New Game: Free or Paid

Unity Engine
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1

I just finished another game for iPhone/iPad and I was wondering if I should release my game initially as free and then bump up to $0.99 in a week or so.

Anyone thoughts?

2

i would go with free at first. that way you can get some early reviews.

BTW, what is the game? I’d be willing to test and give a review.

3

Thanks. Yeah I was thinking free first too to get those reviews.

It’s actually two games. The one is called Fruit Archery where you shoot fruit with arrows, similar to Fruit Ninja. The second is called Wormhole Control where you steer space ships into a wormhole similar to Flight Control. They are both in review so it’ll take a few days.

In the meantime you can check out my other games if you’d like:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/cape-of-good-games/id470344598

4

thanks :-).

5

Question:
Say you get like 100 reviews with 5 stars on your free app the first week and then bump it up to $0.99 - those 100 reviews won’t help your rating on the paid apps charts ?

6

Not sure. Let me do some research.

7

i’m pretty sure they do…unless you have an actual update

8

That is correct. As soon as you switch back to paid your rank in the charts resets. The reviews for your app are still there.

DreamEnder, does your app have any in app purchases? I’m not sure setting your app to free without any IAP will be beneficial. Generally speaking, unless you do a promotion like free app a day or already have a lot of press leading up to it, you aren’t going to get the tens of thousands downloads needed to really make a difference.

9

Thanks! Just what I suspected.

10

just as on user experience, IAPs really suck. However, from a developer’s point of view, they do make sense. Just keep in mind, if it is a paid app, expect negative reviews for additional IAPs.

11

Well I have a few games that are free with IAP. Nothing stupid like 50,000 gems to feed your monster, but rather upgrade to the full game or extra maps (non consumable). I also allow users to unlock the content by getting high scores.

I guess I’ll just set it to paid. I checked out the free app a day promotion but they wanted $1700 per game. That’s a little out of my budget for now.