Free App of the Day strategy

[RCBH928]

iOS gets a lot of Free App of the Day ..well, apps and I do not see why would any one want to do this. If you offer your app for free , for a day(sometimes it goes for a week!) you are probably losing on all your potential buyers. You literally can have a million or more people download the app a day.

Thats it , if your app was $5 thats $5m gone. I do not think that is going to help in the word of mouth strategy , where some one will get the app for free then will tell his friends.

But I probably do it if the app is unknown or hardly sells, but to my amazement , very successful apps do this kind of thing. There were many apps that I was waiting on and they turned up free.

[Metal Jesus]

I think the developer relies on word of mouth to sell their games, and you need to have your app on somebody's device to start that process.

A perfect example is my YouTube channel. By far my most viewed videos are my iPad videos, and 90% of the games I show I got either free or on sale. While they may have given me the app for cheap, now 50,000 to 100,000 people see it and go to buy it.

Also, speaking of iOS deals and price tracking, I highly recommend the Touch Arcade app (FREE) for seeing what games are best, which indie games are making a buzz in the forums and you can add a game to a Watch List and be notified if it goes on sale. Check it out!

[RCBH928]

I use app shopper to check which apps I want and it informs me if they go on sale

[Jrecee]

It's only $5 million gone if those million people would have bought your app if it was paid. And they wouldn't have.

Most of those people who download an app for free are people who just tread through free app sites and ONLY download free stuff.

Another chunk of them are people who had no idea your app existed. If you hadn't put your game on app a day, they still wouldnt know it existed.

[Metal Jesus]

Most of those people who download an app for free are people who just tread through free app sites and ONLY download free stuff.

BTW Justin: Your Clash Force game looks pretty interesting. How has it gone with the sale of that on the App store? Have you had sites like Touch Arcade review it yet? I'm curious about the experience from the dev side.

[Jrecee]

Well I'm still making games in my moms basement, so I would say it has not gone too well.

I've gotten numerous reviews but not touch arcade, which is a very hard site to get on to(the forum is another story, it's great for promoting)

[o.pwuaioc]

^Any sign of Android or PC release?

[RCBH928]

I did not know you made games,

i did not download the game, I just looked at it from the iTunes store. How did you reach this level of art style?
This does NOT look retro..this IS retro. Its so similar/exact like a genesis platformer art style wise.

Are there special tools to reach this look or you are just talented?

[aaron]

i think a lot of revenue for developers comes from in-app purchases, hence the willingness to make the app "free" for a limited period of time. that's probably the business mentality behind it. get the platform in people's hands, make it seem like they're getting something for free, get them hooked on the game/service/application, then charge for additional features.

[jfrost]

Valve has stated over and over that steep discounts increase sales even when the game goes back to the original price. I think the same applies to iOS.