I think the download theory is correct and here to stay. Here's why: - The app store is a break even thing for apple, according to earnings reports. - Apple makes it's money by selling hardware and dominating the cell phone market - The App store is apples best defense against competitors, mainly because if your interested in apps your going to buy an iPhone So looking at it from Apple's point of view, having an ecosystem of incredibly cheap and free apps is the best defense against competition. And if that means encouraging most developers to give away their apps for free, then fine. Free content means more hardware sales, further entrenching them as the dominant player. And the developers caught in the middle, unable to earn a profit? Who cares, not our problem.. Callus, but consistent with everything we've seen up until this point.
Thanks for the confirmation, Knight (7 cities is another great game BTW)! That's a great data point and shows that going free *after* Apple closed the prior ranking loopholes is very likely adding into the lifetime sales total. As for dropping to 99 cents versus free... personally I saw a 20x increase in sales when I went to 99 cents from $2.99. But my understanding is the jump for free downloads would be at least an order of magnitude greater than that. Which would give practically unfair advantages to those who make their app temporarily free. I agree that free for a limited time may not make sense for older apps, but it might actually be attractive for very recently released ones. If they are just comparing one big download pile to another then you're not getting much. If they are lumping paid and free lifetime sales together, then dividing by the length of time the app has been available, you'd get a pretty decent boost from 100K free downloads picked up in the first few days or weeks of an app's existence in the store. We might be in position to see some results over the weekend, once Compression gets back into the paid charts... Slipster216- Just noticed your post as I was finishing mine... That's a very fair analysis of Apple. They're in the hardware sales market, not the software (OS-X, iLife, iWork) or content (music, movies, apps, books) market. These are merely tools that let Apple sell more hardware to the masses!
Already did this morning. Half as a test, to see if a new app, with 100,000+ free downloads will jump in rank, and half because I was tired of it being free. Judging by the jump my competition may have gotten from their free downloads, I think it may actually need more like 500,000 free downloads to make a difference. A more interesting question is, what would happen if I made TanZen Lite, with over 1.5 million downloads, and 1.5 years on the store, paid? #1 paid app in the store?
Well, that would be the true test of this theory then, wouldn't it? I say do it; I mean, what have you got to lose?
Oh, there's plenty to lose. TanZen Lite has a very long standing, strong free ranking, which is instrumental in the success of the paid version, as I get a 10% conversion rate most days. Plus, switching a Lite version to paid has a certain level of negative public feedback associated with it, both from developers and customers. If this loophole happens to be true, then the ire of every paid developer will be fixed squarely on me as a Lite version takes over the App Store, in an obvious attempt to take advantage of a hole in the system. No thanks!
For some reason all I can picture is a polar bear doing a "Dr Evil" impression, with pinky at lip: "One Millllion Downloads!" Glad to know you're not seriously going to take over the world, er, I mean the app store!
I can't fault anyone for taking advantage of a system so broken, personally. Still, I totally understand your reservations; if the lite version is driving sales I'd leave it alone. So the question is who's got a lite version with millions of downloads and a dead paid version willing to run a little test?
LittleWhiteBear won't be taking over the world today I guess. You guys certainly made out VERY well with Wild West Pinball due to this lifetime sales weight factor... I mean you jumped from completely unranked in Top Game and Top Apps charts to appearing in both. Probably up hundreds of places, overnight. That is just astounding! http://www.topappcharts.com/310158471/app-details-wild-west-pinball.php
Take a look at the link I posted... You were around 112 in Arcade games, and unranked in Top Games or the Top 100 overall, and BOOM, the weight of 3 million downloads and an ill-advised algorithm change you're back on top of the world again Edit- or at least about 80th in the world, which is good enough for most of us!
#3 in Simulation Games on Jul 22, 2009 #19 in Arcade Games on Feb 5, 2010 #45 in Top Games on Feb 5, 2010 #81 in Top Apps on Feb 5, 2010 <--- it's not true, we early reach top 50 on 36 place.
Actually the ultimate strategy will probably be a free app for "launch week", then switch to 99 cents paid, and pepper in some DLC as well. Assuming this all remains in effect. And assuming they also use length of availability on the store in this calculation. "Compression" may help tell us that once it's charting again.
From what I can see something seems to be applied nightly. GTA will see a small increase in rank during the day then some time around 2am it will drop 6 spots. This has happened for the past three days. The opposite is true for the original Tap Tap. It gets injected into the teens falls down to the mid twenties late at night and then is up to the teens again the next morning.
