I split my promo codes in half... half for gamers in the forums and the other half I peddled to a bunch of review sites. Some I never heard back from or got generic emails, but the ones that responded personally, I kept following up with! I think it really helped that the 1.1 update was a drastic improvement that really flushed the game out. Hell I probably would have passed on reviewing the original version.
Yeah, follow up really works and helps develop a nice address book for future games and updates. So did apple put your game on "New and Noteworthy" before or after the review on the top sites? I am not sure how much the review site would help boost the sales. In my experience getting into New and Noteworthy really pumps up the sales. So the cool sales you are seeing might be coz of that? Just my 2 cents
Our new game Stunt Driver has been bouncing around #50 Top Paid racing for almost two weeks now, but we've only been selling 20-50 copies a day. We have a four star rating out of 24 reviews, but it is extremely frustrating because we can't get any press. It kinda sucks that touchArcade can determine a games success. For example a game that was way below us on the racing chart Boost 3D got put on the front of Ta, and then because of that in the what's hot section on the store and is now in the top 20 racing games. If only we could get some sites mentioning our game.... oh well maybe Its time to give up on indie dev or try to get some intellectual property rights to something like Shrek for example.
Yeah, I would definitely say the sales boost is related to the "New and Noteworthy" status. But I can only attribute being featured by iTunes to the PocketGamer review that helped get Rummage that initial exposure. I mean unless someone Apple just played it and dug it? How do they determine the "New and Noteworthy"? Sales, reviews or just because?
I doubt getting featured by TA is any more or less arbitrary than getting featured by Apple. As for TA picking an app that wasn't ranked as high as yours to feature, that strikes me as a good thing. If review sites only paid attention to games that were already popular and highly visible, they would serve little purpose but to create new feedback loops further amplifying successes. Don't let someone else's good fortune get you down. Be glad that you're getting 20-50 copies a day with a single game. There are a LOT of indie developers that have done far worse, so complaining about this is a bit like the skinny woman complaining how fat she is in front of her chubby friends.
There are a few things that I think is possible. First its possible that peeps at apple do play the game and based on that hand pick some apps. But there is this interesting thing, they got all the data, so they are looking at that and see which apps are HOT. So in your case getting on PG, made your app hot since more ppl went to app store and searched for ur app or simply clicked on that itunes link in that article. Then I guess someone at apple is looking at the list of hot apps and doing the handpick thingy. I also had a app featured in new and note worthy section, so this is my 2 cents @championsoftware I think you might have a pretty sweet game. Brush up those screen shots make the game more appealing I guess. Also, by looking at those shots I have no idea what the game is about and why I should buy it?
#1: Their game was #65 we were #50 so to say that we were way more popular than them is not quite the case. #2: I have watched apps sore in the rankings as soon as a big review site mentions them, and due to that surge of sales Apple can then recognize it too, and even if they don't once you get up high enough the app will sell itself. I'm just saying if only I could get my game some press then it could propel itself up the ranks. #3:It may be true that other indie devs aren't getting as many sales, they probably also didn't drop 10k+ to develop their game. That 50 sales a day is not going to earn a ROI anytime soon.
I bet there are plenty of devs in your position or worse. Come back when you're making 5 sales a day max and trying to cover 10k of development costs. I agree with Stroffolino and his skinny girl with chubby friends metaphor, plenty of us would kill to be making 50 sales a day! People still don't seem to understand that the app store is absolutely not a guaranteed gold mine. Yes there is money to be made but it takes a polished product, a lot of hard work with marketing both prior to release and immediately following release, and a bit of luck
Listen I have made a fair amount of money on the App store(close to 100k), and I've also had apps that only sell 1-4 copies a day. I have sold apps that are completely pointless and took no development time and made $6,000+ in just a couple weeks. To say there is no goldmine is ignorant, you may have to mine several locations, but after enough attempts your bound to strike gold. Frankly one solid application can produce revenue for quite a long time. All that being said I am trying to grow my company and when I produce a solid product I don't just hope it will do well, I plan on it. I don't expect 50 sales a day, I expect 100+. I knew my Lie Detector would kill it, and it made me $70,000, and I'm hoping once this game gets noticed it will have been worth producing too. Remember iSteam? Well I had the first one( Fog Window). They stole the idea from me and made it free. That was back when Apple allowed you switch between free and paid and not lose your ranking so they made 100k and pushed my product out. I have been producing and selling apps for about a year, and just about every single App I have released has made into the top 50 of its category at one time or another (minus philosopher which I made to learn Objective-C). iPhone apps are the reason I dropped out of college, and they are the reason I have an income. You could say I've been lucky and others haven't, but I'd argue you make your own luck. I'm not trying to be the skinny girl saying she is fat in front of her chubby friends, as you both put it, I am a business man who thinks and expects my game can do better.
A good place to buy ad space? Now that my game has gotten a little buzz, and soon I'll see a bit of dough from it, I'll probably looking to buy some ad space on a few sites. Touch Arcade is my goto forum, but what do you guys suggest a good sites to buy ad space on? Some of the pricing is outrageous! I'm looking for something middle of the barrel, maybe $80-100 a month. Thoughts? Also, has anyone tried an ad Facebook?
Are you able to target specific users with your ads? Throwing game ads out across all facebook users will likely end up with most of your exposure being wasted on middle aged women!
Google Ad has similar options than facebook (more advanced), and you can specify the users by gender, age, country... I am trying currently...
I agree, but you have to option of paying per x number of impressions as well. I think for our purpose, paying by click is obviously the way to go. What kinda scared me about, and maybe I didn't understand what I read, but you select your bid per click and throw it into a rotation. But I don't think you're guaranteed that your add gets run with the frequency you'd like. I'd like to hear from someone who's posted a facebook ad how much they paid per click.
