Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Updating doesn't help your iPhone app, but price drops do
Here are two different insights from Pocket Gamer about how developers can grow the profile of their iPhone apps. The first comes to us from the wisdom of Peggle, that game that I just can't stop playing. Apparently, they've coined the term "Peggling," which means lowering the price of your app, and seeing a huge benefit from it. Whenever a game drops its price down to 99 cents, much as Peggle did soon after release, it sees a significant bump in the charts. I'm sure there are many other factors at play here -- Peggle was a great game, so you can't sell more of a crappy game just by selling it for cheaper, and I saw a lot of Twitter and blog attention when the price dropped, so it pays to have people watching the price in the first place. But under the right circumstances, dropping the price can do a lot for a game that's already selling pretty well.But an update, apparently, won't. That's what the makers of Zen Bound told Pocket Gamer -- they say that when they released an update with new levels and new features, it didn't make a difference in their sale numbers at all. Games like Pocket God have made a reputation for themselves by providing regular and solid updates, and certainly it seems like those updates have at least spurred sales, if not made them blow up, but the Zen Bound guys say that singular updates on major products probably won't kick sales into gear.
Interesting. We're at least a few generations into App Store sales at this point, and we're started to see trends and consumer behavior in better relief; developers are getting better and better ideas every day about how to price and service their apps and customers.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Duncan said 5:31PM on 7-30-2009
As enlightening as this is I hope developers dont take the wrong message away, as long as you get the consumer to initially purchase your app you dont have to update it because it wont help sales.
Games that get regular updates actually get played by consumers, constantly, and help their impression, so while it is less important it is still necessairy.
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blueruckus said 6:24PM on 7-30-2009
Why is this such a surprise?
Please see Steam's sales charts of Weekend Deals for reference. (Left 4 Dead, specifically.)
I don't understand why more providers don't offer these type of deals.
Duncan said 7:50PM on 7-30-2009
I dont necessarily mean it is a surprise, Im just saying I hope iPhone devs do not sacrifice quality updates just because they do not do as much to help sell the app as a lower price.
Ian said 5:53PM on 7-30-2009
Apple doesn't have much incentive to encourage developers to update their apps because they already know that most updates don't spur increased sales. Instead, developers seem to be leaving older apps in the dust and existing users will likely end up paying more to buy the next greater thing when it comes along.
End result: More sales for new app makers and greater revenue for Apple.
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Jeff said 5:59PM on 7-30-2009
Although it may sound silly, but lots of people still judge a book by its cover and it may be that when major additions are made changing the icon itself helps to spur interest, enough to at least check the description of the app before purchasing.
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Ryan Morano said 6:25PM on 7-30-2009
Check out appsniper in the app store. They list all the apps that went on sale as well as all the new apps that are released. Best $0.99 I've spent on this phone
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Thread said 11:17AM on 7-31-2009
You know, it was comments like this that led me to buy appsniper, and I just haven't had the same experience. It doesn't seem to even see the apps I'm most interested in watching, though for some reason it will let me monitor their free/lite versions.
I haven't deleted it yet, but so far it hasn't saved me any money.
KeynoteKen said 6:24PM on 7-30-2009
And advertising does... What?
Does advertising simply not work, so the ONLY way an app will sell is if it's cheap? In all the discussions about the app store, there's not been much discussion around how much of a developer's budget needs to be applied to ad buys.
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Robin Rath said 6:30PM on 7-30-2009
We have found that there is simply no way to advertise and get an actual return on the investment...in terms of downloads/revenue. Advertising is good for boosting numbers that will convert to a better rank, and then hope that better rank will help you sustain sales.
The key is to know when to spend the advertising, if you are about to break into a top 100 list, advertising through display ads might be a good idea because it probably puts you in a position ahead of what the other guys around you are doing.
Robin Rath said 6:24PM on 7-30-2009
I think the change in price has more to do with conversion. If you are already generating a lot of traffic to your app through marketing and/or rank, then a price drop will help because you will convert more traffic. If you are not getting a lot of traffic already, a price drop will help less unless you can generate a lot of press because of the price drop.
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chang.seea said 7:13PM on 7-30-2009
The Zen Bound guys are flat out wrong. Lesson number one don't tie your fortunaes to a lower order publisher like Chillingo. ZenBound never received the kind of ongoing tlc and attention to breathing new life into it via new and ongoing marketing that it should have.
Everytime we release a new update it equates to many tens of thousands of dollars. Just like Pocket God proves this is a marathon not a race. Those that can continually reinvent their app and market their socks off win. There endeth the lesson.
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zebrum said 8:13PM on 7-30-2009
this article was wrong in my experience updates do increase sales. Simple because the categories page in itunes is sorted by release date. Keep it on that first page longer and you get loads of sales.
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Wakka said 11:23PM on 7-30-2009
This is true. Since I can't drop my price ($0.99, it's also sad you can't sell an app for more than that,) updates usually, at least, double my downloads.
KeynoteKen said 9:45AM on 7-31-2009
You CAN sell it for more than that, BUT your fellow developers have taught the buyers that, if you wait long enough, you'll catch a sale, probably down to .99!
It'd even be different if these drops were when it was 9 months or older, but, in many cases, if you wait a week from release, you'll get a 50% or more price break.
But, as the dev said above, advertising doesn't pay off, so it appears to me that you have to a) have a cheap product then "game" it's way onto the main page OR b) make a product so great, word of mouth will spread it BUT due to c) history of devs dropping prices, no one will buy until it's the lowest possible price...
Gus Jenkins said 9:08AM on 7-31-2009
..."Peggle was a great game..."
No, Peggle IS a great game!!
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ryemac3 said 9:27AM on 7-31-2009
So does putting out an update spur sales? If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? What good is an update when no one knows about it. You have to make a splash. "Now with 5 new exciting levels!" "Five more reason to find out what everyone's been talking about!"
Don't expect sales to go up on their own. You have to generate some buzz. Otherwise, the only people that are going to know about the update, are the ones that already bought it.
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Rich R said 11:48AM on 7-31-2009
http://appexplorer.com/ displays charts of price and popularity history for apps so you can see how price changes affect an app's popularity.
The site also lets you get alerts when app prices change.
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Bones3D said 1:40PM on 7-31-2009
Actually, some combination of price drop per update might yield the best results. Your app/game doesn't just get cheaper, the overall user experience gets even better as the cost goes down.
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Rich R said 11:50PM on 7-31-2009
As an example, you can see how Peggle's price sales have (temporarily) boosted its popularity here:
http://appexplorer.com/#r:314303518
(click the charts at the bottom of the page for a closer view)
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Maria said 1:47PM on 8-01-2009
I no longer buy any apps without first checking appshopper.com for an update history. I am much more willing to pay a higher price for apps with regular updates. I avoid apps which only have loads of price changes.
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