Nov 05 2009
How to make money selling iPhone games
Michael Schade, CEO of Fishlabs, talked today at Oredev on strategies for maximising revenue from iPhone games. Citing research to Mobilegamesdb, PinchMedia and Appsfire, he said that $900M was paid out to developers from AppStore last year and that the estimate is that this figure will surge to $2.8b in 2.8b. An average user spends $80 on 65 apps, out of which 65% are free, making average commercial spend $1.90 per application. In average, an application earns $8500, but the store sales are top-heavy, so most applications make much less than that. Budgets for high-end games are now well over $250k, so it is very important to carefully position and market the games if to compete.
Make it visible
AppStore is now saturated with games, with over a hundred new applications appearing weekly. Schade advised first carefully choosing the category where you want to compete. Putting this into context, he said that there are over 6000 puzzle games in the store, 1107 card games, 1014 role-play games, 679 casino games, coming down to less than hundred in high-end 3D simulations.
To make the application visible in AppStore, Schade advised choosing a catchy name and creating an icon that presents unique game features. For example, the icon for their Rally Master Pro game shows dirt on tires and lights to demonstrate that they have levels with different tracks and weather conditions. He also advised keeping the product description short and snappy as customers mostly won’t read that first but look at screenshots. This also means that you have to choose screenshots wisely to demonstrate unique features of the game. For keyword selection, he advised applying traditional SEO techniques. “Pick keywords wisely as you won’t be able to change them without resubmission. Ask yourself what people would look for without knowing your application. Those who know your application will find it anyway”, said Schade. He also advised making price drops very clear and visible because some customers wait for price drops to buy games.
Marketing schedule
Fishlabs has a very aggressive marketing schedule for games. The key phases there are:
- Announce the title early and focus on things that make the game special (eg. number of tracks in the game, weather)
- Contact journalists to provide them with unique identifiers (UDIDs) to be able to deliver adhoc beta builds to them. Schade said that developers get only up to 50 UDIDs yearly, so they are careful about who they give them to. He suggested contacting people on Touch Arcade forum (US), Pocket Gamer (UK) and Slide To Play
- At the alpha stage, they spread first screenshots
- At the beta stage, they release the game-play trailer on YouTube and provide beta builds to journalists for initial feedback
- Two weeks before submission, they release the official game trailer on YouTube to generate buzz on forums. Schade said that these trailers can get up to 100k views.
- When submitting the application to AppStore, they spread the final screenshots and story about the game online.
- They they send the final version to journalists for review and chase those who haven’t published a review. Schade said that most journalists know that UUIDs are scarse, so they will respect that and publish a review.
- Once the game is live, they send out the press releases. They need to be sent to Apple upfront according to the developer agreement, so Schade advised taking extra care to get the spelling of Apple products right.
- They then provide promo codes to journalists and enthusiastic gamers with blogs and youtube channels that will review the game. To startups without such connections, he suggested announcing promo codes on the promo-code section on Touch Arcade.
- They recently started running online and mobile banners banners for the first time, so it’s still early to know the effects of this.
- Then they carefully monitor user reviews, YouTube comments and special interest groups, replying to complaints and offering advice, making sure that comments from spammers and competitors are removed where possible.
Prepare for promotion
The US customers represent 50% of the market, UK customers 30%, so releasing only the English language initially first makes sense. Schade also advised considering are French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch and Japanese. Even if you release only English initially, Schade advised to be prepared to localise very quickly if needed. Apple might decide to promote the application internationally if it becomes popular, said Schade, and they might ask you for example to give them a Japanese localised version that same day. In that case, you’ll have to act very quickly. “If Apple asks you to jump, don’t ask why but how high”, said Schade, because being promoted helps a lot with sales. You also need to have hi-resolution screenshots ready in layered PSD format for this. Although there is no guarantee that the application will be promoted, you can increase your chances by monitoring applications that are currently promoted and trying to understand why they are there. As some good ideas that might get the game promoted, Schade mentioned utilising latest technologies, having very polished games or a distinctive style. Schade advised not launching the light game while being promoted or dropping the price.
Online CRM
A key marketing tool for application developers is online CRM, but not in a traditional sense. Schade advised being very active on forums and monitoring YouTube channel comments and Twitter feeds for people talking about your application, especially those that are complaining. “Watch out for major complaints and fix them ASAP”, advised Schade, saying that developers should be responsive and seek out clarification for any complaints in order to either provide advice or reply constructively to diffuse potential bad reputation. The most important period to monitor are the first two to four weeks after a release, especially the weekends when the traffic goes up three times. Schade said that monitoring online channels is now a 24/7 job for him, and that other team members do that occasionally as well.
They also make an effort to broadcast news on Twitter. Schade advised posting anything relevant to the game, especially new reviews and price drops because people retweet these things. Again, Twitter feeds should be monitored closely and any complaints should be dealt with straight away. He also advised following journalists and game reviewers because they might also follow you then.
Game commercials
Schade categorised applications in two groups: Premium (costs between $4.99 and $9.99) and Freemium ($0.99 to $3.99). For premium games, he advised launching the full version to early adopters and then launching a light version when the full version failed to make it to charts or dropped out. “If you’re not in top 50 within the first week, you’re never going to make it [to the chart].”, said Schade. The light version should be fully playable on at least one level in proper game mode, not just be a 30 second preview. In-application purchase (available in 3.0) should be used to unlock full version without download. For freemium games, Schade advised offering a free download and then using in-game purchase to unlock it. The purpose of this strategy is to maximise reach and make people addicted to the game before they purchase. “Allow people to feel the game and tan ask for money”, said Schade.
See other news from the Oredev conference.
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