Chaotic Box Blog

Down and Out in App Land

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:25:00 -0600

My last blog post - made nearly 2 months ago - was pretty cheery and optimistic. I had just released latest game Pollywog, and it quickly entered the Top 100 Racing Games in the US. Nothing but lollipops and sunshine from now on! Right?

What I failed to mention is that the Racing category, although highly competitive in the top ranks, is actually one of the least populated categories on the App Store. Breaking into that top list takes around 30-50 sales a day, and since I gave away 30+ promo codes on the first day it was simply math that got me into the top 100 - not sales.

Total worldwide sales for Pollywog after its first full month on the App Store: 261 copies. That works out to around $300 CAD, for 5 months work. Considering that apps rarely get more popular after the first month, and that most of these first 30 days landed in December - when sales are typically 2X-10X normal levels, I've conceded that Pollywog is dead in the water. Bad but apt pun. The trend report for yesterday shows zero Pollywog sales (that's a zero with a 0). If that doesn't drive the point home nothing will.

Despite poor sales, people who've actually bought and played Pollywog seem to like it, and review sites that actually reviewed it seemed to like it. App Advice called it "One of the best pick up and play titles in the App Store.". So why the flop? This is mostly speculation and I don't want to turn this into a post-mortem but I think it came down to just a few things...

Too cute for its own good. Pollywog's difficulty ramps up pretty quickly, and the game is very difficult by the time you hit the last tier (if you hit the last tier). The graphics and overall presentation on the other hand are decidedly G rated. Basically, the people who might enjoy it the most aren't likely to even try it simply because of how it looks, and it's a little too hard-core for people who actually like how it looks. I experienced a similar problem with my first game Pinch 'n Pop! - I didn't learn my lesson then, but I surely have now.

No online features. Pollywog was initially designed as a "see how far you can get" game with random obstacles along the lines of Doodle Jump or Canabalt (and hundreds of other similar games). That style of play naturally lends itself to online high scores but I didn't want to release yet another game in that category. That genre of game play just comes down to twitch+luck, and I decided early on that Pollywog would have more depth, require skill, memorization, problem solving, etc. That decision lead to a level-based design that can be more satisfying to play, but it limited my online/social options. Once you beat a level with a perfect score there's not much more you can do - having high scores where the top 100 players all have the same score isn't very exciting. Although I did draft a bunch of ideas for online achievements and challenges the development time (read: cost) was prohibitive for the first release, and unfortunately is even more prohibitive now.

Visibility. If there's one thing every developer knows about the App Store it's that people buy whatever's in their face. Pollywog was released during the single biggest release cycle on the App Store to date. More games, and more importantly, big-name games, came out in December 2009 than any month previously. Many smaller releases simply got drowned out. Review sites were inundated and many sites that were eager to review my previous apps simply passed over Pollywog. This was frustrating to say the least. Pollywog also got no love from Apple. Both of my previous apps got featured at one point or another in different countries and in different sections of the App Store, but Pollywog was literally nowhere to be seen almost immediately after release.

Before ya'll give me the "marketing is your problem" speech I just want to say that I've tried and failed with various marketing techniques over the past year. Ads are money pits (or black holes). I'm active on forums/twitter/youtube but apparently I'm not contagious. I use a paid press release service with a wide reach but see little return. I've dropped prices, given stuff away, and taken part in indie-dev-love-ins just to get a day of press. I even considered getting some 3rd party marketing help but every proposal was sleazy and/or borderline illegal.

The other argument I'm likely to hear is that my apps just plain suck. That might be true, but I'm confident they suck way less than some apps that sell way more. Sucking has nothing to do with success on the App Store - proof in point: My app flOOid released as an experimental half-joke with zero marketing and once described as "a stupid app for retards" is currently outselling my games. Welcome to the App Store - bring your own horseshoes.

So there's a nice downer to start your year! With that off my chest I can say it's not all doom and gloom. I'm continuing work on my next game and collaborating with other indie developers on some new marketing schemes. I might even make enough money on the App Store between now and March to pay for that iPad thing Steve Jobs is forcing on us.

Pollywog and flOOid now on the App Store!

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:13:00 -0600

Early this morning, my latest game Pollywog wriggled its way onto the App Store! Here's the direct App Store link. Pollywog has also just entered the USA Top 100 Racing Games! To quote Pauly the Pollywog: Whaaa-Hooo!

In a surprise two-fer move, Apple also simultaneously approved a major update to my app ~~Flux~~ I mean flOOid. Now with flocking critters! As the new YouTube trailer says, it's flocking awesome!

The flOOid re-branding was partly experiment and partly because the name "Flux" was taken. I had SEO'd the App Store name to "Flux (Liquid Fire)" and foolishly didn't squat the actual app name. Let that be a lesson to you! I like "flOOid" better anyway - it's more 133t, and more descriptive - after all, the app is a fluid simulation that makes you go OOooo.

Introducing Pollywog for iPhone and iPod touch

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:37:00 -0600

My latest game Pollywog has been submitted to Apple! Pollywog was originally going to be a "see how far you can get" game with a single random level and an estimated development time of 6 weeks. I quickly got bored with that style of play however and decided to create something a little more challenging that requires memorization as much as fast reflexes. That change threw my initial estimates out the window, and now, just under 5 months later, Pollywog version 1.0 is complete!

As with Pinch 'n Pop! I did all the art, code, and sound fx for Pollywog but also stepped it up a notch by writing an original soundtrack. Happy-go-lucky-polka isn't exactly my usual style but I'm pretty happy with the results. Check out the Pollywog trailer for a sampling, or have a listen to the official Pollywog theme song.

Pollywog's current status in the Apple review queue is "Waiting For Review" - fingers crossed for a release sometime in December...

Happy Birthday Pinch 'n Pop!

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:03:00 -0500

Pinch 'n Pop! is closing in on its 1 year anniversary on the App Store and I've decided to celebrate by dropping the price to FREE for the weekend! (Beginning tonight at midnight EST).

It's had its ups and downs but Pinch 'n Pop! was featured by Apple early on in the "New & Noteworthy" section, and more recently it made the "What's Hot" lists in the World and Europe regions. The Pinch 'n Pop! icon can be seen in at least two iPhone television ads (one, two) and on other Apple promotional material such as WWDC 2009 banners (one, two) and the App Store Turns 1 artwork. No matter how history judges Pinch 'n Pop!, I can say with some certainty that someone at Apple at least liked the icon

All in all it's been an interesting and enlightening year, and I'll have my second game (and third app) submitted to Apple in the near future. Watch this blog and my Twitter feed for more info on the new game and other upcoming projects.

Cheers and enjoy!

Updates on my iPhone stuff

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:17:00 -0500

I know I promised more sales/marketing statistics in my last post, but that was two months ago and I've come to realize a couple things: 1). Analyzing apps that sell less than 10 copies a day is uninteresting reading and provides little if any meaningful data. 2). I'm really tired of marketing and worrying about sales and just wanted to get back to making games (dangit!)

So, games... A couple posts back I mentioned I was working on a "space-shooter" but after 4 months of full-and-part-time development the evolving design turned out to be a bit ambitious. Rather than watering it down I decided to put it aside and work on some smaller and less risky games, in hopes of creating a bit more of a user base. The time spent on that space-shooter wasn't all wasted however - my experimental toy-app Flux was derived from tech built for the shooter, and my C framework gained a lot of useful functionality in the process. A proper audio engine, generic UI/widget system, and tons of math/GL support code was written in support of that now shelved project, and developing new games and prototypes has become infinitely easier as a result.

I've also been meaning to write more technical/developer/geek posts and share some code and techniques from my iPhone framework but that'll have to wait till my next game is released. One subject I wanted to cover is "Why you should use Spinors for 2D rotations" but someone beat me to it (cheers for the props ). I also have several ideas for a series I call "Cocoa? Schmocoa!" where I take Cocoa Touch APIs and wrap them in plain C code - to the chagrin of fanboys no doubt . Cocoa's great and all, but just ain't my cup of tea when it comes to game programming.

And now, to prove I'm actually working on a new game, here's a first look at the (WIP) app icon for my upcoming release. Let the speculation begin!

iPhone cross-application promotion analysis

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:57:00 -0500

Back when I announced my iPhone app Flux I mentioned it was more of a marketing experiment than anything else. The question back then was: "Can a free app increase sales of a paid app?" The answer in short is "sorta, yes", the real answer is more complicated...

First lets have a look at the best case scenario. You release a free app, and a week later it shows up on the "New" list. This is exactly what happened with Flux (yay!) unfortunately it only happened in Canada (yay?) Being featured in one country alone is odd enough, but it also never appeared in the "New & Noteworthy" section in iTunes - only in the "New" section on the device App Store. The device is where you want to be of course, but this was odd - I don't think anyone knows how Apple chooses what apps to feature and when, but I can safely say now that I got absolutely no clue how this crap works - my theory is someone goofed. Anyway, since the first day of being half-featured it shot into the top 10 free entertainment apps and stayed there, also occasionally popped in and out of the top 25 free apps overall. This works out to around 3,000 downloads a day at its peak, down to around 1,500 day a week later (remember, this is the Canada store only).

My only paid app at the moment is Pinch 'n Pop! so one way to judge how this experiment is working is to look at Pinch 'n Pop!'s ranking in the Canada store:

Click for full view

Unfortunately I don't have ranking data prior to June 6th, but you can still see an obvious (if fragile) upward trend the day after Flux was featured. This is of course the effect I had hoped for, but seeing as this is the Canada store and those are the Kids/Family subcategories, this only translates to an average of around 5 downloads a day. Still, much better than than the 0.2 downloads a day I was averaging in Canada previously.

Here is a more sobering graph:

Click for full view

This shows the estimated world-wide profit (in CAD$) for Pinch 'n Pop! since May 1st. You can easily see how an update can affect sales (and how quickly an app gets buried again), but sales following the release of Flux are pretty flat - similar to the background-noise sales I normally see between updates. It's fair to say those sales would've been even worse if not for the small bump in Canada, but a pittance plus a pittance is still a pittance

I've seen no appreciable trends in other countries. Flux has been downloaded nearly 10,000 times in the USA and was scrapping the bottom of the top 100 free entertainment apps list early on, but once it finally fell off that list downloads dropped to well under 100 a day. Sadly it seems difficult to get any kind of exposure on the USA store these days - even with a free app, and even with similarly-useless apps sitting in the top paid lists.

Some more details and hindsight

Although I generally despise SEO (search-engine-optimization) tactics I did play around with the name displayed in the App Store a bit, changing it from "Flux" to "Flux (Liquid Fire)" and back again a few times. I found that "Flux (Liquid Fire)" definitely got more attention than just "Flux", so I guess a little SEO never hurts. The increased downloads may have more to do with EBO (eye-ball-optimization) than SEO however. For the most part, people buy/download whatever's stuffed in front of their faces, so the more eyes you can draw to your app while it's visible the better.

Flux 1.0 contained a link to the www.chaoticbox.com website and a generic "More from Chaotic Box" link that leads directly to Pinch 'n Pop!'s App Store page. For Flux 1.1 (which was just approved today) I've updated the Pinch 'n Pop! link to a graphical banner and also added that banner to a new options screen, so users might see the banner more than once per launch. With EBO in mind I've also updated the Flux icon for the 1.1 update to better reflect the "Liquid Fire" subtitle. The original icon was admittedly rushed and fugly.

I'll post an update once some more data is available but for now I can conclude that unrelated-but-free apps can certainly help the sales of paid apps, but only if the free apps get a ton of exposure themselves - and that's definitely not a guarantee.

Pretty graphs courtesy of the excellent folks at appFigures.com.

Introducing Flux for iPhone and iPod touch

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:01:00 -0500

Please check out the official Flux web page for info, screens, and a quick video demo. It's basically just another virtual toy, but from my perspective it's more of a tech demo and marketing experiment rolled into an iPhone app...

The project was originally created to facilitate the testing and optimization of a fluid effect that's a big part of my long in-development (and as yet unannounced) space-shooter game. So it's a tech-demo, but I've also been curious to see how or if free apps can help boost sales of paid apps - or paid app, in my case at least. This seemed as good an opportunity as any to try that strategy.

And yes, this is the app that suffered an unscheduled name change at the last second due to ill planning. I think it worked out in the end however, as the old name didn't lend itself to such witty marketing slogans as "What the Flux?" or the ever so delightful "Go Flux Yourself!"

iPhone Dev Tip: Check your app name, and be prepared to change it.

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:32:00 -0500

Over the past week or so I've been working on a free toy/tech-demo app for the iPhone. I'll post the app details a little later, but for now I will tell a tale of wasted hours...

Submission time. I fire up the 2.x SDK, build, zip, get the 512x512 icon and screenshots ready to go then log into iTunes Connect. I fill out the first page of details, hit "continue" and am greeted with the following bright-red message:

"The Application Name that you provided has already been used. Please provide a unique Application Name."

Darn. I had of course performed an App Store search for the intended name a few days prior, and also a few Google searches to weed out any pre-announced apps, but as it turns out that isn't enough. Now I faced the prospect of coming up with a new name, fixing all references to the old name, and redoing all the branding and logo artwork - including the app icon, which consisted of a single stylized letter ripped from the logo!

Lesson learned. When starting a new project I almost always use a "codename" of some sort, anticipating that things will change in time. More often than not however, the codename simply sticks and becomes the real name. After this experience however, my advice is to log into iTunes Connect and start the app submission process early and often, just to ensure the name is available (even the codename). I would also recommend holding off on the branding/logo art until a release is within sight, and checking with iTunes Connect prior to committing to the art to ensure the name is still available after weeks or months of development.

I suspect this problem will get worse as 40,000 apps balloons to 100,000 (and more), and I also suspect we may see some sort of name squatting by less ethical devs by submitting empty shells with release dates far into the future. Larger companies will no doubt trademark their app names and use legal means to shoo away any squatters, but us little guys should always keep a few alternates handy - anyone who's registered a domain name knows the drill.

Chaotic Box Blog Redux

nospam@example.com (Frank) — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:58:00 -0500

Welcome to the new Chaotic Box Blog!

The Chaotic Box website has been a tad err, chaotic of late, so a bit of a refresh was in order. I've simplified things and moved the blog back onto the main site, rather than keeping it buried in some obscure (and out of date) developer sub-site. I'm starting with a clean slate however, as most of the old blog posts are now irrelevant.

This new blog will focus primarily on iPhone/iPod touch game development, marketing, and related ramblings. I've also joined the Twitter and YouTube bandwagons (links in the sidebar) so expect some noise on those channels as well.