Corona and AppGratis

Solar2D Native builds
#1

Has anyone worked with AppGratis (http://appgratis.com/) to promote their app? They contacted me about promoting my app Blend, a free puzzle game for iOS and Android (http://playblend.com). AppGratis asks developers to offer their paid apps for free with a promo code for 24-48 hours. Then they feature these app deals and the promo code to their network of customers.

I told them that Blend is already free with IAP, so how could would the promotion work? The answered:

“In order to make iAPs free, we ask you to integrate a  SDK called Batch.”

So I would make my IAPs free with a promo code for 24-48 hours using their SDK. Has anyone worked with Appgratis and Batch? Does Corona offer any support for this?

#2

I had one of our games promoted with AppGratis in a very similar way of that you described.

In our case, only our Android version participated and the users could use a code to unlock our IAPs. We did that directly using our servers. They only promoted our Android version and I don’t know if we would be able to unlock IAPs for free on iOS since this is prohibited by Apple. Don’t know how that Batch works…

Our game was promoted during a weekend and we got almost 100k downloads on these 2 days. The only 2 problems that we faced (and made us receive several 1 star reviews) was that they created their own promo text about our game (which was not 100% accurate… like, they said that the AppGratis promo code had a value of $20, while the IAP only costed $4) and they required us to add a AppGratis fullscreen ad when the user opened our game (making users furious about it).

#3

Thanks for the reply. I forgot about Apple prohibiting promo codes, but maybe AppGratis has worked out a legal way around this with the Batch SDK.

Even with the negative reviews and the fullscreen ad, do you think it was worth it?

#4

I would say it was worthy.

To participate on the promotion, we had to support 2 more european languages in the game (their main user base is on Europe) which demanded several work hours from our part. Although we had a huge download volume, we didn’t monetize almost nothing since the IAPs were free… But our daily average download when from ~20 dl/day before the promo to ~100 dl/day after the promo and we also got a lot hundreds of reviews (more 4-5 stars than 1 starts), so I think the net was positive. 

#5

This is all good info. I think I’ll contact AppGratis and see if their open to featuring the Android version, since it doesn’t have to go through a review process, and a new version can be uploaded in hours instead of weeks.

I checked out your games on the Play Store, nice work! Which one did you have featured by AppGratis?

#6

Was the puzzle game (http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.redbeachgames.cutmypuzzle)

#7

I had one of our games promoted with AppGratis in a very similar way of that you described.

In our case, only our Android version participated and the users could use a code to unlock our IAPs. We did that directly using our servers. They only promoted our Android version and I don’t know if we would be able to unlock IAPs for free on iOS since this is prohibited by Apple. Don’t know how that Batch works…

Our game was promoted during a weekend and we got almost 100k downloads on these 2 days. The only 2 problems that we faced (and made us receive several 1 star reviews) was that they created their own promo text about our game (which was not 100% accurate… like, they said that the AppGratis promo code had a value of $20, while the IAP only costed $4) and they required us to add a AppGratis fullscreen ad when the user opened our game (making users furious about it).

#8

Thanks for the reply. I forgot about Apple prohibiting promo codes, but maybe AppGratis has worked out a legal way around this with the Batch SDK.

Even with the negative reviews and the fullscreen ad, do you think it was worth it?

#9

I would say it was worthy.

To participate on the promotion, we had to support 2 more european languages in the game (their main user base is on Europe) which demanded several work hours from our part. Although we had a huge download volume, we didn’t monetize almost nothing since the IAPs were free… But our daily average download when from ~20 dl/day before the promo to ~100 dl/day after the promo and we also got a lot hundreds of reviews (more 4-5 stars than 1 starts), so I think the net was positive. 

#10

This is all good info. I think I’ll contact AppGratis and see if their open to featuring the Android version, since it doesn’t have to go through a review process, and a new version can be uploaded in hours instead of weeks.

I checked out your games on the Play Store, nice work! Which one did you have featured by AppGratis?

#11

Was the puzzle game (http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.redbeachgames.cutmypuzzle)

#12

Hi

I wanted to find out from you:

Who did your intro video for Blend?

Where you able to integrate your app with AppGratis  and was there any benefit?

Thanks

#13

Hi sysads -

I did the video myself. In addition to designing and developing apps, I’m a full-time web and motion designer. 

For AppGratis, I would totally say its worth it. I did two promotions with them (one for Android, one for iOS) in their European market, and each promotion gained me about 10,000 new users. They were real easy to work with. I didn’t end up using their API (Batch), but instead built a custom version of my app for the promotion. The promotions usually run 1-2 days, so I just set up my app to give away some power-ups during those two days, and once those days has passed, the app went back to normal. You could probably do more complex things like geolocation, etc., but that was unnecessary for me.

#14

Thanks for the reply, that was informative. BTW, do I need to have corona enterprise to integrate Giftiz? I was also wondering where I can find someone to do similar intro like this game - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gramgames.tenten

#15

Not sure about Giftiz. I had Corona Enterprise. To capture the gameplay portion of the my video, I just took a screen recording of the Corona Simulator as I played a few games, and then took that video into AfterEffects and edited it.

#16

Hi

I wanted to find out from you:

Who did your intro video for Blend?

Where you able to integrate your app with AppGratis  and was there any benefit?

Thanks

#17

Hi sysads -

I did the video myself. In addition to designing and developing apps, I’m a full-time web and motion designer. 

For AppGratis, I would totally say its worth it. I did two promotions with them (one for Android, one for iOS) in their European market, and each promotion gained me about 10,000 new users. They were real easy to work with. I didn’t end up using their API (Batch), but instead built a custom version of my app for the promotion. The promotions usually run 1-2 days, so I just set up my app to give away some power-ups during those two days, and once those days has passed, the app went back to normal. You could probably do more complex things like geolocation, etc., but that was unnecessary for me.

#18

Thanks for the reply, that was informative. BTW, do I need to have corona enterprise to integrate Giftiz? I was also wondering where I can find someone to do similar intro like this game - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gramgames.tenten

#19

Not sure about Giftiz. I had Corona Enterprise. To capture the gameplay portion of the my video, I just took a screen recording of the Corona Simulator as I played a few games, and then took that video into AfterEffects and edited it.

#20

I have used Batch for Android and this works great. You can e.g. add promo codes to your app, promotion (e.g. for AppGratis) and much more. It also supports restore function which is very useful.

But have anyone used this in Corona? I didnt find any documentation about this.