yeah, right now things are looking really good, I just made the Top 100 Paid App list with it =) 92nd there right now.... I must say that it feel quite unreal at the moment, I didn't really expect to make it there when starting off (of course I had high hopes, but I'm usually overly optimistic so...) So, better enjoy it while it lasts... =) (Now if I only could get toucharcade.com themselves to review it... so far it has been extremely hard to get pretty much anyone interested in reviewing it... some exceptions have started to come now lately, like the review I got at www.tuaw.com yesterday. http://www.tuaw.com/2009/11/18/iassociate-mind-mapping-fun/
To clarify, by steady income I mean that I've been able to earn much more than my monthly salary now for a few months in row, before that I was just under it for about a month or so. So yes, my real job does provide much better stability as I do realize that sooner or later my sales might start trending down. But then again, who knows, with the App Store nothing is impossible so until then I know that I will be trying my best to somehow try to get this game further up the rankings, as at least that way I'll know that no matter what I've given it my best shot.
Nice write up on your blog. It's good to know someone is makeing money in the app store besides Apple and the bigger studios... Our story hasn't been so bright. Like you we released our game back in March with high hopes only to be disapointed our first few days out the gate. Then after about a dozen great reviews on varrious sites our hopes went back up only to be dashed again. Our lite version didn't help either. We get great DL's of it but can't seem to convert them to purchases. Perhaps we made it too fun haha. Anyways we can't seem to figure it out. But I'm glad for your success, however my opinoin is still that the app store is all about luck
Yup, reviews help while they're on the front page of their sites but then the effect fades quickly. You have to be visible in the app store which basically means you need to be featured by apple. I think to manage that, your app has to be absolutely excellent *and* have a good amount of pre-launch hype to get an initial burst of sales and hopefully get noticed by apple. The slow steady build-up no longer works now that you don't get the 'new releases' exposure.
COD, Star Wars, Surviving High School and Ravensword have not been featured and are in the top 20 grossing games http://appshopper.com/bestsellers/games/grossing/?sort=position&dir=
COD's & Star Wars' claim to fame is the name, Surviving HS, played it on my cell few years ago..was boring, dunno why people like it lol. RS had a lot of exposure on TA, and, well, it owns
LoL I doubt it has to be absolutely excellent. There have been some total crap games featured by Apple.
COD and Surviving High School are featured (SHS on whats hot and hot games, both on the device). But games like Star Wars already sell by name alone, it's a multi-billion trademark. There is a lot of luck and work involved in being successful on the App Store when you see that even us (Eurocenter) sometimes don't make money, and we had several #1 games in France and 5 #25 games in US.
Good point. I guess they got enough downloads from people searching for the app to push them into the top 100 and then took off from there? Makes sense for Star Wars and Ravensword anyway.
Hehe, I guess you're right! I've been puzzled by some of the featured apps too but usually they turn out to have *something* going for them such as a recognized name or popularity on other platforms.
you made it, congratulations now top 80 in iTunes US -> Games I played the Lite version and it really is a simple idea with a great execution one question - would you kindly tell me (here or via PM) what is the level of sales required to make it to the top 100 games ? really curious about it
Great story and blog reading.. thanks for sharing! Congratulations on your success to this point. I really like your game, it seems like the Iphone was built for this type of word game!
Thanks for this =) I must say that at this point I'm still amazed at the pace everything is going, still no sign of the downloads ending so I'm hoping that right now word of mouth is doing it's job to spread the news about iAssociate and Associate This =)
Your blog posts are really great to read. The trend I'm noticing in the developers that are doing well, is that they are really trying to investigate how customers are responding. It's easy to get into a Wylie Coyote mindset and try one elaborate idea after another; no revisiting or tweaking, just obsessed with our own brilliant idea. The guys that do well seem to be willing to step back and look at what is working and isn't working in their products and keep working on them before abandoning them.
