Hello everyone,
do you have any clue why my game downloads dropped THAT much?
A couple of days ago i was doing 120+ per day, and then suddenly it dropped to something like 10.
Before the begin of the drop i made an update to the game, but i think i have not brought any bugs, just the opposite.
Do you think the problem comes from the update or it’s because the google play algorithm changing again?
When you upload an update it effectively resets a bunch of discoverability algorithms. Also, organic downloads always naturally drop off, it wont consistently get that many downloads forever. Normally a very sharp drop off within 3 months of release is natural.
Its not because the store algorithm has changed, just you updating has affected how the algorithm displays your game + organic decline of downloads.
I realased the game initially on first of September.
At the beggining it was doing like 20-30 downloads per day, then i started to work hard on it and got it to 100+ downloads per day but the last days it dropped again.
So what can I do next?
I think I need to update it today and then to realase updates rarely, to not reset its discoverability ?
Quite the opposite. You need to update really frequently in order to get picked up as a game that does just that. Rare updates mean you’re kinda kicked into a ditch by the algorithm.
Maybe.
See, nobody actually knows how the algorithm works. Not even Google. It’s halfway between trying to make sure Google gets the most money while trying to mitigate the arms race that is nightmarish app spamming.
I have been updating it daily, and from the last update the downloads dropped a lot, and I don’t know why.
I will continue to update it and I will see.
You will need to do some research on whats latest best practise regarding that, as my advice is based on like 2 years ago. I am sure its still the same but just in case you should look into what affects discoverability on play store and what does not.
In general though if you released it as long ago as september, are not paying for any advertising and dont have above 100,000 downloads, its natural for your downloads to sharply drop off after some time like this so also bare in mind there may not be much you can do about it. Mobile is very very volatile in this regard.
Basically, there probably isnt a reason for it other than its not got a masssive user base and therefore after some time will be harder and harder for new users to come by it as there are swathes of new apps every day.
Try not to get too worked up about it, unfortunately mobile is a difficult beast to crack and actually if you were getting 100+ downloads a day at any point then you should consider that pretty decent Fix any outstanding bugs and then take what you learnt from this one and move onto your next project, and aim to get 200 a day for next one
I am on the google play store since 2017 and this year was a great year for me.
Back in December 2018, I realased a game which at the beggining was making 40-60 downloads per day. I kept updating it and in April started the boom.
It was getting 1.000 downloads a day- then 2.000- then 3.000-4.000, 5.000 and was like this for more than a month and reached 250.000 downloads. That has given me a lot of courage for further games.
In May I realased another game which after 2 months reached 80.000 downloads and I promised me I won’t stop until I will reach the million.
I strongly believe this is a good game because people are buying stuff in it (in app purchases) , give good reviews and the ad revenue is not bad and I will continue to update it.
I think I made something wrong in the update and that’s the cause the drop from 100 to 10 , like bigger file size, or lag or I don’t know,I don’t have any other explanation. Last week it was doing very well.
But I will not give up and I will continue to update it and see what will happen.
Ok, so the problem is solved.
It was not the games fault, nor my fault.
It was google fault, the statistics were wrong. Instead of showing 68 downloads, they showed only 6.
Now the dashboard looks like this:
This looks much better, and today is growing even more.
So, if you encounter this problem, just wait and see.
Fix any outstanding bugs and then take what you learnt from this one and move onto your next project, and aim to get 200 a day for next one 