Simple suggestions to help make your game sell
TymeMaster
Member Posts: 527
Note: I am going to assume your game is good, has replay value, is fun to play, and has awesome artwork. If it can't even meet these, then forget it.
1) The basics; The game must run at a decent rate and be bug free! You need to test it on all devices you support, or at least the slowest (iPhone 2G/3G). If it runs decent on a 3G, you know for sure it will run decent on any later generation device. If your game uses specific features that are only available on certain phones, you MUST test it with the hardware! For example, if you need video features, test with 3GS and iPhone 4. Nothing will piss a customer off more than a game that crashes or runs at 1FPS.
2) Advertising can help, but most people can't afford it which is fine. However, it cost nothing to write up a press release and email it to ALL important websites, even local news stations (who may put it on local news, Look at Weswog, he made the news for his age! He is the poster child for how to promote yourself!!!!!!). Will someone make use of the press release and do a review? Who knows, the point is IT IS FREE so do it! Save your promo codes for these sites, do not waste them on forum members (like that jackass who is taking them and giving out 1 star reviews).
3) Make a youtube video! I can't stress this enough! When I buy a game, I like to see that game in action. Youtube videos are free to do and very powerful! If you are too lazy to make a video of your game, I will assume you are also too lazy to make a good game, so I will pass it up most likely.
4) Setup a website! Use GoDaddy if you can afford it, if not at least use a website like the one your ISP gives you for free! Sure, you won't have a domain name, but so what, you can easily get web space to put up some screenshots, a link to youtube, and some general information along with an email contact for support! If I am interested in a game, and I click the website link, if there is no website I again assume the developer is too lazy to even try to market his game, so he was also lazy developing it, and it probably sucks.
Those are very simple things, and they are also FREE (for the most part). Will it help your app sell millions? Probably not, that will require luck or more. But lets put it this way, it can't hurt sales! Just uploading it to Apple and giving your friends promocodes (for reviews that will be clearly biased and look like they were done by family) will not help your app at all. People are not stupid, they can clearly tell when Johnny's mom wrote the review.
5) Do a lite version if you want, but personally I think they do not work because either they give away too much, or not enough leaving the player feeling like it stinks. A better idea is in app purchases! Release it free, but allow for impulse purchases! Look, you already have the free game in the customers hands, you are in a great position to upsell them something! You get a much higher rate of purchase (in app) than you ever will with a light version. Unfortunately GameSalad doesn't do this, but Unity 3D does, Torque does, and native XCode does.
Doing all the above will put you with at least the top 50% of developers (I don't mean you will be in the top 50% games hehe). Why? Half of them upload one app, have no website, have no video, have no reviews, have done no marketing, and will fail.
With over 250,000 apps in the store, you MUST do something to get your app noticed, or at least have something for the potential customer to SEE (video, website, awesome screenshots), if not they will simply skip it.
If your game sucks (and there are many), nothing you do can help! Remember that the cream of the crop will rise to the top.
1) The basics; The game must run at a decent rate and be bug free! You need to test it on all devices you support, or at least the slowest (iPhone 2G/3G). If it runs decent on a 3G, you know for sure it will run decent on any later generation device. If your game uses specific features that are only available on certain phones, you MUST test it with the hardware! For example, if you need video features, test with 3GS and iPhone 4. Nothing will piss a customer off more than a game that crashes or runs at 1FPS.
2) Advertising can help, but most people can't afford it which is fine. However, it cost nothing to write up a press release and email it to ALL important websites, even local news stations (who may put it on local news, Look at Weswog, he made the news for his age! He is the poster child for how to promote yourself!!!!!!). Will someone make use of the press release and do a review? Who knows, the point is IT IS FREE so do it! Save your promo codes for these sites, do not waste them on forum members (like that jackass who is taking them and giving out 1 star reviews).
3) Make a youtube video! I can't stress this enough! When I buy a game, I like to see that game in action. Youtube videos are free to do and very powerful! If you are too lazy to make a video of your game, I will assume you are also too lazy to make a good game, so I will pass it up most likely.
4) Setup a website! Use GoDaddy if you can afford it, if not at least use a website like the one your ISP gives you for free! Sure, you won't have a domain name, but so what, you can easily get web space to put up some screenshots, a link to youtube, and some general information along with an email contact for support! If I am interested in a game, and I click the website link, if there is no website I again assume the developer is too lazy to even try to market his game, so he was also lazy developing it, and it probably sucks.
Those are very simple things, and they are also FREE (for the most part). Will it help your app sell millions? Probably not, that will require luck or more. But lets put it this way, it can't hurt sales! Just uploading it to Apple and giving your friends promocodes (for reviews that will be clearly biased and look like they were done by family) will not help your app at all. People are not stupid, they can clearly tell when Johnny's mom wrote the review.
5) Do a lite version if you want, but personally I think they do not work because either they give away too much, or not enough leaving the player feeling like it stinks. A better idea is in app purchases! Release it free, but allow for impulse purchases! Look, you already have the free game in the customers hands, you are in a great position to upsell them something! You get a much higher rate of purchase (in app) than you ever will with a light version. Unfortunately GameSalad doesn't do this, but Unity 3D does, Torque does, and native XCode does.
Doing all the above will put you with at least the top 50% of developers (I don't mean you will be in the top 50% games hehe). Why? Half of them upload one app, have no website, have no video, have no reviews, have done no marketing, and will fail.
With over 250,000 apps in the store, you MUST do something to get your app noticed, or at least have something for the potential customer to SEE (video, website, awesome screenshots), if not they will simply skip it.
If your game sucks (and there are many), nothing you do can help! Remember that the cream of the crop will rise to the top.
Comments
I especially liked 2). In smaller countries like mine (Norway) you can get some attention since there aren't that many who develops for iPhone.
Regarding #2 well sometimes it won't help (nobody serious will review it), but still, it's free and it will at least slightly increase the chance for a review at some good website (or local news, whatever). It can't hurt