I apologize in advance if this is an over posted question.
I posted my game on the app store about 4 days ago, and the number of sales isnt great, but it’s my first iphone game, so that was kind of expected. I’m looking for ways to increase the number of sales on my game:
Should I make a “lite” version? I though i read that apple doesn’t like it when developers make “lite” versions, but I still see them in the app store. Are lite versions allowed? I have mixed feelings about having a lite version. Im afraid many people will ignore the lite version, know that it isnt a full game. Im also afraid most people will settle for playing the lite version and then move on to the next game. Also, to make a lite version even fun or worth playing, I’d have to include at least three out of the ten levels. Thats almost a third of the game.
Should i have my app go on sale? Right now, my game is $0.99 and going on sale would make it free. I was thinking making it free for a week would help increase the number of ratings and hopefully the quality of the ratings too. “no rating” looks pretty unappealing in the app store, and i dont think asking my friends to rate my app is really helping. Has anyone here tried having their app go on sale before like this? Also, how hard is it to get on those free app a day apps?
Any other advice on selling an app for a broke student would be much appreciated.
Lite versions are fine, however they only work if the game is pretty good and if the lite version leaves people wanting more. If it has too much content or your game isn’t the sort of thing that people want to keep playing after 15-20 minutes then the lite version will cannabalise sales from the full version.
To be honest, if you can play the game without dying, the game only last 15 - 20 minutes (and the only replay value is beating it on hard and collecting all the hidden weapons.). So yeah, sounds like a lite version is out the window.
Lite versions are welcomed by Apple. You just cannot make them seem like an incomplete product. No greyed out options that are only available in the full game, etc.
As for making your game free to bring in reviews. Many reports suggest it will increase the number of reviews, but reduce the quality a lot. If you want more reviews, a “rate me” pop-up in the app when players have done well is a good idea.
With Obstacle Alley I found a free sale did little for sales, admittedly its not a great game (generally positive reviews but only 3 stars across most app stores).
Other than the launch spike it sold about 50 a week before free, free for a few days and got around 20k downloads, back to paid and other than the first day (approx 200 sales) it was back to 50 a week for a few weeks then faded away (until I made it free permanently).
That said if you aren’t ranking in the charts it can’t hurt to try it.
20k? You do mean 20,000, right? It just seems crazy how much more free apps get downloaded. Well, I made my game free for the next week, til this Sunday. Even if this doesn’t help my sales, I’d be happy to know that 20000 people have played my game. So far, I got almost a hundred just overnight. Hope I can get lucky and get 20000 too.
So to anyone who was thinking about buying my app, now is a good time while it’s still free!
where did you get soundtrack music
If you are thinking of setting your app to free you might be interested in our experience with Crazy Snowboard:
http://iphone.ezone.com/2011/01/free-for-a-day-does-it-work-part-2/
In a nutshell, to get the most value out of a free for a day promotion make sure your app has at least one in-app purchase. Our revenues actually went up by 300% during the free period.
That is awesome