Effective game / app marketing

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by nerv_media, Jul 31, 2009.

  1. nerv_media

    nerv_media Well-Known Member

    May 26, 2009
    53
    0
    0
    Hey Guys,

    We are new to developing games for the iphone/ipod touch, and, having just released our first full game taxi jam I was just wondering what you guys have found useful and not so useful in marketing games after their release to drive sales.

    We are currently considering running banner ads on certain ;) iphone/game/forum sites, has anyone else had any experience of this as we would love to hear about the success/failure of doing this.

    Is it all just about giving promo codes to the right people / review sites, and hoping their reviews spur people on to buy it?

    Does a good game always find its way to the top of the tree or do some un-advertised games that are excellent - languish in the doldrums because they haven't been correctly publicised?

    Why do some games (like minigore for example) get an incredible hype built up around them, whereas others seem to be less eagerly anticipated even if they are really good games?

    I would be really interested to hear your views and opinions about this, and even comments around the subject.

    Cheers,

    Ringo
    nerv media
     
  2. My personal opinion is that giving promo codes to random users in the forums is a waste of time + promo codes.

    I have also found that reviews from web sites that aren't one of the big 4 don't have any affect on sales at all.

    I don't have any experience with banner ads on the big sites, but I have seen forum posts from others saying that the return on investment was too low to cover the cost of the ad.

    I would recommend not talking to users in the forums, since it will mostly be complaints, unrealistic expectations, begging + hinting for promo codes and ideas that you probably already have for improvements.

    You can probably get non-USA countries top 100 charts for at least a day by getting 20 or so people from that country to all buy your game on the same day.

    Download MajicRank to track your app on the worldwide charts.

    http://majicjungle.com/majicrank.html
     
  3. sumiguchi

    sumiguchi Well-Known Member

    May 7, 2009
    209
    1
    18
    Developer (Business Apps)
    Canada
    No... there 60k+ apps - lots of good ones (IMO) are burried in the app store and no where near the top 100

    Probably because Chillingo is publishing minigore... Major sites are much more likely to post news about a game published from Chillingo, Gameloft, Digital Chocolate, ngmoco etc than they are about an indie dev group (unless they already have some hit games). I assume this is because there is some assurance of quality.

    We released Anomaly / Anomaly Lite independently and we struggled to find any one to review or consider our game for news. TA wouldn't news it despite a great review from Big Albie. In many cases, the promo codes we sent out to different review sites where never used.

    We've since had about 4 or 5 reviews done from various review sites but they have had no noticeable impact on sales - despite the reviews being very good.

    My advice - shop around for a publisher unless you have someone dedicated to marketing and the ear of some major iphone news/review sites. Good luck!!
     
  4. chrisschmidt

    chrisschmidt New Member

    Jul 31, 2009
    1
    0
    0
  5. nerv_media

    nerv_media Well-Known Member

    May 26, 2009
    53
    0
    0
    Brilliant

    Thats brilliant stuff shen,

    I had no idea about MajicRank, I have just downloaded but taxi jam isnt in the top 100 anywhere yet, maybe we will have a peak at the weekend - fingers crossed.

    Thanks for your post, it really helped! Anyone else have any advice for us?

    Cheers,

    Ringo
    nerv media
     
  6. Be careful about taking advice from me, as my games haven't earned me enough to pay back the cost of my iPod Touch.

    Marketing my games I did spend a lot of time on the TA forums, giving away promo codes and running contests etc, and it didn't help at all.

    Now I am just a bitter old man :p

    I did get quite a few 3 - 5 star reviews from the people I gave promo codes to, but they don't seem to do much for sales, or maybe the help once a person is looking at your iTunes page, but the real problem is getting people to that page in the first place.

    Be careful about dropping your price to zero (if you are trying to earn money). You will get heaps of 1 star reviews from people who download the game for free and delete it after 10 seconds. You will also get text reviews from people saying the game is ok for free, which will not help if you start charging for it again.

    I think I good strategy is to make your code portable, so you can sell the game on a few different mobile platforms if possible, but that i something you need to plan on from the start, so you minimize the use of objective c as much as possible.
     
  7. lfg_grace

    lfg_grace Well-Known Member

    Jul 23, 2009
    195
    0
    0
    Low Five Games - underling #1
    San Francisco, CA
    #7 lfg_grace, Jul 31, 2009
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2009
    Congratulations on releasing your first game. There were two articles we considered when marketing Earth vs Moon. I found these helpful -

    http://www.mobileorchard.com/five-tips-for-getting-iphone-reviews/
    http://www.mobileorchard.com/6-tips-to-get-your-app-noticed/

    Before we released Earth Vs Moon, we were complete novices at marketing anything, much less an iPhone app. So the articles were a good place for us to start, though it may seem basic to others. One thing we took away from the articles was the need to focus on eye-grabbing screenshots and a memorable trailer. I think that was helpful in attracting attention on the TA forum, which then led to a review by TA.

    I think we emailed over 50 websites and media organizations regarding the game. Only a handful responded with reviews. We always tried to differentiate ourselves in some way in our emails. I'm sure these sites get tens of thousands of similar emails requesting reviews. In our emails for reviews, we capitalized on our sense of humor. Earth Vs Moon showcases our style of humor and we continued that in our emails to review sites. We actually got responses to humorous emails and none to our formal, business emails.

    Also, utilize the forums. I'm fairly certain that many industry professionals and media sites keep a watchful eye on the TA user forums, so try to be active on them.

    We were tremendously fortunate to have Apple feature us. I'm truly grateful to them for giving a little indie game that type of attention. But since no developer has control over Apple, I can't really give you any advice about that.

    Marketing is hustling. It's horribly time consuming with a high rate of rejection, but we all have to do it. Good luck to all the indie developers out there. :)
     
  8. Thinking a bit more about giving away promo codes in the forums:

    If you don't get an article on the main page, the next best opportunity to get word about your game out is in the forums.

    If you give away promo codes, the recipients will often want to repay you, and will do so by giving you suggestions for improving the game.

    Other people reading the thread will interpret these suggestions as problems / missing features with the current game.

    If people buy the game, then the will be more likely to point out the good points of the game, in an effort to rationalize their spending.
     
  9. HappyFuntime

    HappyFuntime Active Member

    I'm curious what sites are considered to be in the "big 4." I'm assuming (obviously) TouchArcade, PocketGamer, and... what?

    Also, thanks for the great links, Grace :D It's encouraging to hear you say that you started out as novices in app marketing, considering the success of your game. Your advice is greatly appreciated! I'd really like to know what media organizations you contacted, though, and perhaps which ones gave you the best response. Are you talking about mainstream magazines here?
     
  10. #10 shen, Jul 31, 2009
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2009
    TouchArcade
    SlideToPlay
    PocketGamer.co.uk
    Choose your other favorite :)

    If in doubt, you can check out the sites traffic at http://www.alexa.com/

    If you can access the private developer forum, there is a thread about this at

    http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=20143

    If your game has a marketable niche (say a game based on guitars, or fishing, or wrestling, etc), then sites aimed at that niche might also be worthwhile contacting. They won't be getting hundreds of requests a day from developers, so will probably be more willing to work with you.

    If you can write in another language, or know someone who you trust, then putting up a page for that country in iTunes is probably a good idea.

    When GumDrops was free about 90% of downloads were from Japan. I imagine if I had had a Japanese iTunes description page it would have done even better.
     
  11. HappyFuntime

    HappyFuntime Active Member

    Yes, I'd ideally like to have localized app resources for all the top international markets. That is, assuming the game does well in the U.S. (by far the largest market), I think you could really appeal to international customers by presenting the game in their own language.

    According to lexiophiles.com, the top languages spoken on the Internet are:
    1- English
    2- Mandarin
    3- Spanish
    4- Japanese
    5- French
    6- Portuguese
    7- German

    iPhone ownership is another thing entirely, with North America leading Western Europe, followed by Asia and Latin America. Based on this, I think personally I'd be happy with having releases in English, French, German, and possibly Portuguese, Mandarin and/or Japanese. As we know, however, getting an accurate translation is another thing entirely (All your base are belong to us!)
     
  12. lfg_grace

    lfg_grace Well-Known Member

    Jul 23, 2009
    195
    0
    0
    Low Five Games - underling #1
    San Francisco, CA
    I was a little afraid that my advice might be rather basic, so I'm glad to hear that it will help someone! Ben is really amazing at making games, but beyond that...we had no idea what we were doing. I'm glad you're educating yourself!

    We emailed ever conceivable website relating to Apple and Apple products (e.g. MacLife, Mac World, etc.), emailed several established tech websites (e.g. Wired's game blog) and then emailed every website we could find that did iPhone app reviews or game reviews. Touch Arcade, Slide to Play and 148apps were the first to express interest and support. App Chatter and the iPhone Games Network responded to our emails. The reviewers at GameZone even got my Cthulhu joke! (Understanding H.P. Lovecraft references is really the highest form of intellect in my book. :p) CNET's download blog featured Earth Vs Moon as an iPhone app of the week, but we did not pester them for attention. That was a really lovely surprise.

    Basically, we did a search for every iphone app review site out there and sent off emails.

    I know this may sound trite, but, in my opinion, it is important to pitch the strengths and unique attributes of your game. For our game, we wanted to focus on a couple of things: flashy explosions and humorous storyline. So our screenshots focused on bright, flashy explosions and our emails pitched our sense of humor. Also, the game pays homage to classic, retro games so we focused on that aspect too.

    I am not sure if these reviews resulted in a notable increase in sales. Hard to say. However, attention by media sites is very important to us because we did want to establish ourselves as reputable developers of high quality games. Hopefully, we're moving in the right direction.
     
  13. HappyFuntime

    HappyFuntime Active Member

    I bet they did. Getting a lot of press is sure to boost your game sales. :D Thanks for sharing that experience!
     
  14. TouchSF

    TouchSF Member

    Nov 16, 2008
    5
    0
    0
    Hi HF.
    Some time ago I created a thread specifically for localisations and some devs adviced me to use dys translations or appstoretranslations for translating my (our) apps. We ended up to try both and I'm very satisfied with dys translations. They worked for 6 of our apps and it seems they are the most reliable company since they based their business in iPhone applications (I had the chance to meet the top guy at dys few weeks ago in Japan and he told me they worked on more than 400 apps). They worked for Konami, Fishlabs, Namco and many important firms. Most of the iPhone devs in other forums suggest dys as well, since cheap and good. Instead I had a very bad experience with appstoretranslations.com (i guess they don't have native speakers) and another company I don't remember the name. I would advice to translate your game into italian, spanish, french, japanese and german. From our experience I would say our sales increased like around 35% for each app/country after we translated our app store description or in-app text (obviously it's just a rough percentage).

    Hope it was helpful :)
     
  15. HappyFuntime

    HappyFuntime Active Member

    Definitely. I'm glad to hear the translations paid off with increased sales for your apps. :)
     
  16. atommo

    atommo Well-Known Member

    Jul 19, 2009
    290
    1
    0
    Developer
    Argh. Is there a MajicRank like application for Windows?
    I don't own a Mac :) *ducks*
     
  17. pharmx

    pharmx Well-Known Member

    Jan 29, 2009
    1,511
    9
    0
  18. sumiguchi

    sumiguchi Well-Known Member

    May 7, 2009
    209
    1
    18
    Developer (Business Apps)
    Canada
    Don't mean to revive this thread if its dead but... just to prove my earlier point - check out the latest news on the site (at the time of this posting)

    link to article

    I think going with a publisher is the best bet unless you are one of the lucky few that get featured by apple ;)
     
  19. AlexN

    AlexN Well-Known Member

    Another example, search for "star defense" in the front page articles. I think I counted 12 articles that mention it in their title alone. Having a publisher to lend you credibility and manage your PR effort certainly helps :) I'm not trying to pick on any particular game here, I know that one had some anticipation behind it, but it does seem a bit overkill.

    That said, how many iPhone game designs can justify having a publisher fund development up front? I don't think every publisher-backed game will be profitable, and for those that are... how much money can you really make on an iPhone game, if it has to be split N different ways?
     
  20. HappyFuntime

    HappyFuntime Active Member

    While I agree that having a publisher would help tremendously with marketing for your game, you have to think about what the publisher is doing that is so effective. Having a brand name (being known for quality) is a big thing they have going for them, which means they're much more likely to be noticed. But even so, at the end of the day they're using marketing techniques, and many of these techniques can be replicated by others with a good product and a drive to succeed. Maybe you can't afford to have a full-time marketing department, but you can learn from the success of others and put successful methods into practice for yourself. If you really want some outside help, selling your IP to a publisher isn't the only option. There's also the option of hiring professional consultants, like Appular.

    The great thing about the app store is that it levels the playing field a little bit and allows the indies to compete with the bigger publishers. That's what drew me to this platform in the first place, so going the publisher route would be mildly self-defeating in my mind. Just my two cents though.
     

Share This Page