I have two games on the iOS store and very dismal downloads. Is this because my games suck, or am I just not doing this right? I submitted for review on a few mobile game review sites and nothing…I paid for unity ads to show up in other games and nothing…has anyone found the secret sauce to get noticed?
Luck. Or a lot of money.
EDIT: Or a good publisher.
You could start with links in signatures… If you don’t share your game, nobody else will.
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by importance:
-is your game icon pop out from other concurrent?
-is your screen shot good ? video ?
-did you find good keywords with lower concurent ( aka ASO)
-your game is free or paid ? if paid and previous point are not corrected you would be lucky to have one sale
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Yes - to the second question.
You are not doing this right - because you are not providing a link to your game everywhere you show up on the interweb.
Everywhere you go, and everyone you interact with should know you made - THAT game.
Provide a link and then we can tell you if it sucks or not. Might even provide some advice on improvements. 
I’m on a mission to understand the blackbox that the App Store is. I try to engage with people who succeed and here is what I have gathered so far.
Have Apple approve it through submission process, and then count 3 weeks before you launch the game. Launch it on a wednesday, the day before the store generally updates. Send an e-mail to appstorepromotion@apple.com with a kick ass sales pitch, as soon as it’s approved (not post-launch).
E-mail reviewers with your awesome content (because your content has to be awesome), prior to launch. Generate as much hype as you can online. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, TouchArcade, everywhere that you think will have an impact.
The launch is really important. You want a massive amount of downloads within a short timeframe because this will put you on the charts, and from that point on, you’ll be able to notice a pleasant organic growth. The competition won’t stop to look at how beautiful your game is, therefore you need to keep rocking. Make good contacts, keep a strong online presence, update your game.
There’s no secret sauce man, getting noticed is a full time job.
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The “why” behind most of those seems pretty self evident, except for this one, which has me curious:
What purpose does the 3 weeks serve? Or is this to give you three weeks to do the other stuff you mentioned while you’ve got the keys to the ignition, so to speak?
Amen to that!
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Well, for the most part, since Apple won’t really confirm their inside practices, it’s mostly a case of inserting a variable into their magic secret box and 3 weeks seems to be agreed upon as the variable that yields the best results.
My guess is that the editorial team prepares each weekly updates weeks ahead of when they are released, rather than on the week they are. If you send your pitch on the week it’s launching, most of the App Stores are already done setting up their week. If you send too soon, most likely they won’t have you in mind anymore when they begin preparing the week your app is scheduled to launch.
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