Indie Game Marketing: ARTICLE II – Traditional Advertising

The Almighty Apple Feature

Everyone knows this is the big one. It’s a magical wonderful mysterious instant sales boost that propels you into fame & fortune (for a few days at least), and nobody really knows what the criteria for being Featured is or how it’s determined which App will get the golden ticket. The unfortunate news is that I don’t know how Apple’s Feature system works either, so if you’re reading this hoping to find out how to get Featured, I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you a few things related to it, based on what I’ve researched:

What MIGHT Affect It

This is based on reading about the experiences of people who’ve been Featured, and some basic logic. The jist seems to be that Apple tends to Feature games that make their system look good. Whether it’s that you use a bunch of the device’s features (Game Center, multiplayer, accelerometer, etc.), or that you’re showing off phenomenal graphics (Infinity Blade anyone?), or that you’re doing something totally new with your game design or control scheme that no one has done before (Pocket God, etc.).

On top of that, it seems like a large number of sales in a short period of time gets Apple’s attention. If a game is catching on with the masses, Apple is likely to show it off. It’s possible that a lot of 5-Star reviews may get a game to show up on Apple’s radar, but I couldn’t begin to guess how many you’d need or what ratio of good to bad reviews you’d need. There’s also knowing someone at Apple or getting a specific Apple employee’s attention directly, but if you can do that you’re probably not reading this article. :)

You can find a lot of people’s tips and advice on how to get Featured by doing a simple Google search. There’s all sorts of theories on it that go into way more detail, like creating niche Apps, releasing them on specific days of the week, etc. So just as a final note: E-Mailing Apple directly and asking to be Featured, or reminding them of how awesome your game is doesn’t seem to do anything. I don’t know if it hurts, but it definitely doesn’t seem to influence them positively, going by what I’ve read from Developers who’ve tried it.

New & Noteworthy

When your game first goes live, you’ll automatically get mentioned in the New & Noteworthy section so for a day you get to feel awesome and get a chance for your game to fluke out and catch on before it gets pushed down the charts by all the other New & Noteworthy games. This is a big part of why Developers try to focus their marketing and sales on Day 1, you’ve automatically been given a slight foothold on a silver platter by default that you’ll probably never get that easily again so that’s the time you want people checking out your game.

Prepare In Advance

From what I’ve read, when Apple IS planning to Feature you it can be pretty out of the blue and mysterious. You basically get an E-Mail from Apple saying “Send us a bunch of art at such and such sizes.” and you’re not sure what exactly is going on. But you send what they request off to them and next thing you know, bam, you’re Featured and your sales are spiking like crazy and you sail off into the sunset on your golden speedboat.

…actually, Apple asking for more artwork is NOT a guarantee you’ll actually get Featured, as a few super-disappointed Devs have found out the hard way (ouch!! What a kick in the nuts hey). But either way, it’s good to have this stuff ready to go. Check the iTunes Connect Developer Guide (the “Promotional Artwork” section specifically) for what sort of stuff you should have ready to go.

Plan a Super Combo

So you’ve just been Featured by Apple. All you do now is sit back and watch the money roll in and look up which model of golden speedboat you want to buy, right? Well, you CAN do that, but like I stated earlier, everything in the App Store tends to follow the same pattern of a sudden spike followed by a steep drop-off and back into nothingness. A Feature isn’t necessarily any different aside from being bigger in proportion. Sure, if you get Featured and it dies off you’re probably going to still be doing better on a day-to-day basis than you were before the Feature, but when Rovio, Chillingo, Halfbrick, etc. get Featured do you think they just sit back and relax? Or do they do stuff to help boost their game even further up the charts?

Whether it’s buying a visual revamp of the Touch Arcade website’s background, using a marketing agency to spread massive word-of-mouth, Launching Press Releases announcing the Feature, holding contests for prizes, creating merchandise, adding updates, etc. try to have a general plan in mind for what you’ll do if your game gets Featured. You’ll really only have anywhere from a couple days to a week max to put a plan into action before the magic of the Feature wears off like the Invincibility Star in Mario and you’re back to running away from Goombas…so a little planning ahead of time could be the difference between the Feature boosting your rank to 60 on the charts and then you drop back down to 150 after a week, or the Feature boosting your rank to 60 on the charts and your Super Combo secures you a place in the Top 20 for a couple months.