How should I market this game?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=420021

by mdonahoe • 18 years ago

19 12 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

My friend and I made a fun memory game for the iPhone, but it isn't selling very well. All our beta testers gave us really positive feedback, but now that it is up in the app store, we are only seeing one or two sales a day. It is selling for $2.99

Here is the homepage http://mattdonahoe.com/memix/

I'm pretty surprised by the poor sales. The $1 app I made in 5 hours is out-selling this one.

What should I do? Free version? Better video/website? Advertise? Give up and make iBurp?

vulpes• 18 years ago

1. Get blogs interested in the app, VentureBeat has been reviewing a ton of apps lately. 1a. Give out few redeem codes in return for a review, blogs love it.

2. Word of Mouth, wether it be twitter, facebook updates, social events impressing people with your mad memory skills, people talk and their friends listen.

3. Comptention - best way to do it is through webcharts and ingame leaderboards. If a friend just got 120k points in a game, I'm going to buy it just so I can beat him.

4. Get out of Games category, other categories are easier to get to the top lists of and therefore will help bring in sales. Not sure if you can switch categories later once you are selling enough to be featured.

I have seen these suggestions work for other apps but I speak from observational stand point as I have never promoted any iPhone app, so take that as you will.

Paul_Morgan• 18 years ago

How about also selling it for $1?

MrBob• 18 years ago

You know, the game might be really addictive, but the graphics of the tiles doesn't really attract attention. No doubt they are easy to remember, but for attracting people to play the first time you want a game that _looks_ good when playing it the first time.

The games of the early eighties had very simple graphics but made up for it by having very imaginative paintings in their advertisments instead to get people excited about playing the game in the first place.

gojomo• 18 years ago

Blog about your problems selling it. Gist: "I've learned you still have to market in the app store."

Lower the price to $1; blog about the painfulness of that choice. Try to get attached to stories about iPhone app pricing issues.

Offer a demo version that works on the web (flash), so people can try it out. Blog about that demo version.

Get yourself attached to stories on 'brain fitness'. Make sure the app has some way to chart improvements in memory over time. Reposition as memory workout.

Blog on success (or failure) of previous marketing efforts; try to get yourself attached to any stories about iphone developers -- successful, struggling, or failing, it doesn't matter as long as they spell your app's name right.

Add the ability to customize the tiles, perhaps with your own photos. Use that as another blog/news hook.

Plug it, honestly disclosing your proprietorship, anywhere it could be relevantly discussed. Threads on other memory/iphone games? Reviews of similar memory games, at the app store or elsewhere? Etc.

vaksel• 18 years ago

since thats a pretty classic game type...how many competitors do you have? You need to look and see what they are doing. Better graphics? Better sounds? Better gameplay? Better price?

flashgordon2• 18 years ago

or simply too many competitors resulting in over supply ....

siong1987• 18 years ago

iPhone application always has distribution problems. My only suggestion for you is to submit your application to some of the iphone application review websites. I did a google search and came up with some websites - http://www.appcraver.com/ and http://www.148apps.com/ . Try to provide them free applications for reviews.

Paul_Morgan has a very good advice of selling your application for $1. People tends to buy $1 application more than a application which costs more than $1. I have no statistic to back me up with this reasoning. But, it's obvious that many successful applications are sold for $1 like the recent Ocarina and iFart applications.

And, the more selling you made by selling your application for $1 will help you to get into top paid applications list. Once you get into the list, it means more selling.

patio11• 18 years ago

Here's why I hate games as applications for the typical one-man software development shop:

1) They require a huge upfront investment in asset creation.

2) The assets start depreciating instantly, because gamer expectations are constantly advancing. (Expectations for all apps advance, but for games it is particularly acute. In five years Bingo Card Creator will still look like Bingo Card Creator, but a 2013 game which resembles a 2008 game will be virtually unsaleable. Look at how much even "casual" games have advanced in the last 24 months if you don't believe me.)

3) 1+2 means that the post-launch sales curve is decreasing, rather than increasing (as it is for most apps). This makes post-launch marketing and other improvements largely a black hole of effort, instead of a series of steps one can proceed through to build value.

4) Games are typically needs not wants. Accordingly, it is both hard to convince people to pay for them and hard to market them via search engines, because people don't typically know they want a [match three game with dragon theme and some differentiating feature].

5) Hit driven -- winners win, everyone else takes a bath on asset development costs.

6) The people who play them most are those who are least able or willing to pay for them, and most capable of getting them for free

The App Store brings the fun that is writing a game to any other field of software development, with the exception of point #6. Selling a game on the App Store brings you to the double whammy -- you have constantly depreciating art assets AND the fall-off-front-page-and-watch-sales-die effect contributing to murder your post-launch sales graph.

flashgordon2• 18 years ago

sorry with (40 do you mean games are typically "wants" and not "needs" instead of the other way around??

also willingness to pay is i think a result of comparisons... you see "another" app (regardless of its purpose or category) for a much lower price and subconsciously users get a twitch for a mild spike in the price, without even stopping to think about the possible value... ie costs are often thought about instead of the benefits..

Tichy• 18 years ago

Try a version that creates fart sounds when you click on he tiles? iPhone users love special effects.

OK, joke aside, I am just thinking: iPhone users love to show off. So if your app is about memory skills, maybe you could tune it so that the showing off aspect becomes more apparent ("look what I can do").

For example, if I could do stacking, I would probably show it off at any possible occasion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bDgO3_vRXQ

Same goes for guitar hero: if I could play some complicated songs on 100%, I would show them off.

Maybe your app could become something people show off, like solving the Rubik's cube.

m_eiman• 18 years ago

A free version should help a lot, try that before you lower the price.

I'm in favour of "try before your buy", especially if what I'm buying more expensive than the competition (which in your case is about a gazillion other games, many (most?) of which are less expensive than $3).

mdonahoe• 18 years ago

Thanks for the advice. My next step will be to release a free version that acts like a tutorial, and maybe a web version since I'm pretty fast with Flash. Then maybe I will give up and lower it to $1

Changing the game mechanic to somehow reflect your "brain fitness" is probably a good idea, but then again, the whole thing feels like a sunk cost. If I am going to have to do some coding, I would rather work on new stuff. Maybe I'll start a blog about making a new $1 iphone app every week.

How should I market this game?

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