Monday, November 30, 2015

24 hours after Android launch

So here I am. Nothing has exploded. 24 hours after launch. Life actually does just keep going.

I've had a slow-but-steady flow of installs throughout the day. Anywhere from 1 to 3 downloads per hour.


(If you're wondering, I'm using Game Analytics for metrics tracking. I'll post more about them later)

This download rate was actually pretty encouraging, as I hadn't exactly pulled out all the stops with trying to market myself. I basically blasted on Facebook, and to everyone at work, and on this blog, and on a few applicable subreddits. But other than that, I hadn't sent my app into any app review sites or anything like that. Partially, I want to see how it does, and if anything might need to be changed... and then also publish on iOS. Once I do that, I'll be blasting as hard as I can for sure!

I had a few people give me criticisms and advice, both of which were valuable. One person said they almost didn't download my game because of how horrible my icon was. I was honestly a little embarrassed. I was going for simplicity, but when I really thought about it, it did look pretty out of place in the app icon world. I spent some time tonight making an upgraded version. I wouldn't call myself an artist really, but I try.


There, that looks a little more appy.

Other advice related to adding some more interesting meta game, and adding ads in there somewhere. I'm on the fence about the ads thing. I don't want to annoy players, but... then again... most players will never cough up even a couple of dollars for an in-app purchase, and yet they're able to enjoy much of the game for free. It would be nice if I could benefit slightly from their enjoyment, while finding a way to do some very minimally intrusive monetization. I don't know. We'll see what happens.

I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking about how to advertise my app most effectively. Obviously, I don't want to pester everyone on places like Reddit (I may have done some of that today), but it's hard to find appropriate venues. I wonder if anyone has ever just gone out and stood on a physical street corner and told people about their game. Hmm... could be fun.

Anyway, I'm excited and anxious to see how downloads progress, and anxious to start working on getting on iOS.

No comments:

Post a Comment