I have a few e-mails that guarantee that I won a trip to a third world country, won money in a lottery I never entered, and can increase my penis size three inches in three weeks. They are written in the same language, caps lock and poor English all-in-one. I should forward them to you. (Wait, is that you doing that?) lol oh man, okay, I'm done here - mods please edit this comment if inappropriate (zomg he said 'penis'!) - this guy is too easy. Have fun boys and girls!
Again, I contacted you and there was no mention of TapJoy or Appfund. You keep making statements about what you would have said to any developer that contacted you, but your email to me contains no such information. If it is so important, why isn't that information on your website?
Read the info section below with the press release it's all in there! I am providing a service, I am generating traffic for a fee! If you need to know more about the fee contact me and I will explain our fee structure, our site operates just like Toucharcade we sell advertisement have you seen any pricing here for advertisement? We both promote and advertise app, that's what we do, below you will read "contact us for adverstisement opportunities, you would read the same thing on toucharacade nothing less nothing more! and we give opportunity to small developers with compelling apps by not charging any fee as long as it's their first app and a couple of apps are already lined up and more are on the way! http://freeappaday.com/info.html
Oh, so you're just trying to help? This is all a big humanitarian effort then? I apologize. Clearly I've made a mistake.
This thread was a very interesting read. The problem here is not that people don't understand the product, it is how you are presenting your company. There is no such thing as guaranteed cash in life, and by literally yelling "OMG FREE CASH COME GET IT", you are coming off as a scam artist taking advantage of indie devs. Treat your customers with respect, and present the pros and cons of your service in a professional manner. There are benefits to your products.
Hmmm...Charmed is my first app, with over 20 reviews, 3+ star ratings (not like star ratings have any relation to actual quality), and several reviews on iPhone review sites, but apparently I didn't qualify for the free placement. Are the 2 developers that will get featured for free friends of yours? Just curious.
Thank you for the information on TapJoy. Honestly! That is actually something very helpful and useful for indies or any developer. I'd like to encourage you to participate more in that way and less in the reaching into our wallets kind of way. No need for the ALL CAPS though!
No, it's not there. That's the point. "Avertising opportunity" implies banner ads and site skinning. It does not follow that the main focus of your site, showing free apps to users, is a paid service. Touch Arcade does indeed provide advertising opportunities, but reviews are the main point of the site, and Touch Arcade does not take money for reviews, because it would totally undermine their credibility.
Thanks! but you need to understand that I cannot provide the service for free, this is a business and if the fees are too high there is always other solutions out there, I am not forcing anyone to use freeappaday, if someone offers the same service cheaper, you should definitely go for it!
Wow, lotta controversy here. I didn't know such a high fee was charged for featuring a free app. But having thought about it, I don't think it's a bad idea. Emphasis on idea. Indie devs are indeed a close-knit bunch and I think that's awesome. There's no need to feel competitive; the only competition is getting visibility, and you do that by writing a good game or app, which is all on you, and your peers are all in the same boat. It's an awesome scene to be a part of. Sites that promote your apps do offer a service, and they're well within their rights to charge for that service, and that service can well work to the advantage of those who pay for it. The concept of featuring one game free for one day offers a unique service that allows that game to be heard above the noise by being the only making any. But it's a concept that is a catch-22: The site can't be successful without developers paying for the service and offering up their games for free, and the developer will have a tough time being convinced that the service will give them a decent ROI if it isn't already successful. This is made even harder for the service because in order to be successful it needs to draw desirable titles that people are going to want, and with the App Store such a huge crap shoot, the service needs to be able to price the service low enough to be attractive, but high enough that the dross nobody wants and don't make money can't afford it. The problems with FreeAppADay as I see it are twofold: 1) The price is too high by a considerable amount, at least right now. Being that it is a brand new site with an unproven track record (in fact, a track record that so far is not very promising), ICS really needs to drop the price to attract more developers and offer a better potential ROI. The price can go up once the site has proven itself and achieved sufficient traffic levels, but until then $600 is a lot of bank to drop on something that can't guarantee results -- and ICS can't. Not yet, anyway. 2) The fringe "benefit" of being "featured" for a month after going free is specious at best. As someone already mentioned, people are only going to click on previously featured games out of idle curiosity or boredom; the main, and often only reason anyone goes there is to see what the latest free game is. Furthermore, you're really only "featured" for a month if your free game turns up on the 1st. Once the calendar turns to the next month you're off the main page, so anyone whose game is featured on the last day of a month will be featured for one day. Next day, the calendar turns and they're off the map. Furthermore, the site still needs work. The calendar only shows an icon that tells you nothing -- not even the name, not even in the URL or alt-text. You have to click to see even that much. Once you do, you get one screenshot and a description. I'm sure ICS is still working on the site, but the site still feels like it's a work-in-progress which doesn't really come across as professional. It's a good idea and I'm sure it could work well -- everyone likes freebies. But I don't think it's in a position to command the sort of money it's asking yet. Yes, ICS may have some developers lined up already, but once ROI reports start flowing from those who have already taken the plunge, and if those reports aren't favourable, the bottom could drop right out. Offering cheaper services -- at least at first -- would be more attractive to developers, especially indies, and offer a much greater chance of a better ROI, which in turn can generate more favourable opinions on the service, which can then make the site more popular among both developers and users, which means more traffic, and all of that can eventually be rolled into higher fees as the site is more capable of commanding them. As it is, it seems like ICS jumped the gun.
I don't take issue with your price particularly, although it is more than I would pay for it. You are of course free to charge whatever you like and the market will decide if your price is fair. As I have tried to say, I think you should be more open with the public about what exactly the service is and that it is paid for by developers, and again, the market will decide if they like what you are doing and how you are doing it. Really, what's wrong with that? Unless there is something else unsavory lurking under your business model that we don't know about yet, I think it would be better for you to be open about things. Might you make less money? Perhaps. Might you make more money? Perhaps. I know personally if I visit a website and it won't tell me the price of the service they are offering that I am likely to move on to another site that does.
MindJuice, look, I totally think you're a skilled and passionate indie dev. I bought Charmed way back when it wasn't featured yet, was priced @ $1.99, and everything. Great game & I still pick it up and play every once in a while. You got a pretty epic thread here, which is awesome. But honestly let it go! ICS put up FAAD.com and it's working for him -- even if it hasn't been working for the developers purchasing his service, we all have to understand that any marketing investment is almost always a gamble. ICS is doing nothing wrong, besides being a douche -- but all of us are douchey at some point, so lets not hold that against him.
The idea of gambling is that you have a chance of winning, I think what MindJuice is trying to discern is exactly what those chances are. If they are fair, he'll let it go, if they're not fair... he'll likely continue to warn other developers about the service. Bear in mind he's not just attacking ICS Mobile without reason, he's trying to help them too, because if the devs start to suffer using their service, so will they. The whole thing will wilt and die unless it is done properly.
Hi, I went to the site and found something that puzzled me. Both versions of Navy Patrol: Coastal Defense are prominently displayed as featured apps. If this is being done as a sevice to help developers get a leg up, why is Navy Patrol: Coastal Defense featured in the paid and free categories? Just feels weird to me. David
I get your point, we launched this past Monday, so it's a work in progress and we are improving the site on many fronts and I will definitely create a developer page which will better explain how to best maximize a FreeAppAday campaign, but developers always contact me directly from the site and I always explain them the full process and if they are not satisfied with the pricing they simply don't use the service. I also explained the basics of the solution in an article on pocketgamer last week, http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/FreeAppADay/feature.asp?c=17729 But I see the site as an advertisement platform and traffic generator and it is really up to the developer to find the best way to maximize the fact that I will get you some traffic! I was able to utilize this traffic so I am using my own example, there might be other ways to use this traffic and it's going up to the developers to figure out how to use it and monetize it! FreeAppAday is a traffic provider, that's sums it all up
Except for the fact that both Zombie Pizza and Rope n Fly dropped lower than they were before they went Free. Neither was in the Top 100 of any category. Cocoto Kart Free and Reign of Swords saw a rise, but they were already in the Top 100 to begin with.
I think my last post before yours pretty much summed up what I wanted to say, so actually I was pretty much done already. I don't think this thread would have become as big as it did if he simply addressed the points I raised instead of just offering further advertisements. Anyway...on to bigger and better things!!!
I don't think it would have gotten to 14 pages already if you didn't have a valid point. There are a fair share of concerned people in the topic so it was obviously a bit of a gray area and there were definitely some questions that needed answering. Seems like you did the right thing.
