giveaways or contests

carloz · June 2011

hi all,
Has anyone tried including gifts/giveaways in thier games?
for ex the first person to complete the game with 3 stars in all levels wins some gift, maybbethe next game free or something like that. will this help in sales?

will apple hqve a problem with this? anyone else have any other ideas?

carloz · June 2011

*bump*

tenrdrmer · June 2011

Spliket Games Did a contest for the first person to the beat Implode this. I won an $15 itunes gft card for that. I would think normally a contest on a decent Game like that would be good for sales. Also risky though in the chance you have to give $15-$20 to the only person who bought your game.

___________________________________________________________________________________

JeffreyShimane · June 2011

I was contemplating doing a contest on my game and posted about it here (). I don't think Apple would have a problem with it unless you were running some kind of gambling type scenario (like a lottery or a raffle that may be in violation of your local laws, etc.). I'm not sure if you could include info about the contest in your app description though or if the contest had to be completely outside of the iTunes eco-system (like advertised through your own website). It's definitely an interesting marketing strategy. Like tenrdrmer said though, you have to be careful how the contest is setup or it may not have the intended effect of driving up sales.

I'm probably dating myself here but I remember as a kid getting this game on the Atari 2600 called SwordQuest. It was to be released in 4-parts (each themed after one of the four elements) and it had a big contest tied to it where the winner would win a $50,000 sword. The first home video game era crashed and burned and they never released all the games, causing Atari to cancel the contest. If you're interested, you can read more about it here:

- Jeff

devjohnson · June 2011

I actually plan on doing this with my holiday game I think. Just don't think I will spend much on it.

The biggest thing turning me off right now is that games are getting hacked and I plan on using Game Center, but if I don't put up much money for gift cards I would probably end up making money if a game was ever popular enough to get hacked. What I have really considered, is a contest where I offer say $10 gift card, and 10% of my revenue or something like that. This way the more people that play the higher the prize gets and the people who are good at it might try to get others to buy it so they can win more money.

Check out , that game offered $500.

Also, check out this thread on stackoverflow. .

Contests, sweepstakes, lotteries, and raffles
1 Sweepstakes and contests must be sponsored by the developer/company of the app
2 Official rules for sweepstakes and contests, must be presented in the app and make it clear that Apple is not a sponsor or involved in the activity in any manner
3 It must be permissible by law for the developer to run a lottery app, and a lottery app must have all of the following characteristics: consideration, chance, and a prize
4 Apps that allow a user to directly purchase a lottery or raffle ticket in the app will be rejected

_____________________________________

giveaways or contests

Comments