In this post I just want to quote two different point of view of fellow developers.
Noel Llopis - Developer of casey’s-contraptions@ gamesfromwithin.com
"Looking at the App Store today, it’s apparent that it’s becoming harder for small, quick games to be really successful and top the charts. With over half a million different apps on the App Store, and hundreds of games released every day, you really need to stand out from the rest to be noticed. Most of the games that manage to do that are ones that required significant time and effort investment and have good production values. The App Store gold rush is over"
Big Duck Games LLC - Developer of Flow Free @ cocos2d-forum
"But I actually didn't do very much to promote the game... probably less than I should have. It mostly grew on it's own. I have a few other iOS apps that have done okay like Fireworks Arcade that I ran some house ads in to promote Flow Free, but not at very high volume, and only for a short time. I also mailed family and friends, posted to Facebook, and a few iOS forums like Touch Arcade.
But I think people mostly discovered the app in the App Store new lists and later charts, and just liked and shared it... maybe they were drawn in at first by the name and icon, and then the simple gameplay. I also probably got at least a bit lucky. It moved up on the iPad charts faster than the iPhone charts, which I think then helped it move up on iPhone where it's been surprisingly sticky... #1 iPhone app for over a week now, although I have to assume its run at the very top must be close to ending.
Flow had done pretty well on other platforms... I'd released earlier versions for Windows Phone and the Windows 8 Release Preview. So I hoped it would do okay on iOS, but didn't expect it do this well."
Noel Llopis - Developer of casey’s-contraptions@ gamesfromwithin.com
"Looking at the App Store today, it’s apparent that it’s becoming harder for small, quick games to be really successful and top the charts. With over half a million different apps on the App Store, and hundreds of games released every day, you really need to stand out from the rest to be noticed. Most of the games that manage to do that are ones that required significant time and effort investment and have good production values. The App Store gold rush is over"
Big Duck Games LLC - Developer of Flow Free @ cocos2d-forum
"But I actually didn't do very much to promote the game... probably less than I should have. It mostly grew on it's own. I have a few other iOS apps that have done okay like Fireworks Arcade that I ran some house ads in to promote Flow Free, but not at very high volume, and only for a short time. I also mailed family and friends, posted to Facebook, and a few iOS forums like Touch Arcade.
But I think people mostly discovered the app in the App Store new lists and later charts, and just liked and shared it... maybe they were drawn in at first by the name and icon, and then the simple gameplay. I also probably got at least a bit lucky. It moved up on the iPad charts faster than the iPhone charts, which I think then helped it move up on iPhone where it's been surprisingly sticky... #1 iPhone app for over a week now, although I have to assume its run at the very top must be close to ending.
Flow had done pretty well on other platforms... I'd released earlier versions for Windows Phone and the Windows 8 Release Preview. So I hoped it would do okay on iOS, but didn't expect it do this well."
