A fast, easy to use, free, and community supported 2D game engine
sergen1976
Member
Hi,
I released the game few days ago to app store. Now I have Full version and lite version. The current ration of downloads of lite versions to full version is 38 to 1. So I get one buyer on each 38 downloads of lite version. I thought about boosting the ration somehow. For example I will reduce number of levels in free version in order to force more people to continue playing in my game.
Anyway, 38/1 - is it good ratio?
Thanks!
sergen1976
Member
The game name is iBreakWall. The home page is here http://www.chessclan.com/iWall/Default.aspx
jd,
The lite version gets 2.5 points which is not that great but I am really excited that people even bother them selfs playing it. There are bunch of bugs to fix and long way to go to good feedbacks.
The idea for motivation is more levels and ability to save the game state between levels in case there is an interruption by phone call (or similar) happens.
2.5 will hurt sales. Once you get bad ratings, it may be tough to climb back up. Make sure you do fix all bugs and update your description to let people know the old ratings were because of the bugs. I've seen people do this.
Holding back pause functionality is a good idea to get people to upgrade. I plan to do that when I release my game next month (hopefully next month). Maybe entice people by adding a cool powerup only available for paid version.
I didn't download your game but looking at the screen shots, it looks like just another brick breaker (no offense). What makes your version better than the others out there?
if you want to get people to buy the full version, ensure that you do add nice features in the full version, but don't overly limit the lite version. That'll just turn people off and they're bound to go elsewhere. So provide a good sampling of levels and bonuses in the lite version, but really go all out in the full version.
Codemattic
Moderator
I think 2.6% conversion sounds reasonable for a brick bashing type game. There are a ton of breakout style games, some very good. Even if you dont make a lot of $, consider it a good learning project on how the appstore works and how to deal with customers, and to work out all the bugs of your base code so that your next project goes smoother.
sergen1976
Member
Codemattic,
First time i submitted the Full version on June 6 and Lite version on June 7. On June 10 I received rejection from Apple with this comment:
------------ Start
iBreakWall cannot be posted to the App Store because the small bundle icon does not match your large icon. This might be confusing to users.
iTunes Connect Users Guide, pg 27
C) Large Icon (512x512)
The small (57x57) icon that you include inside the binary will be used on the home screen, and the App Store when viewed from the iPod touch and iPhone. The large icon will be used to feature your application on the iTunes App Store.
------------ End
I changed the icon to match the logo and resubmitted both apps almost at the same (plus minus 3 minutes) at June 10. Got the approvals for both at June 18. iBreakWalll Lite approval came at 2:50pm and iBreakWall approval at 3:30pm.
So I guess after second attempt it took almost 8 days for the approvals.
Steve Oldmeadow
Administrator
You can use the desktop version of iTunes to see the popularity of various lite versions vs full versions. For example search for Stick Wars and you will see that the full version has greatly outsold the lite version. This pattern is common on many successful products.
The Hopple guys pulled their lite version, at the time they did it it looked to me like they had around 32 times more downloads of the lite version than the full version.
Codemattic
Moderator
Steve, I may not understand completely how this works - or maybe something odd is going on with my iTunes. In desktop iTunes I searched for iBreakWall. It shows iBreakWall paid-version to be more popular than the free-version. But sergen1976 is saying that the paid version only gets a fraction of the downloads that the free version does. Is the popularity algorithm that Apple uses different for paid versions vs free versions?
Steve Oldmeadow
Administrator
@codemattic - maybe it is the different stores. In the Australian store the free version of iBreakWall looks like it has outsold the paid one by 4 to 1. You are in the States? So that is interesting. It could turn out that you need to consider territories too. My initial hypothesis would be in richer territories people are more likely just to buy outright.
My guess with the popularity algorithm is that it just shows the fraction of the total downloads of all the displayed items. For example, you can search for GameLoft and see a nice indication of how all their products have sold.
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