Hi, I´m new. Now I have two Logic Puzzle Games on Google Play

Hi!,

My name is Alexis. I have recent released two games on Google Play (made it with Corona :wink:

My games are really look nice but in 3 months I have obtained less than 20 downloads. Can you advice me about that. I do not have money for promotion so … I need some advices

You can see my games here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alecgames.links

 

and

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alecgames.connection

The plain truth is that if you just put your game into Google Play (or any major app store) without doing any promotion, it is unlikely to receive any downloads. Think of your games as a single product placed in the back of some shelf in a supermarket. If no one knows that your game exists, the only way that they could find it is if they (accidentally) stumble upon it.

Seeing how you have only 5 stars reviews and one of the reviewers on both of your apps is the same guy giving 5 stars and singing high praise, I’m guessing he and all the rest are friends of yours. How did they find the game? You probably told them about it and that’s the entire point.

Convincing your friends to try your game isn’t hard, but convincing others who have thousands to hundreds of thousands of other games to choose from? Now that’s hard. Art and puzzle games in particular are a hard sell, and how pleasing one’s game is visually is completely subjective. There is a small chance that people who are looking for “puzzle games” may find your app, but with such a broad search term, you are fighting against countless of other developers, some of whom have paid for promotions and have optimised their app store pages, etc. Have you checked how many pages the user would have to scroll to find your game?

But yeah, I don’t want to sound too pessimistic, so here are some tips! :smiley:

  1. Optimise your app store page. Think of search engines and what they, as well as the end users are trying to find. Don’t try to take on the big general categories, but think of something smaller where there is less competition. You also have a massive number of images. A player typically makes their choice of whether to download or not in a matter of seconds based on the images. They won’t scroll through all of them.

  2. Promote your games! Go to media outlets, websites, bloggers, reviewers, forums, reddit, friends, family, their friends, their pets, etc. You don’t have to pay yourself sick, but you do have to put in the work. However, the larger or the more important the entity you are trying to approach is, the more demanding they will be of your game. For instance, emailing the New York Times about your game might go directly to the bin, but asking a modest Android review site to take a look at it may be more feasible.

  3. Make sure that the game is smooth and addictive. Once you actually get downloads, if the game isn’t responsive, addictive or doesn’t reflect the players’ expectations, they will simply uninstall it and that’s that. If the game is as good as they had hoped or even better, then they may keep playing it, tell their friends about it and generate new downloads for you that way.

Thank you very much for all your words. They really helped me a lot.

I didn’t download them but the video of the first one looks great. I second what @spyric said but I’ll add my two cents. Although backlinks do not have the pull they used to have they do have some pull in ranking. Try to get people to link to your app. Create social media pages and link to your app. Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, and Instagram. It doesn’t matter if you have 0 followers. Basically, any page that allows you to place the link for your app you should do it.

The plain truth is that if you just put your game into Google Play (or any major app store) without doing any promotion, it is unlikely to receive any downloads. Think of your games as a single product placed in the back of some shelf in a supermarket. If no one knows that your game exists, the only way that they could find it is if they (accidentally) stumble upon it.

Seeing how you have only 5 stars reviews and one of the reviewers on both of your apps is the same guy giving 5 stars and singing high praise, I’m guessing he and all the rest are friends of yours. How did they find the game? You probably told them about it and that’s the entire point.

Convincing your friends to try your game isn’t hard, but convincing others who have thousands to hundreds of thousands of other games to choose from? Now that’s hard. Art and puzzle games in particular are a hard sell, and how pleasing one’s game is visually is completely subjective. There is a small chance that people who are looking for “puzzle games” may find your app, but with such a broad search term, you are fighting against countless of other developers, some of whom have paid for promotions and have optimised their app store pages, etc. Have you checked how many pages the user would have to scroll to find your game?

But yeah, I don’t want to sound too pessimistic, so here are some tips! :smiley:

  1. Optimise your app store page. Think of search engines and what they, as well as the end users are trying to find. Don’t try to take on the big general categories, but think of something smaller where there is less competition. You also have a massive number of images. A player typically makes their choice of whether to download or not in a matter of seconds based on the images. They won’t scroll through all of them.

  2. Promote your games! Go to media outlets, websites, bloggers, reviewers, forums, reddit, friends, family, their friends, their pets, etc. You don’t have to pay yourself sick, but you do have to put in the work. However, the larger or the more important the entity you are trying to approach is, the more demanding they will be of your game. For instance, emailing the New York Times about your game might go directly to the bin, but asking a modest Android review site to take a look at it may be more feasible.

  3. Make sure that the game is smooth and addictive. Once you actually get downloads, if the game isn’t responsive, addictive or doesn’t reflect the players’ expectations, they will simply uninstall it and that’s that. If the game is as good as they had hoped or even better, then they may keep playing it, tell their friends about it and generate new downloads for you that way.

Thank you very much for all your words. They really helped me a lot.

I didn’t download them but the video of the first one looks great. I second what @spyric said but I’ll add my two cents. Although backlinks do not have the pull they used to have they do have some pull in ranking. Try to get people to link to your app. Create social media pages and link to your app. Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, and Instagram. It doesn’t matter if you have 0 followers. Basically, any page that allows you to place the link for your app you should do it.