Greetings, As a hobbyist/indie developer - I'm always curious how some 'unknown' games sky rocket up the charts... The latest one, Slither.io, is now #1 in the free games chart. It's been out since late March? The developer only had a couple other Apps that didn't seem popular (so cross advertising wouldn't have helped), and I hadn't seen anything about Slither.io on media sites nor did I see it featured anywhere by Apple. Now it's got 7,000+ reviews. wth!! Anyways just curious how this game got so popular so fast. I haven't seen any coverage of it on this site or others for that matter! Guess I'm just jealous of the success.. Not too familiar with Flash games/sites - wondering if it had a following there then transferred over when it went mobile?
Wow - that is crazy successful. I looked on youtube and saw PewDiePie has a video about it with 3.5m views, but that came out when the app was already riding high in the charts. It must be mainly virality, there are tons of videos with really high view counts on youtube.
Ahh ok thanks, Pew seems to have the golden touch. Usually if a really popular YouTube player covers something then that product sales spikes up! That or if they've had a previous following with a Flash version of it. I personally don't pay much attention to either so it always surprises me when an App goes up fast in downloads when I don't see it on 'mainstream' media outlets or features by Apple..
I saw a few news stories on Slither.io actually... the last few days.. that alone could help it take off if its been recent. Also its always compared to another hit game in terms of play... that does not hurt it. Anyhow I know what you are talking about... Im not sure Slither.io is a good example of this tho.
I've tried to find some more info about Slither.io, but I couldn't find any relevant case study or at least some info about it's rise by the developer. Well, let's play the waiting game . Anyway a lot of success stories are a combination of a cool idea, fantastic timing and a pure luck. Don't loose any sleep over it . Just follow some success stories and try to find that X factor for your own app. Here's one intriguing case study about Fun Run.
Interesting article, thanks Luna. The Twitter campaign is an interesting strategy that I hadn't heard before
The key to remember is people rarely have success on their first game. The on correlation of why games succeed is people who release more gradually get more success.
Weelllll... I'm on my 8th or so (Search 'Seth Henson' in App Store to get list of games) and don't think I've ever achieved more then 100 downloads. They aren't AAA quality but in my designer mind, I don't think they are terrible either. I try to capture the simple, quick high score chaser style with little to no success. Granted it's just me, myself and I and its not my primary job. I'm learning a lot as I go and do see my games getting better - so maybe success is in due time or a dream I'll keep chasing Very competitive market so I always wonder when I don't see a game featured yet rockets up the charts- what happens. But I think with this particular game it was covered by a few large YouTube stars that have a massive following. Then well, the rest is history!
Im on my first one.. haha although did two reskins before, this time I did all the coding. More than 100 downloads you will get, my issue is get more than 100 dollars!