Buy your way to the top 5 for $50k

UtopianGames

With all this talk about buying your way to the top i had 30 mins spare yesterday so set about a google search and found a company who can guarantee a free app a top 5 place for $50k, i also found out it takes 80k downloads (US) to reach this position if the lady i spoke to knew what she was on about.

Heres a quick pic of the xls they sent me, i have excluded the company name as i don't really want to advertise them.

They only push free apps btw and don't have prices for universal only iPhone and iPad and apparently (spoke to them on Skype) if they don't manage to reach your target they refund down to the next level all the way to top 100 and if it doesn't make the top 100 you get all your money back…yeah right

They also told me how it works which was no surprise…."Here is our method, we will pay people to download the target app but our people may not really play it but you will get non-incent users from the high rank".

Anyway thought i'd share my findings and before anyone asks "no"

Darren.

beefy_clyro

Hate things like this! And money back ... pfffft as if!

CodeMonster

what people with a lot of money are capable of
shame to see stuff like this... though i aint gona lie, if i was a billionaire, i would probably try this out!

Hopscotch

Well, it is the same as what has been practiced for decades in the book and music industry.

In fact, we as app developers still have better chances of making it than authors, with 3 million titles being published a year, many more never even get to print.

In fact, playing the numbers game, inside pre-ordering, distributed self-buying and redistribution has become the status cuo in these industries. No one even talks about it anymore.

Hopscotch

On the bright side,

those using a boost campaigns to reach the NYT Best Seller list for their book or a Top 10 Rank in the App store may get that initial exposure. To recover the costs and make it profitable, they still have to do the same social marketing as everyone else to sustain it.

StormyStudio

Thanks for sharing Darren... it is really interesting to see what's possible and what's been done by other EVIL surprise app store top chart titles.

So...

Lets get a hundred GS users together... $500 in each... choose one game to promote... and give it a whirl right.

Whose in.. ?

Just send the money to my paypal and I'll be sure to sort out the rest of it.

If you don't hear anything back, don't worry as I pretty much promise to give a refund.

....

Whats seems crazy is a few years ago now I got my first game into the top 100 free games with nothing more than a release and an announcement on Touch Arcade... so so so much harder now it seems.

tenrdrmer

Wouldn't surprise me buy apple probably even gets a cut of this service to not attempt to shut it down or block if from happening.

Guess I better start saving my pennies.

On the plus side where do I sign to get paid to make these downloads. Maybe I can make enough off that to make the payment for a top 5 app myself.

jamie_c

It's a deal to go for the iPad top 5, only $24K!

TouchiMedia

Unfortunately a lot of companies popping up doing this. I found 5 within about ten minutes of searching. Some do it even cheaper.

I really wish Apple was more keen on shutting down these shady practices. Makes it difficult for talented indie studios to break thru.

Last year an article was written that interviewed a game company. They suggested that roughly 60-80% of the top free apps use these services one way or another. Whether this is true or not, kind of scarey and probably why we see a lot of top free Apps that aren't too great, both in design and gameplay.

I think companies try to make top ten in other smaller countries which is cheaper but still gains them a lot of visibility. Then it snowballs from there.

Disheartening to say the least.

Armelline

Apple should reset the top 100 list every week imo.

BBEnk

Apple just needs quality control they have none, because they just wanna be able to say we have an app for that.

JSproject

Only 50 grand, it's a steal!

jamie_c

If you end up making 50k per day from the ads like Flappy Bird is said to have, it actually is a steal!

JSproject

And if you pay 50 usd a week on lottery tickets and end up winning some millions after a few years then the same holds true, it's just as likely.. and if.. and if..

jamie_c

Yeah, I'm not a gambler myself...

JDuaneJ

@JSproject said:
And if you pay 50 usd a week on lottery tickets and end up winning some millions after a few years then the same holds true, it's just as likely.. and if.. and if..

Actually not a bad idea. If your odds in winning a simple lottery are 1 in 1 million, and the jackpot is over a couple million, is it worth investing 100-500k in lottery ?

BBEnk

@JDuaneJ said:
Actually not a bad idea. If your odds in winning a simple lottery are 1 in 1 million, and the jackpot is over a couple million, is it worth investing 100-500k in lottery ?

How many tickets get sold each week and the lottery goes without a winner?

JDuaneJ

Still odds would be in your favor? lol

TouchiMedia

Odds are greater then 1 in a million for lottery, like 1 in 100 million++ .. Not a lot of math people here ..

StormyStudio

Plus the day you finally win the lottery you might have to share it with 5 or so other winners . . .

Armelline

@JduaneJ

Your chance of winning the UK jackpot of an average of £2m is 1 in 14m. So to have a better than 50/50 chance of winning the £2m you'd have to invest over £7m into buying tickets.

Or something like that.

In other words, no.

JDuaneJ

Yeah, sounds like I should save my 7 million...

Hopscotch

Well @Armelline, if you want a 50/50 chance you will have to buy 14m tickets, making it 28mil Pounds. Or are you planning to knock off half of the ticket buying population first? (Would probably cost you the same ... last time I asked.)

JDuaneJ

I think I would actually rather take my cash to the casinos...or pay my facebook friends a few bucks to download my app and rate it 5 stars. Having over 200 5 star ratings in one day must do something!

lycettebros

@BBEnk said:
Apple just needs quality control they have none, because they just wanna be able to say we have an app for that.

Really??!! I am sure you are being sarcastic…if they do not have any quality control then what does Google Play have?

BBEnk

@lycettebros said:
Really??!! I am sure you are being sarcastic…if they do not have any quality control then what does Google Play have?

I would say the same for all the App store theres no quality control thats way theres so much crap on all of them.

lycettebros

One persons crap is another persons gold

BBEnk

@lycettebros said:
One persons crap is another persons gold

I don't disagree..

neoman

Thanks for sharing Darren ... Very interesting and the money would be good when you make it big but I would like to make apps that people actually like and want to play rather than make a big gain that I don't really deserve the credit for ... ;-)

Hopscotch

We need a talent show, that would guarantee quality.

lycettebros

I have made some crap and I have made Apps I am very proud of.
To be honest the ones I classify as crap have been more successful.
I have learnt a lot about the world.