(I’ll be getting a YouTube video up in a few days)
I was leaning towards the price of 1.99. For a few reasons.
it just seems like keeping the price low would incentivise sales, and help making top lists in the Action and Simulation categories.
There isn’t a ton of game time to it, although it is meant to be high scoring challenge (i.e how many flights does it take). It seems to take most beginners about 20-30 minutes to escape. If your good you can escape in about 8 minutes of game play. So i definitely don’t see it as a 5+ dollar game.
Has anybody else wish they released there game higher or lower to start with?
As a side question, how many review sites do you submit your app too?
1.99 is an expensive game. You really need something to justify something other than 99c (awesome graphics, some truly novel and addictive concept, FREE version with awesome conversion rate, etc).
Looking at what you have I don’t think it justifies it (although I could be wrong can’t really tell what the gameplay is like from the screenies).
That said if you aren’t aiming to crack the top ten lists, aiming for maybe a thousand or so sales, price will probably not have a huge impact and you may be better off charging more per unit and selling a few less units.
What are competitors to your game (not just iPhone games) paying for games in your genre at your quality level. This is all about your segment and what they have as an expectation for price.
(lets say its .99)
What value are you offering over your competitors that would justify a higher price than they charge?
(mine looks better, has more levels, and has customization - this is my market differentiator that will justify me increasing the price)
What is your market strategy - margin or mass? Just because yours has more features doesn’t necessarily mean you want to charge more - you may want to go for mass (if you have some reason for doing this like brand building or lifetime customer value - never compete on price, that’s ALWAYS a losing model).
(price up or price down depending on which you’re after)
That’s a 5 minute pricing strategy for you. Its not as complete as it should be, but I may get into some publisher trouble if I post the entire pricing chapter here on the forums.
I guess I ruled out .99 because personally when i go to buy a game I don’t care one bit whether its .99 or 1.99. It also seems like the few sales you may loose would be more than made up by the double revenue on each sale.
Maybe I am underestimating how someone sees .99 versus 1.99. I would have thought by raising a game from .99 to 1.99 you would lose 20ish percent of sales. But from the comments, I see there is some disagreement.
I’ve also read that the top 100 paid lists are price weighted to a small degree. so 90 sales at 1.99 are greater than 100 sales at .99.
This is my first game I wanted to get my feet wet with. While I never planned this to be a big money making app, I still want to maximize the return on this one.
Does anyone have links to pricing strategy articles.
There is no price-weighting in the app store charts, not sure where you heard that. There’s a top-grossing list which goes by revenue instead of volume, but the main “top paid apps” list as well as the individual game categories are strictly based on units sold.
While you personally may not see much difference between $1 and $2, many people do. There are just so many games that are polished, fun and popular that are going for a buck - it’s really the starting point unless you’ve got some extra leverage. I think you can get away with a higher-than-$1 price point under the following conditions.
Your app looks very professional and polished in screenshots. It really doesn’t matter how deep your gameplay is, the app store is a beauty pageant above all else. You will generate lasting sales if your game is more than just a pretty face, but you have to get your foot in the door with screenshots. This is actually the main criteria for whether someone will buy your app at all, not just for a higher-than-average price.
Your app falls into a very specific niche audience. Let’s say you make a somewhat crude looking, but really faithful and accurate… train engineer simulator. There are going to be people out there who are really into that, and probably willing to part with a few extra bucks because its so unique and scratches that particular itch. RPG’s can fall into this category too - I think Zenonia can thank its resemblance to SNES-era RPG’s and that crowd’s fanatic nostalgia for a lot of its success in the west.
You’re an established developer with a proven track record, or the app is already charting very very high (top 10ish). People are more willing to take a gamble on a more expensive game if it comes from a strong pedigree, or if other people seem to be buying it already.
The game just has a lot of content. Even if the game isn’t the nicest looking, it can potentially ask a higher price if its gameplay is vast and interesting. Again, this is pretty hard to demonstrate to new customers on the app store, they’re going to look at screens first and foremost.
I guess I will go with 0.99. I don't think it will cost much revenue in the long run. I don't have high hopes for this game cracking the top 10 charts. Its my first game and i wanted to focus on simple fun game play and learning unity/iphone process. I just want to make enough to convince my gf its worth my time to make my 2nd game
Hey guys, nice thread, a lot of important things in there
A crazy thought! Since the first days of sale are the most important ones IMHO (cause you’re in the new released section) is this a bad idea to make a game free and hope that it gains more downloads and reviews and due to apple’s system, you rank a higher position among other apps, so then you could change the price to tier1 or something like that? I mean, is that a wild risk or a good strategy?
Downloads made while free do not contribute to your position on the paid charts if you switch from free to paid (and vice versa).
Also, I think its kind of a myth that being in the “new release” section actually makes much of a difference. Zombieville was basically never in that list at all due to my ignorance at the time on how the release date setting influenced when/if you appeared, and it didn’t suffer for it.
Did you guys paid for press release, etc.? How about advertisements?
Did you use places like TouchArcade, etc.? Using promo codes, etc.? Do you recommend them at all?
What is most effective thing in making a game successful?
The most effective thing in making a game successful is to just make something good in the first place, no amount of marketing will sell a lousy game. I haven’t really promoted my games much, I mostly just let them speak for themselves and hope to get featured by Apple. I haven’t spent a dollar on marketing of any kind, as I’m pretty convinced it doesn’t really do anything (but I’m pretty cynical).
Being covered on TouchArcade is kind of like being covered everywhere at once - every time we get on their front page it gets re-tweeted and re-posted in a hundred other places, so I tend to post stuff in their forums and hope it generates some interest. We’ve been fortunate that those guys like our games and have thus far given us the front page treatment whenever we post trailers and screenshots in their forums.
I’m also pretty sure that Apple themselves keeps tabs on TA to spot upcoming apps to feature on their various iTunes lists (new and noteworthy, what’s hot, etc.) so the coverage is always welcome. Being in one of those lists is the ultimate goal of any app - Apple controls the overwhelming majority of app discovery in how it populates those lists and what they choose to put in their mass mailings, TV ads, press conferences etc.
