The biggest thing for us so far with our game Cricket Words is to release constant updates. These push to the top of whatever category list your game is in. We put together some data and wrote it up here: http://blog.thinktapwork.com/post/14466606768/developers-rush-to-beat-holiday-shutdown
Jeremy, a very interesting angle. But with an update, won't you lose the reviews of the older version to show right-away in the app store details page for your app (unless the user clicks "show for all versions")? For instance, for my latest game I have several very good reviews, but won't an update of even a minor issue push those out of (default) sight?
Philipp, This is a really good point, but the answer is "not really". If your latest version does not have at least 5 ratings (the minimum in order for iTunes to create an average for you) then your total average ratings will be displayed. So for instance, until Cricket Words had at least 5 ratings for its current version it was displaying the average for all versions (where we'd already had about 25+ ratings). This works perfect on the desktop version of iTunes and on the iPhone App Store. On the iPad it will display this total average in the lists, but when viewing your app they'll have to tap the "All Versions" button near the bottom to see this. Still pretty good and definitely worth the bump in downloads. Jeremy
Jeremy, sorry, what I meant were not the rating stars, but the actual comments text people entered. For example, my current new game has 3 written reviews in the App Store. Won't those be hidden under a "Show reviews for all/ older versions" kind of tab once a new version enters?
What the heck? I could have sworn that apple stopped giving updates any extra visibility whatsoever quite some time ago. In the early days, there were plenty of developers abusing it. But you are right, I had an old game update today and lo and behold it sailed to the top of it's category under "new releases."
Actually giving updates extra visibility made virtually no visibility for really new released game who's name is start with 'C-Z' and gives tons of visibility who's name starts with A or Number. It's very frustrating.
Basically, I agree. Really, these should probably be two separate lists, two separate things. But it's hard to ignore the impact.
Also, is it wrong to reward developers who continue to support their apps by working on them constantly?
I hear you on feeling overwhelmed by the marketing side of things. I am in the same boat having just released my first game on the App Store last week (http://www.invaderzurp.com). I would really prefer to just bury my head in code and let others hustle the product but when you are indie you pretty much have to wear every hat. I think more than anything I have found that indie game marketing is a lot about emotion management. Namely, managing your own emotions . Growing a thick skin, objectively receiving feedback, taking risks, doing things that scare you are all things that I am continually trying to work on that you need to do in order get your indie game out there. As for specifics on how to get your game out there and seen by reviewers, I found Ben Kuchera's recent "How to market your indie games" video to be super helpful: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/12/how-to-market-your-indie-games-ben-kucheras-lecture-at-run-jump-dev.ars
Yup. separate list may be best I also think rewarding developer who continue to support their app is good if they are not just abusing system.
Unfortunately, how do you tell the difference? We've been trying to make every update meaningful, but obviously some are larger than others. Our outlook has been why disappear for three months to create a huge update if we can continually improve our game and continually make our users happier? Honestly, we thought that the App Store was still based on the old system where updates didn't put you at the top. We were surprised to see the results. That's why we wrote it up.
I'm not trying to blame you or your post. And I respect you for sharing good marketing tech. Frankly speaking. we also did minor update two days before But minor update for my paid game didn't increases sale notably. But according to your post for free version and starting with early alphabet. Update can be great. Time to update my lite version.
As a user if I saw your app always giving my app store icon a red badge I'd be annoyed. But maybe I'm not the norm, I hate having badges on my screen
one thing i've learned is every successful game developer has their own 'angle' from which they get distribution (eyeballs). Eg: - a kickstarter project ( No Time to Explain ) - a clone of a hit game that's still very good ( Minecrafted iOS ) - existing fanbase ( Kingdom Rush iPad ) find your "angle", and milk it
Hey slightly off topic but your blog post re: analytics was great - thanks for sharing insight like that. Your heat maps in particular were especially useful.
Exactly. After all, if there was a recipe that would work for everyone, then big-budget studios would be using it (with much bigger reach, beating the rest). For indie developers, being original and finding a niche is much more important -- and much better for gamers too as they get more diversity, right?
I'd be interested in joining something like this, even if it just meant we could check each others games out and post reviews for each other.
I think most innovation comes from low cost development with exception of Japan which has a more diverse audience to begin with (though that's changing). In response to the "angle" comment though I can say that even just looking at the forums and blogs that being able to connect your game to a traditional "hardcore" genre has benefits. Whether point and click, retro, or even a newer 3rd person shooter, it seems easier to talk about those kinds of game than abstract casual ones (unless your a boutique dev like Simogo). We're making a hidden object game (albeit a pretty cool take on it) but have found that while some sites are interested in review, casual games are much less newsworthy on game sites. It hasn't really bothered me much but is definitely something to take into account when deciding what kind of game you want to make.
