The webzine stuff hardly had any impact whatsoever. The following has been a real eye opener though: That sentence is in a VERY fair review on the game at http://touchaholics.com/2010/01/11/the-roadie-review-video/ That guy really addresses the weaknesses of the game and praises the good things. I think it's alright to have a hardrock theme with an action game, but I'm not sure about the market for non-mainstream Metal music to tap along. One of our songs is almost Black Metal, though rather simple. We're not Metallica, after all ))
Then again, even if it was pop music do you think you would've got a lot of people interested? It could just be that it was (unfortunately) a game that people aren't interested in in its current state, or it's too difficult to advertise what the game is about. I actually think your game idea isn't actually too bad, and could have huge success if tweaked a bit and maybe aimed at a different crowd. You could aim it at girls, with the character as a young aspiring singer where you start off in her bedroom and, as you play through the game, you see her traveling along and getting more success as a popstar. You could try licensing some pop songs to go along with it, taylor swift, miley cyrus, etc. Metal fans tend to be quite introverted, but if it was aimed at girls, the word of mouth alone could make the game incredibly successful. You could even end up franchising the brand with specific versions of the game focusing on an individual artist. It would require a ton of effort to do this, but I easily believe that could surpass tap tap revenge as the most popular series of rhythm games currently on the App Store.
I never thought of having an upgrade to full button right in the app. Where did you put it? I thought apple frowned on upselling. Thanks
Apple has no problem with upselling. I have a button on the main menu of my game Charmed Lite that takes you to a screen describing the features of the full version. What they DO have a problem with is showing features in the lite version that are present in the UI but disabled unless you buy the full version. All displayed features must be accessible in some way. For example, let say you have 3 levels in your game. Level 1 is shown normally and levels 2 and 3 are shown "locked" in some way. This is OK if the player is able to access level 2 by beating level 1 and to access level 3 by beating level 2. This is NOT OK if levels 2 and 3 can only be "unlocked" by purchasing the full version. If you only want to provide one level in your lite version then you cannot show the other levels. The game must be complete and playable in and of itself. Note that the above applies to games without downloadable content (DLC). I believe that games with DLC can show locked levels and when the player tries to access them, the game can ask if he/she wants to buy the level.
Ah okay. For example: lite version has 10 levels and ends (with no mention or visibility of other 40) full version has 50 levels okay to mention this fact along with a button to the full version? Thanks
Yes. In Sniper Strike Lite, I put a full screen ad advertising that there's an additional map and features in the full version along with 2 buttons: 1 to buy the full version and 1 to return to game. Alternatively, I've also seen this scenario approved by Apple: In the lite version, show all weapons/items available exactly the same as in the full version. However, in the lite version maybe you can only earn 1 gold per kill thus making it nearly impossible to actually buy the better items. I'm sure some variation of this can be tweaked to work for levels as well.
@EssentialParadox Thanks for your feedback, those are pretty good ideas! The ton of effort (and money) being the crux here. After the financial H-bomb with The Roadie, we'll try a different approach with our next game, which will be out pretty soon, in a month or so, I guess. But if one of our future games hits the jackpot, building on The Roadie might actually become an option! Thanks again m8!
Hi Shentloc, I want to say that I really like the video on your page - very funny! I'm no metal fan but I like funny stuff, so I believe a video like this put on the right sites can give a good impact into sales. This guy reminds me so much of Hoagie from Maniac Mansion: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/234085-hoagie_large-252x300.jpg
Hi, my fourth game just got approved, and it will be released tomorrow. I want to know what I can do now to help my game get some visibility and some sales. unlike my other failed attempts at making a "great Game", I know this app is really good, and the concept, gameplay, music is (hopefully to everyone) great, but everyone in a blog, forum (etc.) just don't seem to care. am i pitching my games wrong, or do I suck at marketing and making game concepts. this honestly should not be a problem for me. If I can sell music, I should be able to know how to properly sell an app too.
Heya there FancyFactory! Would you happen to have a recommendation on where to post the video? I mean, apart from major sites like Vimeo and so on? Thanks! Stefan
I had different results from a lite version and from advertising here on Touch Arcade. No 500% for me. I tried two separate times to put out a lite version. The sales for the paid version didn't change... at all... either time. The first time I thought maybe I was giving away too many levels for free, the second time had the "buy full version" button in the game on the main menu. So that was a total bust for me. I advertised on Touch Arcade. It made zero impact on sales. Then afterward I realized that Touch Arcade had already run a few articles on "The Creeps!" and those did make sales spikes. In fact, I think pretty much all the regular TA readers who would have gotten my game had already gotten it when they saw the articles (which were free). So running the ad was basically preaching to the choir...
I think most will agree that the number of "impressions" it takes to result in a sale is much higher for advertising than it is for press articles or word-of-mouth. So, you just need to advertise more
Definitely haven't seen the increases in sales from releasing the Lite version, yet, but I keep my hopes up. I have faith that, eventually, the right people will notice RWS and people will find it. In the mean time, I just do everything I can to promote.
What is the name of your app? I wanna to tell the story of our last release. Not long ago we released our new game Car Troller - traffic regulator for iPhone. We were expecting that the game would be approved approximately on January 10. But... Apple had another opinion and the game surprisingly was launched on December 29. It was hopeless to send out press releases on December 29 or 30 (all journalists were on vacations) so we did it on January 7, in another words, when Car Troller has already went down in the list of fresh releases. So this unexpected step from Apple made my task as PR professional much harder...
Apple approved the game on Dec 29 and released it on Dec 29... It was too late to make changes... Anyway, the game is out now and we have already had some positive reviews I just wanted to give notice.
I see, personally I prefer to set the availability date some time into the future to make sure I have everything in place before the release. ...not that it helps.
