The Disastrous Changes to the App Store for Indies

[Zenout]

Originally Posted by squarezero

No it isn't. Marketing is. Press releases. YouTube videos. Word of mouth. You know -- doing the work to get your game noticed.

Anybody who threw a game into the App Store and waited for the press to notice it in the new app section was being very, very foolish.

I would agree with that except for the part which says "anyone". Any team should have someone with the gift of the gab. But any one-(wo)man-band should focus on the game itself. 1 person can not do both nearly effectively enough when competing against dedicated and talented (plus loaded) marketing individuals!

So for me that means I can't spend all day or even half of 1 day marketing during the development process, as there's too much behind-the-scenes going on. Even developing a website stops the coding, graphics, sounds, gameplay, physics, menus, zzz...from being produced and refined.

Actively monitoring and participating in social media/activities is a different mindset. I would say do what you can to promote yes. But don't let a project's quality suffer by not working on that first with high priority. Most typical users expect the game to finished made before they can appreciate it...So anyone promoting early had better get their airbrushing skills out and promote the image before the content.

Of course, this only applies to individuals and not to teams of 2+.

[squarezero]

Originally Posted by Zenout

I would agree with that except for the part which says "anyone". Any team should have someone with the gift of the gab. But any one-(wo)man-band should focus on the game itself. 1 person can not do both nearly effectively enough when competing against dedicated and talented (plus loaded) marketing individuals!

So for me that means I can't spend all day or even half of 1 day marketing during the development process, as there's too much behind-the-scenes going on. Even developing a website stops the coding, graphics, sounds, gameplay, physics, menus, zzz...from being produced and refined.

Actively monitoring and participating in social media/activities is a different mindset. I would say do what you can to promote yes. But don't let a project's quality suffer by not working on that first with high priority. Most typical users expect the game to finished made before they can appreciate it...So anyone promoting early had better get their airbrushing skills out and promote the image before the content.

Of course, this only applies to individuals and not to teams of 2+.

I couldn't agree more. I ran into a similar situation when I used to run my own graphic design studio: any time that I spent marketing, answering RFPs, etc was time that I didn't spend working on client projects and vice-versa. One of the main advantages of being in an agency is having a dedicated account team who are actually doing the legwork to find new clients and projects.

That said, I think a solo developer needs to use whatever free resources they have available to get the word out there. That's one thing that Josh at Crescent Moon did very well (heck -- I wrote the original Ravensword App Store description for free!). Everyone has girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wife's, brothers/sisters, parents, best friends, etc who can pitch in to get the word out about a game (without shilling, of course).

It's a tough task, though, I won't deny that.

[Greyskull]

Originally Posted by HTWGames

Not too sure how disastrous the changes really are... the store was never set up to expose all that much in the first place. There's still the new and noteworthy section, but if you want to see what's come out lately aren't you able to set the listing to Release Date rather than rating?

None the less... at this point getting exposed is the main issue and the solutions found are unacceptable(ie: giving things away, paying for downloads, etc.) and will continue to be that way until more segregation, more pricing oppotunity, more respect and less frugality is supported through freemium, free give aways, and insecure price changing. But tell that to anyone who's trying to tread water while cement is being poured on their head...

It's rough I really think having the major devs with publishers and millions to pour into these titles should be capped at a price scale no lower than like 7-10 bucks, and segregated from the indie community. There is no way to exist as an indie when the store is so geared towards large scale onslaughts of price cutting amidst MAJOR advertising campaigns. Who else can do that but HUGE companies right? But instead of supporting the indie community, people out there instead think more egocentric towards saving their pennies and expecting more for their 1 dollar... you know... the 1 dollar that they lose over the course of a year over and over again in loose change. But nope! Rather wait til everything is free and get away with it.

Sad

The large companies/well known IPs sell well regardless of cost. It doesn't take a fire sale for a crappy Batman or Spiderman game to hit the top 10; they usually do immediately upon release. The advantage only comes when the publisher (cough, Gameloft, cough) decides it's time to milk more money from the app. They can profit selling these games for 99 cents, because they've already made a profit from launch, when the game was 6.99 and up.

Anecdotally speaking, indie sales can spark me to make a purchase not so much from the sale price but because a price change reminds me that an app exists. Even here at TA, a very indie friendly environment, most new games are forgotten within two weeks, what with the speed new games are currently released at.

Now, I'm not a developer. But if you have a quality title in the current environment, I believe one of the greatest hurdles to overcome; one that can bring continuing revenue without iaps, is "stickiness". If you can keep your game in players' minds, you'll be that much more likely to sell when said player recharges his/her iTunes account. Ios users will always search for "Gameloft", "EA", etc...how can you get your app remembered a week; a month; three months after release?

I apologize if I seem nosy poking into the dev thread Occasionally I just see a topic or post that I don't disagree with necessarily, but feel deserves a fresh voice from the outside.

[Pamx]

Originally Posted by squarezero

I
That said, I think a solo developer needs to use whatever free resources they have available to get the word out there. That's one thing that Josh at Crescent Moon did very well (heck -- I wrote the original Ravensword App Store description for free!). Everyone has girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wife's, brothers/sisters, parents, best friends, etc who can pitch in to get the word out about a game (without shilling, of course).

It's a tough task, though, I won't deny that.

So true! It's all hands on deck.

[ANMC]

Originally Posted by squarezero

No it isn't. Marketing is. Press releases. YouTube videos. Word of mouth. You know -- doing the work to get your game noticed.

Anybody who threw a game into the App Store and waited for the press to notice it in the new app section was being very, very foolish.

Marketing is important for a long-term promotion and gaining exposure.
But the first "BOOM" form the New Releases is really helpful and encouraging for most developer.

Just have a game released on PlayStore. Sorry for that I should talk about iTune Store there but the iOS version is still waiting for review. In the past, it is supposed to get several hundred or thousand of download at the first few day. And gracefully decrease the daily download to a stable level in about 1~3 months.
But what we get now is much less than expected.

It just like the store bring a new app right away to the status that it's released for several month. No more initial "BOOM".
We still looking at how the sale will be. I really can't tell does removing New Release section is a GOOD move. But for me, it really discouraging.

Imagine that you release a new app for two day and there are NO proper way to reach you App in appstore other than SEARCHING or DIRECT LINK.

Clearly the environment is changed. To survival, I understand that complaint doesn't help and we have to find a new way to work around.
But clearly BIG Brand Companies are getting more advantage in current environment which I thing is not a good trend.


Something more, there are websites that polling for newly released App on AppStore ( either manually or automatic) which make the New Releases List spreads over the Internet and your app may get more chances to be discovered by any potential users . It don't know whether it still the case if no more New Releases List is available.

[Connector]

Originally Posted by Greyskull

The large companies/well known IPs sell well regardless of cost. It doesn't take a fire sale for a crappy Batman or Spiderman game to hit the top 10; they usually do immediately upon release. The advantage only comes when the publisher (cough, Gameloft, cough) decides it's time to milk more money from the app. They can profit selling these games for 99 cents, because they've already made a profit from launch, when the game was 6.99 and up.

Anecdotally speaking, indie sales can spark me to make a purchase not so much from the sale price but because a price change reminds me that an app exists. Even here at TA, a very indie friendly environment, most new games are forgotten within two weeks, what with the speed new games are currently released at.

Now, I'm not a developer. But if you have a quality title in the current environment, I believe one of the greatest hurdles to overcome; one that can bring continuing revenue without iaps, is "stickiness". If you can keep your game in players' minds, you'll be that much more likely to sell when said player recharges his/her iTunes account. Ios users will always search for "Gameloft", "EA", etc...how can you get your app remembered a week; a month; three months after release?

I apologize if I seem nosy poking into the dev thread Occasionally I just see a topic or post that I don't disagree with necessarily, but feel deserves a fresh voice from the outside.

Yeah, what you say makes sense and this part of the developers forum is open to anyone. They like hearing from quackheads like us. Or at least I think so, haha.

[Allanon]

I surely miss downloading all the new games every night and checking them in the morning

I did find a way to find new Games though. Games>Game Center>All Game Center Games.

It shows games released that day (version 1.0) and also games that have been updated. I mean, it's not as fullproof as the "new releases" section was but it does the job. I hope they don't take the GC tab off the Games page.