Ask HN: got to 33 in the App Store. Now what?
It seemed to me like my iPhone card game was making a suspiciously high amount of money per day. Over 100 bucks, four days in a row. So I checked the top paid apps list for my category, and I'm number 33.
Erm. This is thrilling, and terrifying. What should I do? My game is currently $2.99 -- should I make it lower, in hopes of getting higher up the chart? Should I make it higher, to take advantage of my sudden popularity?
Anybody with experience in this topic, please speak up.
38 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 90.3 ms ] threadyou know what, i just looked, and my game is in fact in the top one hundred list in every single country on the app store. my highest ranking is 17, in lebanon. whew!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hearts-net/id353101111?mt=8
of course, it could also go the other way: those people could spread enough ill will that it would hurt my prospects.
But it did indeed work. I forced a whole lot of those 30,000 Hearts Solo players to upgrade. But at this point, that can't account for all of it. The number of Hearts Solo downloads has peaked, and is trending down. But the number of people buying Hearts Net is still going up.
Congratulations. Breaking into any top ranks of the app store is always exciting. I would ask yourself if there is a long-term, after-work, or short-term play here and act accordingly.
I have experience with two completely opposite end of the spectrum apps in the store – one puzzle game that is doing 7 – 10 sales a day on average for ~1yr and one free app that’s been downloaded over 1 million times (after making it free) and makes respectable money on advertising.
Ad rate CPMs are good for mobile, use http://admob.com/ (I spent months testing) and integrate it right on top of the user experience.
EG - FORCE your users to see it.
If you have high application engagement (Eg lots of play) you'll earn some decent money.
Average is $3 - 5 CPM (thousands of views) and if you have a sticky game that can boil down to $3+ per uer lifetime value, which is better than app store.
1. Reduce the price by a dollar. Track for a week, see if profits increase. If they don't jack the price back up.
2. If they do, reduce the price even more, track the profits. If this causes profit to decrease, jack the price back up.
The idea is to figure out where the ideal market price is. It might be lower than you expect.
Drop to $1.99 for two days and see if you continue gaining in rank. We were able to blast past tons of 99 cent apps with Free Audiobooks at $1.99 and get to #2 in Books within three days, so it's not a big deal. Games is way different from books, though, so try $1.99 for 2-3 days, then give 99 cents a shot.
Also, grab Applyzer (applyzer.com) for this, it's awesome- hourly rank tracking for $3/month. If you stall out or otherwise see your rank starting to slide, drop to 99 to give a boost. That recovers your momentum and, after 24 hours or so, you can put your price back to $1.99. There's a LOT more to rank management, but this is how we're able to maintain the #1 and #2 paid positions in Books for weeks on end, barring when Apple features a competitor.
Good luck :)
Assuming of course that it didn't take you a year to create the first.
Is there a smarter solution I am unaware of?
- Cut the price to $1.99.
- Contact as many app review sites and forums as possible and tell them that, thanks to support from the community, you've decided to reduce the price for a few days, and give away a few copies of the game.
- Give the sites promo codes that they can give away/promote for you.
Generally speaking, I've found that total revenue remains about the same regardless of your price. But what you have is a relatively interesting talking point (spike in sales) that you may be able to use to get other people to promote the game for you.
(I've previously had a game in the top 10 paid games.)
With Hearts Solo, are there not better ways to make a trial version of a game than to randomly interrupt a match? Most trial software makes the user aware of how they will be limited - e.g. disabled features, time limits, and limitations on the number of usages.
Wouldn't having a maximum of X hours of playtime (or a similar strategy) on Solo have been more user friendly?
I knew there was a great deal of demand for the game. For example, when I briefly made Hearts Net free, it was being downloaded 3500 times per day. Then I put it back to non-free, and it was barely ticking along at 5 bucks in sales a day.
I looked at things like in-app purchasing and ad networks, but that seemed like a lot of work. I was very frustrated with the experience at that point, and was just about to quit altogether. Doing even more development didn't seem like a good use of my time. So this seemed like the easiest way to stop competing with myself, with the least amount of effort.
Now that I'm getting some encouraging signs, I'll probably reevaluate the situation and see if I can come up with something better.
Half of the short description I see in iTunes describes what the app can't do (no multiplayer over Internet). Only when I click on "more", I see the wealth of features. You could write "play with your friends on a local Wifi" and move the disclaimer to the extended description. Put a feature on top instead, like "robot players are pretty good".
On the website, there is a lot of text, which is good because it shows you care. But make sure the features don't get lost in the details. Make them stand out and list the most exciting feature first. Strong robots and easy multiplayer game setup are probably more interesting than a Default.png graphic. Mentioning Default.png will only confuse them anyway, unless most of your potential customers are iPhone developers.
Also, put the iTunes Store links on the bottom as well, so your visitor does not have to scroll all the way back up.
Just my 2c, I hope you find some of it useful.
It was enough to make me upgrade to the full ($2.99) version after playing for a week. And if users don't upgrade, you still get the ad revenue.
Take a look if you haven't tried it yet.