If you missed the pre-game buzz opportunity

Your numbers are misleading, as others have pointed out, but yes, Apple has pretty much publicly confirmed that they read TouchArcade. They have to wade through a gajillion apps like the rest of us to find the gems, and TA is a very helpful tool for doing this.

 

Agree 100% with nattylux. No doubt in my mind that Apple reads Touch Arcade.

 

'They' are definitely amongst us... on a totally different note, did I tell you guys how much I love Apple?

 

I'd like to see where Apple "pretty much confirmed" that TA is a major factor in what they choose to promote. While there are many fine games that end up getting featured by both TA and Apple, that's to be expected. Many movie reviewers generally agree broadly on what is good/bad, too. I see little evidence of cause and effect in either direction. There are many titles featured by Apple that don't generate buzz here, and also many games that have been promoted by TA that have never been promoted by Apple.

 

360iDev keynote by a former Apple evangelist. TA was mentioned specifically by name.

As an aside, I very strongly recommend the 360iDev conference to all developers. Best conference I've attended. Next one is in San Jose in April, and it's very cheap. And TA will be sponsoring the game jam, which is an all-night codefest where teams try to create a game in a single night.

Getting back to the topic at hand, TA is indeed a very powerful tool for getting the attention of your users and of Apple. But it's certainly not the only one. There are a LOT of blogs writing about iPhone apps, and you should be writing to all of them. Then there's the general technology blogs, gaming blogs, etc. It's harder to get their attention, but it never hurts to try. Then there's Twitter, Facebook, promo code contests, etc. You need to pretty much try all ways to get the attention your users, and there are lots of creative ways to do that that most people probably haven't even thought of.

And finally, I've said this before but I'll say it again - the most effective use of our marketing money has been for going to conferences and meeting people face to face. You learn way more at the conferences that you ever could by just surfing the web. And people (bloggers, Apple, users) are much more likely to pay attention to you if they've actually met you in person.

 

Look I never said Apple isn't aware of TA, or doesn't read TA. In fact, I'm positive that they do because it wouldn't make sense if a company wasn't aware of the community they are responsible for.

I was simply responding to the claim that, "Whatever is popular on TA, will get featured by Apple." Which is not the case, at least not 100% like the poster was insinuating. Of course good games will get featured by Apple, and of course good games will become popular on TA. What you have to realize is that TA is not the portal to being featured by Apple.

Also, 9 million page views is not the number that should be talked about, its unique visitors that should be talked about.

If I was to guess how many "page views" the app store got a month...well, 9 million would seem like an awfully tiny number.

 

No, you were responding and quoted this:

Which just says that Apple "watches the forums pretty closely" and a lot of the stuff featured here ends up being featured by Apple. Which is true. It never once implied that featuring is guaranteed.

But hey, if you have a more direct channel to Apple, feel free to use that instead.

 

For what it's worth, RocketFuse was featured in both What's Hot and New & Noteworthy well before I registered for TA, and we've never been officially reviewed. We were only unofficially mentioned in the forums recently when we dropped our price for the Christmas and New Years sales.

While TA may be factor, it certainly isn't the only one. =)

 

Just to be clear:

1. I never implied being discussed or written about on TA was a guarnateed way to get Apple's attention

2. I never suggested TA is the only way to get noticed

I was merely noting my own observation that if a game has a thread in these forums that generates a lot of page views and a lot or replies for a couple of days or more that is often seems to get Apple's attention. It's certainly not the only way and it's definitely not guaranteed.

Cheers!
Q

 

Ok, like most people said, you just missed one part of the promotion. There are still lots of other ways waiting.

Currently I am trying to promote my app TypeToGo. I've submitted my app and promo code to a dozen of review sites yesterday. None of them came back to me yet.

So far I can see posting on popular forums like TA definitely helped my downloads.

Doing some ads on AdMob is the last thing I want to try.

 

Wow, 4 reviews! It looks like a successful promotion to me.

Thanks for the suggestion about AdMob. I will do some research before giving it a try.

 

I just got a PM from Amelia about this thread so here are my thoughts...

1. You need a YouTube video to go along with all of your announcements. Show what the game is like when you share it so people know what it's like. Seeing the game in motion does a lot more than a description.

2. Do some press releases, and do a second release if/when you do a major (pretty major, not 1.0.1) update to get people interested again. Prmac.com is perfect for that and it's super cheap.

3. Watch your price points - you're a new developer and this is your first game, $4.99 might be a bit high to shoot for (as trends in the app store show) in terms of people not knowing who you are/what your products are like

4. Just keep talking about it. The more places you go, the more people see it, the more they want to give it a try

5. When you do an update you get 50 more promo codes, use them through contests, twitter follow giveaways, etc.

All of this should put you in the right direction, especially if you have the time to do it all.

Good luck!

 

Sure, take a look at the one I wrote for our Advice Generator:

http://prmac.com/release-id-9145.htm

You have to make it exciting, fun, interesting and unique while still giving the needed information. Of course it's unfortunate that nobody really bought the app since it's a little TOO weird (and not a game) but it actually helped sales for our How Am I Feeling? app since that has a lot more general appeal.

Edit: Also, if you don't want to write one/have cash places like appency.com will write one for you

 

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. It's hard promoting an off-the-wall humor app, trust me on that, I'm sure you'll have a lot of success with Running With Scissors