Gift your app to boost download and get reviews?

General (non-technical) Marketing and Monetization
#1

Hi guys, need some opinions. I can’t seem to find any developers talking about it.

Let’s say I have a small budget to market my game, is gifting my game a good idea? (NOT gift cards)

I am wondering if this is a good idea to Gift your app/game to other players, it will be counted as downloads and they can write review for your app.

Right now I have a group of beta testers, and gifting them the game can

  1. act as appreciation

  2. boost download

  3. get reviews

Promo codes doesn’t count as download and cant leave review.

Thanks!

#2

I don’t think it would help you fight against the huge numbers of downloads the winning titles get and ‘appreciation’ would be self-serving in this case. Reviews, IMHO, only matter once app store users can see your game - I’ve seen some Apple promoted games with only a few reviews! - so I think it’s all about the downloads, hence the download bots and Freemium markets. I think the best thing is to get your app promoted in non-store locations, like review sites and social media. Keep an active twitter account, fb etc.

Here are my very best 3 links to promoting your app or game:

#3

thanks horacebury! I guess you are right, the chart ranking and download is most important. Review is second.

I guess for indie developers all we can do is to make more connection and get a fan base.

I listened to this popcast yesterday and read quite alot of game post mortem. Quite interesting that almost all developers has no idea why their app suddenly went viral!

http://www.hanselminutes.com/444/a-dark-room-whats-it-like-to-have-a-1-app-with-amir-rajan

#4

That’s a great link and Scott Hanselman is one of the .NET developers to watch (I’m a C# developer by trade.)

I think games like A Dark Room go viral simply because they are really good. Once they get picked up by someone who  likes it, that person tells their friends, shares it in digital social mediums and it gets natural recommendations.

What is a big problem, IMHO, for the iOS app store, is that although the Top Charts button has stars on it, the rankings are simply by number of downloads. There may be other factors in there, but it’s a fairly simple listing. (Please, anyone, correct me if I’m wrong.) The issue is that there is no way to filter or sort by your own preferences: actual customer star rankings, number of downloads (per locale, etc,) or any of the highly customisable filters that many (most?) websites employ. This is a major stagnation point and it is stopping some really great games from getting picked up.

Having said that, if you look at most of the truly popular games or apps which hit the top 1%, you’ll see that they are all really great quality, have (likely) a solid code base and have thought and creativity put into them. I’m not saying they are all complex or deep, but they have real effort put in. They more competition there is the more true effort needs to go into a product, regardless of market or medium.

Yes, the app store could do a lot more, but the weapons in your arsenal are simply making a great game and telling people about it. Those haven’t changed in years.

Example: My game “Tiltopolis” has been on the app store for over 3 years but really did nothing. I think that, regardless of how much time I put in (months and months) or how good it looks (I’m amazingly proud of my brother’s craftsmanship) or how well coded it is (ok, enough on that) it’s main failing is that I didn’t promote it nearly hard enough. I should have been shouting it from the roof tops, but I was so burnt out that I just couldn’t put the energy in.

Anyway, I’m still proud of Tiltopolis and you can download it here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tiltopolis/id427417582?mt=8

Yeah, I know  :wink:

#5

Tips from podcast:

  • Give out promo codes on Reddit by asking for reviews.
  • Push PR on Reddit, Twitter, FB etc and keep them active.
  • Write to review sites (which don’t ask for money - see post above for how to write pitches)
  • Keep the game theme going (reply in game context to social posts)
  • Build relationships with other game devs
  • Keep your costs down
  • Don’t expect immediate success
  • Remember that front displayed iOS ratings get reset when a new version is published
  • Build a relationship with the players/fans/winners
  • Remember that word of mouth is very powerful
  • Ranking is based on 4-day moving average
  • Reviews are sorted by number of stars and length (more stars but short reviews loses to few but long 1 star reviews)
  • Top 5 apps in paid average about 5000 downloads a day
  • Top 5 apps in free average about 50,000 downloads a day
  • Reviews will be about 1-2% of your downloads (“review conversion”)
  • Timing your update releases is important
  • In-app purchases should give players cool stuff not just let them play longer (don’t do “remove ads”)
  • Word of mouth helps more than media coverage
  • USA is the largest market - UK, Canada and Australia are the next largest
  • Sales are good (promotional prices)
#6

I was at an interesting meet up the other night and learned that this is a much daunting task.

The person speaking said he was at a presentation where they showed a warehouse in China where a zillion people had multiple devices - downloading and playing an app in-order to show “apples” IOS system and ( whoever ) activity and number of downloads and move it up in the rankings, also leaving review using all of the devices.

Now how do we compete with that…

That is a tough one to overcome.

Larry

#7

This article claims to have pictures from one of those shops that are manipulating the app store.

http://www.cultofmac.com/311171/crazy-iphone-rig-shows-chinese-workers-manipulate-app-store-rankings/

#8

Nice, I am bring my family to “app manipulation” farm for vacation now!

Apple is smart that the ranking is different for every country.

From China’s News the farm can only boost china market, and apple is changing the calculation of app store frequently, now they can only stay on top ranking less than 3 hours instead of 1 day (I think apply to china ranking only). 

Here’s more photos for those interested

(chinese site) http://www.iydnews.com/5724.html

#9

well, turns out gift app is not a good way to promote because you can only gift an app to people in the same country. :frowning:

I am trying out thunderclap now. Not sure of the effects and whether I can gather 100 supporters in 3 days.

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/22653-prison-life-rpg-game-launch

#10

I don’t think it would help you fight against the huge numbers of downloads the winning titles get and ‘appreciation’ would be self-serving in this case. Reviews, IMHO, only matter once app store users can see your game - I’ve seen some Apple promoted games with only a few reviews! - so I think it’s all about the downloads, hence the download bots and Freemium markets. I think the best thing is to get your app promoted in non-store locations, like review sites and social media. Keep an active twitter account, fb etc.

Here are my very best 3 links to promoting your app or game:

#11

thanks horacebury! I guess you are right, the chart ranking and download is most important. Review is second.

I guess for indie developers all we can do is to make more connection and get a fan base.

I listened to this popcast yesterday and read quite alot of game post mortem. Quite interesting that almost all developers has no idea why their app suddenly went viral!

http://www.hanselminutes.com/444/a-dark-room-whats-it-like-to-have-a-1-app-with-amir-rajan

#12

That’s a great link and Scott Hanselman is one of the .NET developers to watch (I’m a C# developer by trade.)

I think games like A Dark Room go viral simply because they are really good. Once they get picked up by someone who  likes it, that person tells their friends, shares it in digital social mediums and it gets natural recommendations.

What is a big problem, IMHO, for the iOS app store, is that although the Top Charts button has stars on it, the rankings are simply by number of downloads. There may be other factors in there, but it’s a fairly simple listing. (Please, anyone, correct me if I’m wrong.) The issue is that there is no way to filter or sort by your own preferences: actual customer star rankings, number of downloads (per locale, etc,) or any of the highly customisable filters that many (most?) websites employ. This is a major stagnation point and it is stopping some really great games from getting picked up.

Having said that, if you look at most of the truly popular games or apps which hit the top 1%, you’ll see that they are all really great quality, have (likely) a solid code base and have thought and creativity put into them. I’m not saying they are all complex or deep, but they have real effort put in. They more competition there is the more true effort needs to go into a product, regardless of market or medium.

Yes, the app store could do a lot more, but the weapons in your arsenal are simply making a great game and telling people about it. Those haven’t changed in years.

Example: My game “Tiltopolis” has been on the app store for over 3 years but really did nothing. I think that, regardless of how much time I put in (months and months) or how good it looks (I’m amazingly proud of my brother’s craftsmanship) or how well coded it is (ok, enough on that) it’s main failing is that I didn’t promote it nearly hard enough. I should have been shouting it from the roof tops, but I was so burnt out that I just couldn’t put the energy in.

Anyway, I’m still proud of Tiltopolis and you can download it here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tiltopolis/id427417582?mt=8

Yeah, I know  :wink:

#13

Tips from podcast:

  • Give out promo codes on Reddit by asking for reviews.
  • Push PR on Reddit, Twitter, FB etc and keep them active.
  • Write to review sites (which don’t ask for money - see post above for how to write pitches)
  • Keep the game theme going (reply in game context to social posts)
  • Build relationships with other game devs
  • Keep your costs down
  • Don’t expect immediate success
  • Remember that front displayed iOS ratings get reset when a new version is published
  • Build a relationship with the players/fans/winners
  • Remember that word of mouth is very powerful
  • Ranking is based on 4-day moving average
  • Reviews are sorted by number of stars and length (more stars but short reviews loses to few but long 1 star reviews)
  • Top 5 apps in paid average about 5000 downloads a day
  • Top 5 apps in free average about 50,000 downloads a day
  • Reviews will be about 1-2% of your downloads (“review conversion”)
  • Timing your update releases is important
  • In-app purchases should give players cool stuff not just let them play longer (don’t do “remove ads”)
  • Word of mouth helps more than media coverage
  • USA is the largest market - UK, Canada and Australia are the next largest
  • Sales are good (promotional prices)
#14

I was at an interesting meet up the other night and learned that this is a much daunting task.

The person speaking said he was at a presentation where they showed a warehouse in China where a zillion people had multiple devices - downloading and playing an app in-order to show “apples” IOS system and ( whoever ) activity and number of downloads and move it up in the rankings, also leaving review using all of the devices.

Now how do we compete with that…

That is a tough one to overcome.

Larry

#15

This article claims to have pictures from one of those shops that are manipulating the app store.

http://www.cultofmac.com/311171/crazy-iphone-rig-shows-chinese-workers-manipulate-app-store-rankings/

#16

Nice, I am bring my family to “app manipulation” farm for vacation now!

Apple is smart that the ranking is different for every country.

From China’s News the farm can only boost china market, and apple is changing the calculation of app store frequently, now they can only stay on top ranking less than 3 hours instead of 1 day (I think apply to china ranking only). 

Here’s more photos for those interested

(chinese site) http://www.iydnews.com/5724.html

#17

well, turns out gift app is not a good way to promote because you can only gift an app to people in the same country. :frowning:

I am trying out thunderclap now. Not sure of the effects and whether I can gather 100 supporters in 3 days.

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/22653-prison-life-rpg-game-launch