Marketing (437794)

Unity Engine
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21

I’m not saying that marketing alone can do it. The app still has to have something else on the list, like the game being good or having some brand recognition. There are plenty of games out there by companies like EA that are complete crap, yet move millions of units because it’s EA and they can afford to market the crap out of their games.

Ultimately, yes. Being featured by Apple is the easiest and most common way to make it big with an app. But with almost a hundred apps being released per hour, your chances of being featured, even if your app is good, requires an element of luck. There have been plenty of games featured by Apple that were turds, and there are thousands of great apps that have never been featured.

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Thanks for all the responses guys.

I found a site that will write a review for 75$ and this seemed to help out my
publicity enough to cover the costs and even earn me some money, this site was well worth the money :slight_smile:

and tiny wings is amazing! it really does give indie developers huge hope :stuck_out_tongue:
and I have to agree with Mattimus, that it’s either Luck and a Good game, or Huge marketing and a mediocre game.

Greatness will market itself, but there are many apps that are just good, and well, good apps need marketing I think.

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Well, there are obviously the freemium model and in-app purchase…they should not need too much additional marketing…has anyone had experience with it?
There are publishers like Chillingo, EA and Ngmoco who are willing to publish with a percentage -deal. Do you know others?

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You can’t expect big download numbers solely on the basis of being free. I was hoping for thousands of downloads because I released Cubenaut free, I release right before Christmas, and I hoped to convert some small percentage into sales of the level pack. I ended up with a couple hundred downloads in the first month, virtually no sales, and a slow trickle of downloads since then. For freemium to work you NEED big download numbers and that means advertising.

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Congratulations, that’s pretty impressive! I’m curious, how long did it take for you to start seeing decent sales? Was it successful right out of the gate or did it slowly build up selling more and more?

What did you experience in say your first month?

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Well, so far sales have been less than expected. The game has been out for 6 days now and the company hasn’t provided any reviews yet. I’m supposed to get 30+ for the iPhone and 20+ for the iPad.

I’ll keep you all updated

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I enquired about toucharcade and this is what I got. Doing adspace is pretty expensive and if its not its probably not worth it as the traffic is so low (so watch out for that).

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I’m starting to this I would of been better offusing advertising like that instead of using this marketing company. They are supposed to get me 30 reviews for the iPhone and 20 for the iPad. The game’s been out for over a week and still not a single review.

We’ll see what comes in the next week

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have they said why they havent made any yet?

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I agree too.
Another vital thing is to make a deep search before you start to think an App: you don’t want to unintentionally make a clone of another App wich could probably be better than yours.
And when two Apps are similar, some obvious rules apply. Let’s suppose to have App X and App Y both willing to sell dozilions of copies.
If X and Y do the same things, but X do it better, X has more chances.
If X and Y do the same things, same way, but X has better graphics, X has more chances.
If X does things better than Y, but Y looks graphically smoother and better, Y has few more chances.
If X and Y are two identical games, but X has a stronger name, X has more chances.
This is more or less what Apple says in its guidelines on the Dev Center, and I guess it’s how it goes. :slight_smile:

When coming to indie games, it’s obvious the more it’s in the App, the more people will love it. Think about a racing game, for example. Basically you have some cars, a bunch of tracks, two or three simple racing modes. Nice. Now, think of how many things you can add to it:

  • GameCenter/OpenFeint support
  • Good sensation of speed (this is vital)
  • Better car design
  • Car customization and tuning
  • Cool graphics and effects (both 3GS and 4 devices can handle nice graphics with Unity)
  • Non-boring tracks with interesting sceneries
  • Different wheater conditions
  • Day/Sunset/Night time
  • Destructibile scenery (when needed)
  • Multiplayer local and online
  • Good BGM and SFX

You’ll agree with me, this is a really long work, but I’m pretty sure it will pay for all the effort. All of this will have an huge impact on the final customer. Try to get into their mind! It is developer’s duty to change this: “I choosen the car and the track, ok. Green lights, Vrooom, broooom, end race, yeah.” into this: “Hey, nice car! What’s this track, looks awesome! Ok ready to start… Green lights! Oh my this is moving so fast, hey, everyone away from my path! Is this a jum-- aaaaaaah it’s high I’m going to diiie! BAAM pheew I’m fine…” etc etc etc.
Ok, this was probably a bit exaggerate, but it’s more or less how it works into our mind, when we play!

Hope all this made sense. :slight_smile:

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I’d be very interested in your ROI on using this service!

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Having had 5 features (and one app featured like, 4 times), we’ve also tried press released, using a marketing company, etc etc, it really comes down to existing install base and maximising its potential (so utilising all your existing customer base), and app store presence (features and presence in the top 100 chart).

33

I think Mattimus’ summary is pretty great, although I think another factor is

Breadth of Appeal
To use a pertinent example Battleheart is a great game but it’s a little to complex to have mass appeal. The depth means you can charge more for it but it will probably never get the market penetration of something like Doodle Jump, Bejewelled, Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, etc, because they appeal to a wider audience.

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@jingato: you said: “I purchased the Premium package for the iPhone version and the Standard for the iPad version. I’ll let everybody know how it works out.”
Anything new?

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Two words…STAY AWAY!!!

I spent $4,500 with them and alls they did was submit a couple press releases and make some forum posts…Literally, That’s it.

I figured I was going to be getting my money worth at least by getting 50 reviews done. I know reviews can cost $100 per site. Then last week after I was emailing them because the game was out for a week and I was seeing less than expected sales. At this point I did not see any reviews done yet. Then they went on to tell me that the reviews could take 2-3 weeks on iTunes. I was like, WHAT! On iTunes! Basically they were just offering me 50 ratings on iTunes, Not actual reviews being done. First of all, they don’t have to do anything for that except wait for people to buy it and rate it. Second of all, I could of done that myself for free using promo codes!

I was extremely pissed. I emailed them back and expressed my concerns and demanded my money back. They offered me a %50 refund, which still means I gave them way too much money but it’s the better than nothing. I signed a contract with them. In the contract it states I will get 30 reviews for iPhone and 20 for iPad done by independent reviewers. They said, “It doesn’t say specifically that they will be on 3rd party websites”

I urge everybody to be careful. Definitely don’t use Apalon and be careful before you commit to any other marketing company. Make sure you have the fine details in writing. I had to learn the hard way. But hopefully it can save others from making the same mistake

36

You should push for a refund, or resort to legal threat. That is unnacceptable.

37

Ouch, i feel for you but thank you though, now i know to not hire them. Maybe one should even email them and mention they just shoot themselves in the foot. :slight_smile:

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@jingato: WOW, that is worse than I expected! Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Maybe you can write a new threat with a title like “stay away from marketingdeals with apalon”…summerising your experience…so that more people will be informed? All the best to you!

39

for next Press releases i would try prMAC Extended Distribution

not really iOS related but not expensive.

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@ Jingtango thanks fro sharing man, tough luck :frowning: that really does suck. If I were you I would sue them or something

not sure what the contract you signed with them says but yea.