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[appromoteralan]

I would be interested to know whether anyone who developers games apps has a business plan or marketing plan or if most people just want to get their app out there and hope for the best.  I'm coming at this from two angles and one of those is as a developer...  Thanks for reading.

[Mofko]

The more you put out the more you get back.  I would suggest that you send your app to as many places as possible.  Create a press release, invite people to review it, create a video trailer if possible.

[James Coote]

The general consensus seems to be that just putting it out there will leave you very disappointed. Marketing doesn't necessarily mean big budgets and shiny adverts but even the social media marketing and developing a community around your game type approaches take real time and hard work

[Kepa]

Im an ap developer

Yeah we plan things ahead. Just kind of plopping things out there is a terrible idea. Especially on the App Store because it's kind of like taking something you've worked on for months, then dropping it into the deepest, darkest pit on earth.

Any specific questions or details as to where you are? I could possibly help.

[hilake]

My new app will coming soon. But I didn't know how to market. My app cost me several month. I want to more people know it. I want earn more money to keep make more game.

[Venks]

My new app will coming soon. But I didn't know how to market. My app cost me several month. I want to more people know it. I want earn more money to keep make more game.

I feel the same way. I'm thinking about making a mobile app as well, but I know nothing about successful marketing. I want to make a free game and just get as many downloads as possible. I've read time and again that just making a good game really won't get you anywhere without marketing.

How do you make a press release for a game? What are good places to submit your press release to? Will people accept a press release from some no-name developer with no releases currently under his belt? What's the best way to start?

[hilake]

Venks:
There are lot of questions. So I find market need a lot of work to do, after I search google. It will cost a lot of time to market your app. If your app was not good enough, why not make effort to make app better or make more app.
Now, I think the good app is the best market. Someone who like the good app will tell others. So it will be known by so many people.

[Kepa]

My new app will coming soon. But I didn't know how to market. My app cost me several month. I want to more people know it. I want earn more money to keep make more game.

I feel the same way. I'm thinking about making a mobile app as well, but I know nothing about successful marketing. I want to make a free game and just get as many downloads as possible. I've read time and again that just making a good game really won't get you anywhere without marketing.

How do you make a press release for a game? What are good places to submit your press release to? Will people accept a press release from some no-name developer with no releases currently under his belt? What's the best way to start?

For starters, I recommend going to the Toucharcade forum and posting your game under the "upcoming games" section. People that are interested in mobile games actually browse that forum regularly. This includes both the public and the editors and reviewers that run the site. An interesting game from a no-name developer can get a review just by generating a lot of interest on their forums.

Toucharcade is also one of the biggest review sites. If you're covered there, other sites seem more likely to review your game. Getting sites to review your game gets easier each time you're reviewed, and the above is a great jumping-off point.

Other than that, two marketing strategies actually work for mobile games. One is building up a fan base and making sure they're aware of each new game you create. This is extremely important, but it also takes time. The other is having established developers recommend your game to their audience. Many are willing to do this if your games are truly interesting.

Hope this was helpful, if a little brief.

[ColeyWoley]

How long does it generally take to get reviews?  I guess it varies wildly, but it would be interesting to get a ball park...  I read hundreds of post mortems before we launched, and I thought I was ready.  I was so very wrong... 

Oh well, there's always the next game

[nyyjen]

Have you checked out this topic? http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=25719.0

It covers games in general and has pretty good advice I think.

[ColeyWoley]

Yes, great blog, thanks

[ColeyWoley]

sooo....  paid adverts?

We'd resolved not to bother with paid adverts.  They don't automatically increase sales, they take money away from the next game's budget, and we can only afford little tiny ones on low traffic sites anyway.

But now I think maybe we should have?  We were going to get someone to do our marketing for us, and he wrote us up a plan that we've tried to stick to, but it was more suited to his personality than ours. 

Has anyone had paid adds improve sales? 

[Muz]

I make Android apps for a living. Torn between the guilt of giving away free advice and the guilt of seeing people need help, so I'll try to strike a middle ground. I'll just go for the common sense stuff that you can maybe pick up from Google

Mobile marketing is entirely different to say, PC marketing.

People aren't going to find your apps on Facebook or whatever. They'll learn about it almost fully through browsing or word of mouth. Similar with review sites. Review sites do work for hardcore gamers, but often it's easier to just search for it. However, people will sometimes look up your game on a review site before buying.. low prices will encourage impulse buying.

Trailers are excellent. Don't bother with putting captions on your screenshots, it just makes it look like you're hiding the actual gameplay.

Hit the right keywords. Ranking does NOT equate to sales. It does equate to more views, though. Great for casual stuff that appeals to everyone.

The people who search for your keywords are often the people who want to buy that kind of stuff and the people who would pay a premium for it. Like, I normally search for "roguelike". Someone may search for "platformer" or "strategy" or "angry birds" (as a genre). Make it clear what your game is.

Don't be an idiot and spam those things everywhere, though. Dunno about itunes, but Google's  recent algorithms are designed to punish SEO. Be honest, don't game the system too much. Experienced gamers don't like marketers and if you're going to appeal to casual/dumb gamers, just make a pay-to-win.

Mobile is basically about getting as much information to the user in as few words and pictures as possible. Information is distilled into one small page, get to the fricking point.

If you're indie, doing it with a tiny team, marketing is just really poor return. Just google a little over a week or so, and spend the rest of your time making something good. It pays.

[ColeyWoley]

Just found this great article on marketing.

http://appgamer.net/features/2009/sep/3/industry-game-marketing-and-pr-lock-it-down/

[Uykered]

Don't bother with putting captions on your screenshots, it just makes it look like you're hiding the actual game.

This is really important I think, I was browsing the other day and noticed a lot of games not just showing real screenshots — instantly puts me off the game.

[aschearer]

To what extent to those of you who release mobile games try to design "marketing" features into the games themselves? As an example, I recall the flash game "Fantastic Contraption" allowed players to share replays via a URL. This apparently encouraged fans to share the game on message boards and what not just so they could show off their solutions. If you've tried this type of thing did it pay off? If not, why not?

[AndyNN]

To what extent to those of you who release mobile games try to design "marketing" features into the games themselves? As an example, I recall the flash game "Fantastic Contraption" allowed players to share replays via a URL. This apparently encouraged fans to share the game on message boards and what not just so they could show off their solutions. If you've tried this type of thing did it pay off? If not, why not?

This is very paramount in making a mobile game successful. When you design a game for mobile you really need to plan the updates in advance - sort of get a plan into place. In my experience successful updates can stabilise the game and stop it from free falling off the charts after it's initial release. This experience comes from when Jet Car Stunts was launched on iOS in Nov 2009.

So in order here is a history of the updates that were done.

1. The original release had a crash bug on the original iPhone2g - this fix was updated almost straight away.
2. After launch we listened to peoples feedback from the iTunes reviews and the Touch Arcade forums - we added a tutorial and tidied the menus up.
3. Added in a replay (connected to the leaderboards) and challenge system. We got extra promotion from Openfeint because we got Openfeint gold.
4. Made a lite version of the game but added new tracks in. We added new tracks in for two reasons... One was that people were crying out for new tracks.... And the other was we wanted people who had bought the game to download the lite version as well so it would go up the charts. I'm proud to say we were the first developers to do this on iOS.
5. Added retina support in. Got a feature from Apple because of this.
6. Add new tracks in using DLC with an IAP. Also, we included the lite tracks in for free.

In between all that we did the windows mobile and Android versions.

All that is pretty much 9 months of hard work after the initial launch... But by doing that the game still earns money in the charts until recently where it's started to decline.

True Axis used to be a two man operation, which included me. But when you consider that we were developing, marketing, and doing updates I got severe burn out by Jan 2011. I asked my business partner to buy me out at that time.

There was one thing that irked me, though, and that was that an iPad version never happened... So just recently I decided to help out at True Axis and did the iPad update.

7. iPad and iPhone4s update in July 2012... Stopped the game from declining.

So to conclude it's paramount that you show your users that you update after release because they will spread the word about the game to their friends - in other words look after your customers. Jet Car Stunts has been in the iOS charts for nearly 3 years generating cash.

I was at GDC this year and saw a talk that Halfbrick did on Fruit Ninja and how they go about planning updates. But in this modern age it's not just about getting a game out of the door it's what happens after releasee.

Hopefully this insight will help some developers.

[aschearer]

Thanks for sharing your experiences Andy! I will have ot start to think more seriously about what updates to ship for my upcoming games...

[aschearer]

Another question, do people generally find it's worth establishing a presence on the TouchArcade forums, Indie DB, etc? It's time consuming to try to keep Facebook, Twitter, TIGForums, etc. up to date, so I'm curious what you have found to work and where it's important to invest.

[Muz]

I doubt it. I play mobile games quite a lot and I've never even heard of those. TIGforums are rather elite too, more for game developers than buyers.

Facebook and Twitter are for everyone. I have serious doubts about how effective social networking really is in converting to sales. But it just plain works in getting your game's name around. If you have something that's attractive on sight, it'll work. If it doesn't stand out, it probably won't.

If there's a niche site for it.. like a touchphone RPG guild, or retro-gamers club.. you'll probably get few people seeing it, but the ones who go to such sites are often very willing to pay (if a tad picky). It's really dependent on the groups themselves.