral basically. I felt bad for the 50 users who paid a buck but anyone in their right mind would let go of an app which absolutely isn't happening! Of course for most people the numbers are higher and they have to draw their own line when to move on. Moving on is a positive when you have repeatadly tried hard to no avail, else it could be considered a form of insanity to expect change.

    When I look at the number of updates to first app over second app, there is a huge difference. The final positive is I've learned a lot of what not to do (barring caring what I write on the net!); bottom line is I need the passion back and the app which I let go of didn't provide that...Starting with a clean sheet of paper was relief.
     
  7. givenstage

    givenstage Well-Known Member

    Dec 9, 2011
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    Game Artist
    Singapore
    @blitter, thanks for sharing your experience :)

    @Seong Mi-na, well I fear more on the fact that the game sucked rather than marketing isn't effective... at least if we start with a good game, constant updates and further marketing efforts would ensure better results and bringing out the game's full potential.

    We never had the luxury of heavy budget marketing, we have to rely on making our games good, and lots of luck on giant review sites that are receiving thousands of emails like ours on daily basis.
     
  8. AppVersal

    AppVersal Member

    Feb 29, 2012
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    It could be both. It could be that the marketing you've initiated isn't targeted to your niche and is not the right way to go about it due to which your return-on-investment (ROI) is very low.

    Or it could be that although you believe your product is awe-inspiring, it is actually not and no matter how much you market it, users won't ultimately buy it.
     
  9. blitter

    blitter Well-Known Member

    Yes mine was both, I forgot to mention the other half of the second app's issues!
    Unlike my first app which was only poor marketing...my sand app rocks ;-D
     
  10. givenstage

    givenstage Well-Known Member

    Dec 9, 2011
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    Game Artist
    Singapore
    @blitter, nice to hear :)

    @AppVersal, yesh and that's why I started this thread... I would like to know if there's any way to tell what went wrong.


    Now I started asking myself this: could a lousy game get consistent 5 star reviews only from people who love the game, and somehow all those who hated it (large majority) didn't even bother to rate it, which resulted in a lousy app with 5 stars average rating?
     
  11. Maybe marketing is the top 1 issue. There are such apps ranked top 25...
     

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