I hope to submit my apps and games to Apple App Store in a few months.
What about your experience regarding to downloads? Some of you have get downloads without any kind of paid marketing?
I’m sure everyone’s mileage varies depending on what kind of app they are making, if they have a community of people who are interested in the app, how good they are at App Store Optimization (ASO), etc.
We make word games. Our flagship app has a 4.9 star rating with 3K+ reviews and it only manages about 10 organic downloads per day on the App Store. 
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In my personal experience the situation could be summed up as follows:
- You put your app on the App Store.
- Nobody knows it exists.
- Nobody downloads it.
If you don’t put in an effort to make people aware that your app even exists (either paid or through own free work), there won’t be a lot of downloads.
A couple of times, Apple has ranked me for a super popular word, and I will get thousands of downloads in a few days. Then just as they give, they take away. But otherwise, I get only a few organic installs.
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Actively developed educational iOS games from 2011-2017.
Made about a dozen games, free and/or paid at various times, never spent a penny on marketing or promotion, and some of my games nevertheless got popular in schools. Total of about a million downloads and $100k in revenue (after Apple’s cut), peaking in 2014 and steadily decreasing since then. No ads; inconsequential IAP. Just people paying money for the apps.
Downloads and revenue definitely seem to have followed the 80/20 rule. 80% of the money/DL comes from 20% of the apps.
Also, I don’t know if the decline was due to market factors or because I stopped updating them and they just died on the vine.
In any case, I’m picking it back up. Starting small just to get my feet back under me, but hope to put some more sophisticated games out before too long. Hit me up if you ever want to discuss more or compare notes.
Very hard to get any downloads by just uploading, unless Apple decides to feature your game or you have a very strong keyword.