Hi all. Great to be a part of the community. This is my first blog post here and I'm hoping you find it useful. In summary this is about our first iPhone game 'Go Chick Go Free' (www.tinyurl.com/gochickgofree) which is now available on the app store and the user tracking and activity over the first two months. It's not meant as an in-depth analysis of the iPhone app store or user trends, but simply a personal report on our game over the first two months. I'll keep it short n sweet. So back in February my partner and I decided to delve in to the world of mobile game development and create our first iPhone game. We spent 5 solid weeks developing the first version and released it on April 13th 2011. We had a good idea about the iPhone market and knew it was extremely competitive, and so we were never under the illusion that our game would make us a million bucks in the first week, as many developers I talk to think. Anyway, on to the numbers. In the first two days as 'Go Chick Go Free' was in the new releases section we obviously had a quick rise in the number of downloads. The 2nd day peaked at 156 new users (downloads) according to our tracking API 'flurry' (the actual number was slightly larger as flurry may not report details for non-wifi connected devices). Not a massive number, but great for us being new, indie developer. We hoped the trend would increase but to quickly saw a decline to 47 downloads on April 21st :s Now we thought this may be what a lot of new developers experience as the initial release is pushed by being ranked in the new releases section of the app store. But a device which has an install base of millions and only getting 47 downloads a day was shocking. Each day we watched the number dwindle as it reached a low of 15 new users on May 25th. However over the past 2 weeks we've seen a surge from those 15 new users to 151 new users on June 12th. I don't know why this happened, perhaps there was a review on a site which we're not aware of, or simply 'show n tell' between players - hence 'the mystery of the curve'. Either way it's been great to see this trend. We're hoping it will continue this way and we'll be giving more updates as it continues, and sharing our findings. In the mean time we'll be happy to share more in-depth detail. We can send screenshots of our flurry tracking stats showing - active users per day, new users per day, sessions per day, and the user activity per day. If you think these would be useful please download 'Go Chick Go Free' from the app store (www.tinyurl.com/gochickgofree) and give us a star rating, send me an email at '[email protected]' with the user name that you've used to post the rating, and we'll send you detailed screenshots of our user tracking. As we're a new development studio we need all the players and feedback we can get Thanks all and catch me if you have any questions. Martin
It's not getting much downloads because it's a over used concept. Yeah the graphics are cute, but honestly I would never download this. You needed to go for a newer original look instead of just having another cute farm animal game.
You asked for a star rating , if everyone does that then your game would be one of the lowest rated games on the appstore. I think you should change from a star to 5 star rating Lol. Fun graphics and a fun concept I wish your team well.
if you want some "good karma" I'd suggest you simply post those stats right on your blog or even in here It's more likely to get you DLs/reviews doing that than "tit-for-tat" swapping for reviews anyway, and the amount of reviews you'd get from people who wouldn't know what kind of numbers to expect are probably too small to make any difference on your iTunes page anyway (If you have less than a couple hundred, it's fairly irrelevent) A tip, change the name of your app such that the word "Free" is not in it (nor in the icon). This actually is often detrimental to your case, particularly when there is no full or paid version to upsell to. Many users associate "free" in the title to equivalent of "crippled" or "ad-supported" and that alone will cause many potential users to pass right on by whatever it is you are trying to sell. More so, when it is small-time.. People will see the price listed beside it when they look at it anywhere, and it's to your benefit if they suspect it's free for a limited time or something, as they'll be more likely to DL it (even if they never once launch the application) Good luck!
@Mr Ugly - yeah from the research we've done this is really low. There was a spike in the beginning but it's certainly low for a free game. We've had some good feedback so we'll be improving on the next release @Spade - yeah, it is a little overused. We're working on the new version now and the art work is getting an overhaul. Should stand out a bit more. @Yemi - we've had some fairly good ratings so far. Though it's tough to get ratings as you know. We're looking in to a way to incentivise it in-game. 'Give us a rating get a free item' for example. All the best to your team as well @Head case games - thanks for the feedback. yeah, we'll be taking 'free' out of the title in the new release. we'll also be updating the icon as we've had some feedback on this. by the way guys, send me links to your games, I'll check them out for sure. all the best, M
