App Ready For Launch: How Important Is The Release Date?

General (non-technical) New Apps / Works in Progress
#1

Greetings,

After two years of development, my app called Swizzler recently was approved by Apple and is ready to be released on the App Store. Swizzler is a math puzzle game, and is advertised on my website: http://dccreationstudios.weebly.com/swizzler.html

I was intending to manually release my app a couple of weeks from now until I read some statistics online that suggested the least favorable time of the year to launch an app was in August, September, and October. I am now considering waiting to release my app until November/December time frame in the hopes of getting more downloads.

Unfortunately, this puts me in a bit of a dilemma: obviously, I would like to see my app get as many downloads as possible, but at the same time I am impatient to get it out the door and do not really like the idea of waiting another 3+ months before releasing it. Has anyone else been in this situation, or may be able to offer some suggestions/comments about what they would do in this situation? Thanks in advance for any feedback!

#2

There are countless variables at play here and there is no single right answer and while getting release date right is important, it may not matter in your case.

From your message, I’m getting the idea that you haven’t done any marketing yet nor have you actually announced a release date? If so, then there’s really no one expecting your app, there’s no hype for it and it won’t matter if you release it now or in 3 months. Without any marketing, it’ll probably get lost in the app stores either way. So, if you haven’t done any marketing yet, maybe consider doing some first and then release the game.

As for the “best time to release”, are your statistics about mobile games or PC and console games? As someone who lectures on statistics, I personally cringe whenever I read things like “…I read some statistics online that suggested…” without any references :smiley: But, the biggest PC and console titles tend to release around the end of the year (or the start of the year) for the obvious reasons and it means that the end of the year is more competitive. For an indie developer, it may make more sense to launch during the “off season” to avoid having to compete with major publishers and their titles.

#3

Do you have any promotion strategy in mind?
The date is what matters the least, just release when you are ready

#4

If you think your release date will in any way affect your launch then you are sadly misguided.  I think you are confusing indie with AAA… when you release will make zero difference!

You will get almost 0 organics irrespective… welcome to the real world.

p.s. your link just 404

#5

Let me add a little non-game industry specific information I learned in my economics classes way back when. There is a term called “Opportunity cost”.  When when explained to us, was if you expect the cost to go down on an item in 3 months from $100 to $75, you can wait and save $75, but in that 3 months will you get $25 in usage or more? If so it make sense to buy now.

While the example isn’t directly related. If you release your app now you may make $X. If you wait 3 months  you may make $Y but is $Y-$X worth not having the $X now?

Now take all of that and figure out what kind of marketing you need to do. Will 3 months of pre-release marketing improve your income greatly? Maybe, it depends on your marketing chops.

Rob

#6

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this topic so far. The source of the statistics I referenced previously is provided below. Sorry this was not included in my original post. I also updated the non-functional link to my website from my original post (thanks SGS catching this).

https://www.doz.com/tech/launch-mobile-app

App development is not my full-time job, so my time to spend on promoting the app via marketing is limited. Nevertheless, I intend to employ the following strategies to promote my app:

  • Exchange reviews with other developers
  • Promote my app on Facebook
  • Submit my app to competitions and app promotional websites (e.g. thePopularApps and Design Nominees)
  • Pay for in-app advertising (e.g. banner ads)

Based on the feedback, I feel a lot more comfortable timing the release my app sooner rather than later (August 10th is the date I am considering now) as originally planned. Aside from what I listed above, I do not intend to invest a huge amount of time and energy in putting together a marketing campaign, so the release date may not make as big of a difference as I suspected and I might as well take better advantage of my Apple developer membership by releasing asap. As Xedur suggested, it may also be advantageous to time the release of the app during the off-season to avoid having to compete with other big name apps.

#7

I’ve found that doing a soft release of an app with a beta test first is always helpful. And if you have a good relationship with a few hundred people playing your beta, then it’s relatively easy to convince them to download the published app on launch day. :slight_smile:

If you spend a few minutes to put your build on TestFlight then you can send your friends and family (and me!) the link before it’s even out!

Good luck with your app :slight_smile:

#8

Thanks joecoronasdk for the suggestion. However, I decided to follow through with releasing my app onto the Apple App Store on August 10th (yesterday) without beta testing, and my app is now live. My app has not yet been released on Google Play though, so I do intend to open it for beta testing (hopefully soon) before releasing it for Android. Will post back on this forum when beta testing is ready.

In the meantime, you can download my app from the App Store via the link below:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/swizzler/id1463296228?ls=1

I am apply my best efforts at this time to try to promote the app, so if you or anyone else following this topic has a moment to check out the app and leave a rating/review, I would really appreciate it. Totally willing to return the favor with a review exchange! Thanks  :slight_smile:

#9

There are countless variables at play here and there is no single right answer and while getting release date right is important, it may not matter in your case.

From your message, I’m getting the idea that you haven’t done any marketing yet nor have you actually announced a release date? If so, then there’s really no one expecting your app, there’s no hype for it and it won’t matter if you release it now or in 3 months. Without any marketing, it’ll probably get lost in the app stores either way. So, if you haven’t done any marketing yet, maybe consider doing some first and then release the game.

As for the “best time to release”, are your statistics about mobile games or PC and console games? As someone who lectures on statistics, I personally cringe whenever I read things like “…I read some statistics online that suggested…” without any references :smiley: But, the biggest PC and console titles tend to release around the end of the year (or the start of the year) for the obvious reasons and it means that the end of the year is more competitive. For an indie developer, it may make more sense to launch during the “off season” to avoid having to compete with major publishers and their titles.

#10

Do you have any promotion strategy in mind?
The date is what matters the least, just release when you are ready

#11

If you think your release date will in any way affect your launch then you are sadly misguided.  I think you are confusing indie with AAA… when you release will make zero difference!

You will get almost 0 organics irrespective… welcome to the real world.

p.s. your link just 404

#12

Let me add a little non-game industry specific information I learned in my economics classes way back when. There is a term called “Opportunity cost”.  When when explained to us, was if you expect the cost to go down on an item in 3 months from $100 to $75, you can wait and save $75, but in that 3 months will you get $25 in usage or more? If so it make sense to buy now.

While the example isn’t directly related. If you release your app now you may make $X. If you wait 3 months  you may make $Y but is $Y-$X worth not having the $X now?

Now take all of that and figure out what kind of marketing you need to do. Will 3 months of pre-release marketing improve your income greatly? Maybe, it depends on your marketing chops.

Rob

#13

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this topic so far. The source of the statistics I referenced previously is provided below. Sorry this was not included in my original post. I also updated the non-functional link to my website from my original post (thanks SGS catching this).

https://www.doz.com/tech/launch-mobile-app

App development is not my full-time job, so my time to spend on promoting the app via marketing is limited. Nevertheless, I intend to employ the following strategies to promote my app:

  • Exchange reviews with other developers
  • Promote my app on Facebook
  • Submit my app to competitions and app promotional websites (e.g. thePopularApps and Design Nominees)
  • Pay for in-app advertising (e.g. banner ads)

Based on the feedback, I feel a lot more comfortable timing the release my app sooner rather than later (August 10th is the date I am considering now) as originally planned. Aside from what I listed above, I do not intend to invest a huge amount of time and energy in putting together a marketing campaign, so the release date may not make as big of a difference as I suspected and I might as well take better advantage of my Apple developer membership by releasing asap. As Xedur suggested, it may also be advantageous to time the release of the app during the off-season to avoid having to compete with other big name apps.

#14

I’ve found that doing a soft release of an app with a beta test first is always helpful. And if you have a good relationship with a few hundred people playing your beta, then it’s relatively easy to convince them to download the published app on launch day. :slight_smile:

If you spend a few minutes to put your build on TestFlight then you can send your friends and family (and me!) the link before it’s even out!

Good luck with your app :slight_smile:

#15

Thanks joecoronasdk for the suggestion. However, I decided to follow through with releasing my app onto the Apple App Store on August 10th (yesterday) without beta testing, and my app is now live. My app has not yet been released on Google Play though, so I do intend to open it for beta testing (hopefully soon) before releasing it for Android. Will post back on this forum when beta testing is ready.

In the meantime, you can download my app from the App Store via the link below:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/swizzler/id1463296228?ls=1

I am apply my best efforts at this time to try to promote the app, so if you or anyone else following this topic has a moment to check out the app and leave a rating/review, I would really appreciate it. Totally willing to return the favor with a review exchange! Thanks  :slight_smile: