Game not really "selling"

Games
#1

Hi,

I’ve had a game in the App store for over half a year and it hasn’t been going very well.

If february I even made a flappy bird tribude version, but it only got around 100 downloads (and most of it the first day).

Anytime I update the app version it seems to jump in downloads, then goes steadily down.

Now, it is a quite large game with 5 different games at each level. I am thinking to split this game into 5 different games and see if that gives more users. Flappybird wasn’t exactly non-repeating so I don’t think content size really matters. E.g. it will becom 5 different small games with 6 levels in each.

Have any of you tried a similar thing in the past?

The game is called “Smartball: Gravity Games” if you are interested…

#2

I just downloaded it and skipped the player registration part.   A little ball came out and told me that in order to share info across devices, I need to register.

Then nothing happened.   Just a forest background with no buttons.     

In general, though, games become best sellers largely virally.    Once you get it into enough hands (a few hundred, I would imagine) it should spread on its own if it’s good enough.    

#3

There seems to be a problem with the SSL certificate of the game server which handles high scores and notifications. It´s an external company so I don´t really control that part. I have notified them.

If you wait long enough, the game should start. It takes some time as it is waiting for a network response, but it will continue on time-out.

I will change the time-out so that the game starts faster during network problems. It should improve in the next version…

Some background:

The high score handling of this game is really complex. There are 90 levels that each are stored on a server. The player name is also stored, but in case of failure of a record or if you uninstall the game or loose your data, all records can be reconstructed from the server records, even if they are only partially intact. Everything is coded with AES coding to secure the game data. You can even use the same player account on several devices and share bought items. It even allows playing on two devices at the same time (the high scores and items will cross-update).

The reason for all this was that I had the intention to make this into a multiplayer game. It may happen if we get more players, but at current player volume it seems unlikely…

#4

I just downloaded it and skipped the player registration part.   A little ball came out and told me that in order to share info across devices, I need to register.

Then nothing happened.   Just a forest background with no buttons.     

In general, though, games become best sellers largely virally.    Once you get it into enough hands (a few hundred, I would imagine) it should spread on its own if it’s good enough.    

#5

There seems to be a problem with the SSL certificate of the game server which handles high scores and notifications. It´s an external company so I don´t really control that part. I have notified them.

If you wait long enough, the game should start. It takes some time as it is waiting for a network response, but it will continue on time-out.

I will change the time-out so that the game starts faster during network problems. It should improve in the next version…

Some background:

The high score handling of this game is really complex. There are 90 levels that each are stored on a server. The player name is also stored, but in case of failure of a record or if you uninstall the game or loose your data, all records can be reconstructed from the server records, even if they are only partially intact. Everything is coded with AES coding to secure the game data. You can even use the same player account on several devices and share bought items. It even allows playing on two devices at the same time (the high scores and items will cross-update).

The reason for all this was that I had the intention to make this into a multiplayer game. It may happen if we get more players, but at current player volume it seems unlikely…

#6

This should be fixed now. Bad network connections timeout sooner so that you get to the main menu.

#7

This should be fixed now. Bad network connections timeout sooner so that you get to the main menu.