As you know appventcalendar has caught a lot of eyeballs. I also want my game and my website be concerned just like appventcalendar. Does any developer of you have the same thought? Or does anyone have any other better idea? __________________________________________________ Ford shocks and struts Toyota quick strut Nissan quick strut
go ahead and create one, no one's stopping you be aware that there are many such sites right now, and fighting for attention is already quite hard. you need connections and spend some $$ advertising (just like anything) to plow to the front of the pack - and of course a good-looking and well-maintained site to boot. It's a lot of work. if you just "put one out there" and expect that anyone will notice, well, then it's a lot like trying to sell something on the app store.. __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com Enjoy Tetris & Bejeweled? You must play 180! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com free daily apps, rankings, & contests!
aren't there already enough of thoose around? like posted before feel free to start "just" another free service.. its not like there are a lack of idevice owners who would love to get even more free stuff.. because spending actualy money would defy the natural law of the appstore.. /end of rambling
Free app sites have already severely damaged the App Store economy, much to our detriment; why would we want to make it worse?
I would not suspect things are quite THAT horrible (such that the existence of free app websites is absolutely ruining an already-messy situation). I guess it has been pretty well-proven that people generally are easier to grab things when they are free (or at least, many folks will wait for a price drop/free promo). I'll maintain that with proper presentation and promotion on the part of the developer and sales folks, you can still generate enough interest to pay a "reasonable" price for something. If there's a situation where tons of no-name apps come out that look like they are all generally slapped together (which is often the case), I think people can be forgiven for not jumping to scoop them up anymore. __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com Enjoy Tetris & Bejeweled? You must play 180! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com free daily apps, rankings, & contests!
Well the appstore landscape changed quite a bit over the last years. Its a new market which is quickly changing but there is a direction for undervaluation of products. With so much free stuff alot of people are even complaining about .99cent games like angry bird haloween edition.. it should be free, should be an update, should be up my ass. Except all of this free which doesnt work anymore the way it did last year when it started. Possible the developers should make a different stand.. Instead of free promotion one could make a "rise of tge price" promotion.. I had an idea for quite some time that i would love to see the outcry If a big enough group of developers with high profile enough titles would just set the price higher.. For example instead of .99. Its 9.99 or higher. The app sotre has one big flaw, thats not bad developers, thoose are everywhere, but cheap customers who want everything but even spit in your face if you charge them .99 Buts its not the fault of the customers, its the fault of the developers who joined the rush for cheaper games. Selling under value. This is a dangerous circle and i always hope it gets broken by games like infinity blade or different high profile non gameloft titles.
But that lies the problem. Who wants to make a stand for the sake of everyone else? Putting your game at $9.99 will almost guarantee lower revenue (even Gameloft lowered their starting prices to $6.99). The reality is, the app store will continue to morph into its own creature, and regardless of devaluing apps or whatever else happens, there is still plenty of money to be made in the top 500-750 spots at low prices, and even RICHES if you can reach the top 10 for any decent period of time. Sadly, it is what it is at this point. So now, we can choose to adapt to this new environment and hopefully make money, quit because we think its not fair, or try to stand on principle and make no money (in which case you will likely have no effect -- people will just temporarily complain about your price and then move on to something else). Ultimately, this is a business and many people need to make money to survive. Take the free campaigns for example. Whether you think it devalues apps or not, we have done it twice with N.Y.Zombies and both times it has increased our sales by 7-800% over the short term, and still by a small % even long term. Its one of the few ways outside of getting featured by Apple that you can guarantee 100's of thousands of people will have eyes on your app. Same thing will sales. Its now a fact of life in the app store that sales usually = temporarily more money. Everyone, from Gameloft, to EA, to PvZ, etc go on $.99 sales. As much as it might suck to put the game we've been working on for 6+ months on sale for a measly $.99, you almost have to (as no matter what, there will always be a huge portion of people holding out for that sale that you will miss out on if you don't do it). Anyway, on topic I'm not so sure another free site will be all that great unless it has a specific catch to it.
when I started out on this venture, as many other devs (I'm sure) said to themselves, I did the same "no way in HELL I am every gonna charge a measly .99c for anything I make.. much less give it away for FREE, maybe just lite version if that." Now of course a lot of time has passed and we all know how that goes. Fact of the matter is the rules are different in here and we must play by the rules. I look at it as mostly "getting your name out there" in the short term, building up a brand and the value therein, and that will definitely lead to something. the mobile market is not going anywhere, it is growing with ridiculous speed by the day (I heard there's something like 50 THOUSAND iPhone sold on a day to day basis?) Even though only a small percentage of those new adopters are going to surf the appstore, that still explains why games like Angry Birds can still move soooo many units all these months later. Word of mouth, and feature by Apple, are quite powerful things. The App Store is a different game. Trying to get in and making money is a losing proposition, unless you are just a combination of lucky, genius, and probably already a bit rich. But putting in some stakes for the longer haul is a more sensible notion, and much more likely if you play your cards right That being said, price low. Go free. Get your app out there, get your name out there. Once people recognize your brand, once (God please you have YOUR OWN STORE in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people's handsets, then you can start to expect to make a little nice cash. Pricing at premium numbers right now is just gonna make you look out of touch, unless your name rhymes with Smacktivision. __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com Enjoy Tetris & Bejeweled? You must play 180! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com free daily apps, rankings, & contests!
well probably no one will, why should they. it would only work if the top players would do that.. if thoose games everyone wants raise their prices.. not thoose thousands of crap indie games no one is interested into the first place. the appstore is the way because "we" the developers made it this way. but the appstore itself shows that it can be different. why are ipad apps in general more expensive than ipad version.. its surely not because a hd version is 2,3,4times the work of the iphone version.. its because the climate on the ipad store front is still well "normal" one of the biggest selling games in the last months was cut the rope.. a huge sucess that sky rocketed the charts. it is one of the most polished games i've sen on the idevice.. but why is the ipad version twice as "expensive" as the iphone version? the art was done once, the code is the same, levels are the same.. the hole content is the same.. so why? there needs to be reason. would cut the rope be worth 1 dollar? yes. 5 dollars? yes. 10 dollars? maybee. 15? possible. whats interesting is the grossing chart not the sale charts.. here in germany modern combat is 26th on the sale charts but place 5 on the grossing chart.. and since money is all mankind cares about the grossing chart is the important one. so would mc2 sell 7 times more units if they would drop the price to 1 dollar? i hardly doubt that. maybee it will rise to the top10 of sales.. but that doesnt mean it will earn more money. i diasagree, the developers and customers are thoose who form the appstore.. and the only one providing content is the developers.. either you stand for what you are doing or not.. there are a few developers who never droped the price of their product.. we don't know their numbers but can they be so bad? would they not droped the price if it was so? i can only assume. at the end even apple is rather featuring a game that cost 5 dollars than a game that costs 1. and sure there is always money to be made.. somewhere somehow.. i don't even want to earn more money.. the money avaiable is limited the market is limited.. but with higher prices for quality, there would be more quality.. of one knows he would never sell for 5 dollar he calculates his project based on 1 dollar etc. its double edged.. price dumping doesnt help anyone. it never did. i would assume possible a single digit of the appstore developers are here to make a living out of the store because for the top500 apps there are some hundred thousands others who are not sold at all.. 99% of the appstore is noise created by hobby developer flodding the market with crap. who knows how many diamons are burried under the hundreds of thousands of app which no one every tried to bother with. well percentage means nothing.. if i sell one copy a day and then 8 copies a day i have a short term boost of 800% , so what? i think the free promotions are in general pretty much useless for most of the apps appearing there.. sure you get a sucess story for one or the other app but they usualy did quite well before anyway. also all thoose promo sites are just covering a fraction of the actual customers.. most don't frequent either sites like touch arcade, faad or any other. i think going free is a bad sign one could do.. but this is my personal feeling well like i said earlier a sale doesnt automatically mean more money. and if people are holding out for the next .99$ sale one should clearly state that there will be no sale, no pricut, it is as is. if there are alot people who are holding out possible something is missing they want to see in the game.. or they are just cheap. i personaly rather have 1x5$ customer than 5x1$ customers.. because you are engaging differently to an expensive product than a cheap one.. well the appstore is a new and quickly changing market and apples tries alot things to help developers to form it. why not? from your standpoint it helped you. so getting a spot on faad is limited. there are only 365 slots avaiable a year.. so just another site would add a few of thoose slots. all this started with a novel idea.. and ended up in a pretty mess imho. at the end i can only conclude.. if you have a great product you neither ned free promotion nor a pubslisher or anyone else.. you can be successfull on your own.. if you product is crap.. no one will help you to sell it.
no one cares about your name, no one cares about your brand. people don't even recognized the developer of angry bird when they went solo?! if someone has a premium game why should they not price it that way? if people want something they will get it.. do you think a game like infinite blade will not sell at 10$ or 20$? maybee it will not be in the top sales chart but in the grossing it will be. what i find ironic is that you price 180 at 2,99.. if that is not premium for this little game then i don't know what is.. so how will your costumer feel if you charge 2,99 now and go soon free with the next free promo?
of course a name has value, a brand, a franchise. it just depends on the name that is associated with the game. Maybe "rovio" didn't have as much cachet, but "chillingo" sure did because their name was plastered all over angry birds. the customer doesn't know the difference between the dev and the publisher, but they will recognize the name of whoever made it if it is displayed prominently (and often) enough. Same case as EA, gameloft, etc. As for why not price a premium game at such a higher price? go ahead, but who is gonna pay $9.99 for anything that doesn't look like it's worth at least $30 and has a reputation to boot? Yeah, some fanboys and curios will grab it, but still not enough to be worth the time and effort. The truth is that customers are way too pandered to by us devs with such a tidal wave of product (across the entire spectrum of quality). Ask "average" mobile gamers and they'll say the same thing still "I play 'real' games on 360, I'll just play free stuff (or highly-talked-about stuff) on my phone.." As for pricing 180 at $2.99 - what can I say, it's always an experiment! To be honest it's making a lot more money at this price than it does when it's just a buck. Do I fear "igniting the ire of the populace" if I choose to do something to promote it in the future? I'd like to think that I am so small on the radar that no one would even notice, and that I've done enough in the community (between previous promotions) to justify trying to get a little more exposure. If I get a bunch of hate mail/1 stars then I'll know if I was in the wrong, but honestly you get 1-stars just for existing these days, really.. __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com Enjoy Tetris & Bejeweled? You must play 180! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com free daily apps, rankings, & contests!
Way to go. It's all about experimenting and actually doing something. It's easy to debate and complain about the price of games and what people are willing to pay for a game, but actually testing out theories is the hard part. Every experiment we try out and then report back to the community educates everybody and raises the bar collectively!
hehe but there is no chilliongo plastered all over angry birds.. its clickgamer one of their labels they use.. and in the starting credits you see a big rovio sign but still no one puts rovio into account and thoose are mostly publishers not developers, they where big names even before the appstore. customer know them because they are around for a long time. how will you as a single entity reach that? you won't. why do you aim for something you will not reach? why don't you aim for something you can reach? products build a brand not the other way around. if you don't have a good product nothing will help you build a brand. well you contradict yourself.. you are pricing your game for premium (in comparsion to what you have to offer). it doesnt need to look 30$ .. it has to look like 10$ if you charge 10 and thats the problem..if one feeds the troll he gets used to it. so you offer him a 20$ game for 1 dollar and he gets used to it.. then he doesnt differ between indie and million dollar companie.. why should he .. he is going to spend the same .99 cents on this game or that one. as for gaming habits.. most ios gamers i actualy know do not play any other platform anymore (or ever) they are comfortable with the device (usualy an iphone) and play on the go.. well sure you earn more money.. your sales are low, so your volume doesnt rise but youre income.. thats what i wrote in lenght about.. you don't need to price your game at 1dollar you can set it higher and earn more than before.. its only if you are already flying high that a sale can boost your overall sale dramatically.. i would have loved to be informed by apple back then when my first app was featured by them.. we werent aware back then that something happens till we took a look into the sales numbers at the end of the week.. and you get a one start rating for making a spelling error well like i said many time good luck.. i think personaly you waste your time and should get onto the next game (i know hard as an artist without an coder) but thats the way it is.. hanging onto something doesn't make it better.. using it as a test ballon is ok i think in your personal case only a new game would help and to get back to the topic. how about a 99$ promotion.. people might think its .99$
whaat! i'm shocked.. no way.. keep what you've learned to yourself and make money with it consulting other companies.. you can't make knowledge free theese days look at the uber expsnive colleges in the us btw this robo arena game is it anything like robo rally?
Haha, actually yes it's quite similar! Robo Rally was one of the very best board games ever! Imagine Robo Rally with up to six players- different turn based game modes like capture the flag, assassin, and others. Throw in some Gunbound style avatar costumes. Add in a growing inventory of virtual goods and level packs (pirate island, ninja castles, icy age, the moon) and you've got a picture of what Robo Arena is gonna be. We've been busting our tails these past few weeks with implementing the graphics and tile sets, so I should have some sweet screen shots to share with you all in a week or two! Teaser video will follow.
now this sounds interesting, if you need a honest beta tester who will probably shred the game to pices let me know.
