Does anyone know what day the banner ads on iTunes and the phone change? I know that the featured lists change every Monday night, but I haven't paid attention to the banner ads. Thanks!
Ya, everything changes at the same time - on Monday night / Tuesday morning. It actually changes in Europe before the US, so I usually look at the UK at about 8pm EST to get an idea of what's getting featured the next day. Did Apple ask you for some banner art? I'll be looking out for you this Tuesday
I've been doing the Europe check too. And yes, I was contacted late Wednesday night, with a Friday morning deadline. I wasn't given any promises, but they did use the word "love." So, with such a tight deadline and praise, I figure my odds are better than 50/50. I wonder if a banner is worth as much as New and Noteworthy...
Nice - congrats! It depends on which banner you get. Only 4 banners show up on the phone (2 in New, 2 in What's Hot), while 12 show up on iTunes (Top 3 x 2 flips each, plus 6 smaller ones). If you show up on iPhone, you're golden. Otherwise, it's not quite as good as New+Noteworthy. Good luck!
Thanks! Looks like Apple has been taking up one of the phone spots with the tv link for a bit now, so probably less spots available even. Keeping my fingers crossed!
Awesome man, congrats. Depending on the spot, this is going to be HUGE for you. My game "The Creeps!" was featured for a week back in Feb (I got even less time to prepare my art than you did!). Mine ended up being what I think is the best possible spot (on the front page of iTunes where they only show a single featured app, also one of the huge banners at the top of the app store and a big spot on the "New" featured section in the iPhone version of the App Store. I made more sales that week than I have the rest of the year (and I was charging $4.99 at the time!!). I went from relatively unheard of (like #50 in strategy games) the #23 on top paid apps overall. If I was smart I would have dropped the price to like $2.99 and I would have hit #1 easily. But alas, I was not smart. Well, if lightning strikes again I'll know what to do Oh, did I mention, HUGE?!!? Good luck!
Thanks! Hope they pick me! My first game was featured in the #1 spot in the New category on the phone back in August. At that time, the list didn't change for two weeks, so I got maximum exposure with a $2.99 game. It went as high as #12 on the top apps list. Of course, that spot is probably worth a lot more these days. I believe it was worth about 1,300 copies a day in the U.S. in August. Kinda funny considering I made that game in the hopes of covering my car's monthly gas bill. When they contacted you about the art, did they say you were in, or potentially in?
Everything with them seems to be subject to change (just to cover thier butts I think). It seemed like I was in for sure (had no idea which slot of course, just that they wanted to put it in one of the many "featured" spots. But then it took 3 weeks before it actually showed up on iTunes. I had started to think something went wrong and it wasn't going to happen. So don't be totally surprised if it doesn't happen this tuesday, it could be another week or two. I'm pretty sure if they went to the trouble to get your art that they plan on a feature spot. Not only do they use your art to make a a big app store banner (or a medium sized one), but they use it to make a custom product page (colored background with your art instead of just a plain white background). You get to keep that part forever though Oh yeah, and I don't know if it always happens this way or not, but after my week was over my feature wasn't completely removed, it was "downgraded" to a medium sized banner on the app store (didn't show up in "featured" on the iPhone though). Then the next week it moved to "New and noteworthy". And the next week was in "What we're playing". Each week the sales went down, but I basically got 4 weeks in a row of being featured which was pretty awesome! Even being in "What we're playing" gave it a boost in sales.
Yeah I think these things might take a week or two. I was contacted by Apple myself a couple of weeks ago and nothing so far. Maybe it's put into the queue and we just have to wait. I didn't want to say anything at the time in case nothing comes of it.
Yeah, I figured they were covering their butts with all the "potential" talk. That's cool if they make me a background for my page, but as most of the current crop of banner apps don't have that, I won't count on it. Sounds like you got the full boat of support. That would be fantastic, but I'll take anything I can get! Thanks for the info about the possible wait. I'm glad you mentioned it, so my expectations will be properly set on Monday night.
It's the perfect blend, as we represent entirely different segments of the gaming app options. Have some bare knuckle fighting, and then some peaceful Zen puzzle solving.
