In support of Arn & company, Touch Arcade was the first to review and prominently feature Earth vs. Moon. Also, because TA is well respected, it's positive review of EvM established the game's legitimacy so that other review sites took us more seriously. I think the TA forums continue to be a great method of generating interest and attention for indie developers. I'm fairly certain that a number of industry professionals, including other review sites, monitor TA forums for trends, new games, hype, etc. Many indie developers would not have received the attention they did but for the exposure provided by Touch Arcade. To the OP, do not pay for a review. It may be better to invest that money in ad space or other types of of marketing. As True Axis pointed out, review sites will consider your game if it's a quality product. Also, understand your game's strengths and try to pitch it creatively. This is a creative industry and it tends to reward cleverness and novelty, rather than some standard email template.
Actually I find TouchArcade owners and global userbase to be awesomely Indie friendly. Great enthusiasm for every new game, majoritary piracy rejection, serious articles & reviews, etc.. As an Indie myself, I can say that it is an important source of motivation to deliver even greater content than we planned to give. I'm sure the biggest guys in the industry are digging a lot of data from here. As you wrote Arn, Apple themselves might be one of those. I mean there is a crazy topic view-per-minute here, just post a reliable info and your topic will get 1000 views in no time.. I'm sure that a bit graphical overhaul and a global pro revamp would rocketlaunch TA toward the audience of very serious sites like Gamasutra (to help you picture, this site is regularly publishing blogs and interviews from big studios. It's a goldmine for either devs or gamers). There is a lot of potential in here, just because TouchArcade was one of the first real appstore review database in the world.
I can safely say that we have Arn and Eli to thank for making Ravensword a successful game on the App store. Had it not been for that preview back in (August?) we probably wouldn't even have been on the radar. I still owe them a Goblin statue - its being molded right now! Ravensword was certainly an indie project, created mostly by 2 people, so it really shows that TA does have a big focus on indies. The amount of coverage that we've received has been absolutely phenomenal. About the traction issue - we had a thread started perhaps a day before our first preview came out, but really we had no "traction" so to speak, before they actually previewed our game. Thanks TA - for making my home a happier place! -Josh
I think some definitions are in order here: "A review" is an independent analysis and opinion about a particular product. "An Advertisement" is a paid-for display of information about a particular product. The two are somewhat mutually exclusive. A review cannot be paid for and still be considered a review. At that point, it has become an advertisement. Blurring this line can't be a good thing for the consumers. Consumers, as a general rule tend toward trusting reviews (impartial opinion with no financial stake) and mistrusting advertising (paid-for praise with a significant financial stake). And there's no reason at all to beat up on TA for their methods of choosing what to publish about on their front-page. They've been doing a great job of writing about both big-publisher releases and indie projects. They seem to pick the stuff the greater majority of readers will be interested in reading about, same as any journalistic entity. There isn't a magazine or newspaper in the world that could get any kind of sizable circulation (and thus revenue) without publishing about the things their audience want to read about. TA is no different in my experience. Q
Just to say thanks to Touch Arcade for all the previews and review and the game of the month... With out any of that we would probably be swimming in the swamp called the App Store This site is a very important place for devs and gamers. I hope it never changes!
very true. i as a consumer, can honestly say, these blasted $15 itunes competitions have made me get so many apps! most of them i'm glad i got though, as i would never have got them otherwise, though some are actually quite good! also, i review for a site (in my sig) and whenever i get a promo code, i just review it
i just received this: --- I would love to do a review of your app. I do charge $100 for application reviews. I'm sure you have seen my reviews so you know how it works. I will do a great review of your game and then I will give you a link in the description of the video to buy the application. If you could please hook me up with a promo code that would be great also. So just get back with me and let me know what you think. --- i know its tough times; but, pass on that one. this was a major reviewer; have to think twice about reading reviews online.. i think i'll just have to convince arn et al to review my apps (hint hint)..
I get this email almost half the time I send in review requests, and sometimes to fairly big review sites. I'm surprised more people haven't received these...
I can't recall getting that from a site where I personally requested a review, but I do get a bunch of similar emails after sending out press releases through a PR service. Thanks @arn and @Windburn for clarifying how TA chooses what to review. Hopefully you'll like my next game, even if my latest release didn't pass muster.
There is a review site that advertises it's review costs on twitter and has a price list on its website. I was really disgusted when I found out... and unfollowed and unsubscribed RSS feed
There's another review site that I found that offers $10 for each paid review, submitted within 2 business days. they promise that their reviews are unbiased tho.
Scratch that - Just got a reply today asking for $39 "due to sheer volume". (Cue the Droopy dog voice) Poor review sites, too many apps Glad I changed my policy from handing out promo codes to "available on request".
I received a rather unusual proposal yesterday. From my understanding, if you join as a reviewer, you can request for apps, review it on the App Store, then you will be reimbursed your expenses for downloading the game. Any thoughts? By the way, I've received several PMs I haven't been able to reply to regarding reviews. Thank you so much! It will take me some time to reply - I am unusually slow in writing reviews these days - must be the Christmas bug! I also have a number of promo codes up for giveaway, so I'm also hosting contests. Right now, I'm swamped with apps for review, and much as the thought of charging anywhere from $10-$39 per review is lucrative, I am happily doing this for free.
Can you guys say the names of review sites that sent these kind of review? If you do I now which sites to trust and which sites only write for money.
well i dont know which websites charge but i do know that on the website i review for, pocketfullofapps, the reviewers review for free wen they get promo code and/or when they just get an app that deserves reviewing
I think it's best not to name names whenever this sort of thing goes down. That just gives more publicity/traffic to the sites doing this, and any publicity is good publicity in this case. Most of the sites who have to resort to this don't have the traffic to support themselves through normal means, like advertising. Which is why it also doesn't make sense to pay for reviews there. If you pay $50 for a review and then 5 people read it, you're not exactly going to get the sales boost you need to get a return on your investment. Which is why I said in the beginning to never offer to pay for reviews, and never pay for reviews when asked. If you offer $$ for a review to an actual good scrupulous site, they're either going to laugh at you or potentially get offended. And if a site asks you for money for a review, that means they have no traffic, which means that getting a review from them isn't worth your money anyway.
Natalia pretty much sums it up. Nothing good comes from these site so it's best to just let them rot quietly in the corner. For the person who wanted to know what sites can be trusted or not, it is very hard to know these days because some don't state that their reviews are paid for. The only certain ones are in this group-> GotOATS
