Just curious, but what about posting your download success for games / apps you've published?

Cynical me knows that it will be pretty much *naff* all for virtually everyone, including TGC's efforts, but let's discuss the main issue of no matter how good or bad your app is, it's all down to marketing, so what do we all do to make the hard work visible and downloaded?

AGK is kind of a hobbyist dev tool, so I don't think many apps can get hundreds of thousands of downloads, especially the paid apps.

AGK is kind of a hobbyist dev tool, so I don't think many apps can get hundreds of thousands of downloads, especially the paid apps.

This comment is based on what facts?

I think that is up to the quality of the game. Code something that sells, put nice artwork on it and see what happens.

Oh, and market it like crazy.

The main thing to have is probably a good new idea or a clone of a realy good concept. (Veggie samurai)

AGK is kind of a hobbyist dev tool, so I don't think many apps can get hundreds of thousands of downloads, especially the paid apps.

Well, I would argue that some of the most popular games (e.g., Doodle Jump) could readily be developed using AGK. In fact, the simpler the concept the better it seems to be on mobile platforms. AppGameKit is fully capable of producing grade A projects. The challenge is coming up with an innovative idea and then to get word out about it. With over half a million apps and hundreds of new games added weekly to iTunes, it is not going to be easy to get word out.

Fingers crossed we will see many Grade A projects with AppGameKit then

So back to my original point: how can we get some decent advertising - placements, reviews etc. without paying lots of money out?

Well, I think my original post was diluted with talk about "hobby development". I wanted to discuss marketing and publicity for app awareness. Anyone?

This thread was intended to promote the discussion that is somewhat missing from here - namely turning your work into success.

[edit] of course, I say this because my 1st app with this product is designed to generate income and I'm not in this to waste my time

I think it goes without saying that social networking can play a huge role in app promotion. A lot of apps have become popular because they allow users to tweet their scores of post info about the app on Facebook (this would only be possible using tier 2 dev in AppGameKit, currently).

submitting your app to game-related review sites can also have an impact depending on which sites decide to write about your game. However, I'd avoid paying for reviews. I know of two video review sites that charge around $200 for a brief video review while bragging about how large their YouTube, Facebook and Twitter fanbase is. However, the reviews are sloppily thrown together as if it is the first time they've ever used your app and rarely do they get more than a couple dozen views--and no notable increase in downloads whatsoever.

Well, I was thinking of using the so called "professionals" which may incur advertising costs of ~$4000 if you want to to do it properly.
Depends how much faith you have in your work to some degree?

I currently have the services of an IT publicity company advertising and publicising my mobile apps for me, in addition to social media, youtube and print advertising.

I've made 12 sales between 4 apps.

If you know the secret to maximising publicity and sales I'm all ears! lol

I currently have the services of an IT publicity company advertising and publicising my mobile apps for me, in addition to social media, youtube and print advertising.

How much did that cost you

12 sales over 4 apps?!!!
And this with the help of an advertising company?!!1

I've had over 3000 downloads on AppUp with zero advertising. OK only around 10% of that was sales but it's pretty hit and miss. One game has had no downloads at all.

Get a good game out there and do it for fun. If you want assured sales then go into a different line of work

You might make a simple game in a week that sells millions or make a really detailed game over 6-12 months and sell zip. Do it for fun and hope for a hit.

How much did that cost you

Nothing! Provided free from the company I work for. (Hewlett Packard)

nd this with the help of an advertising company?!!1

Unfortunately yes.

Well, the point of this post was to find what works. It's NEVER going to be my idea to "release and hope" - I would at least want to make some return from my efforts.

No, the point is what does actually help?

I know there's "ways" to get reviewed and placed, and I've even seen hints that releasing at a certain time might be beneficial... but nothing posted yet that's positive, other than "hope"

This is very much a hit and miss business and clever marketing and spreading the word is key to success.

When we released Crackshot for the iPhone http://twitter.com/#!/greggrunberg/status/6296106857 our sales were reaching into the 1000 mark daily and this continued for a few weeks and then dropped into the 100's and then eventually back down to double figures.

First post, hello everyone!

I'm still trying out the trial version of AppGameKit, but have been developing other types of Android apps for 18 months or so. Very excited about the possibilities with this software.

Coming from a rather greyhat background, I know there are a number of pretty effective ways to drive traffic/downloads.

With regard to the Android marketplace, an extensive description is effective, use all 4000 characters. The search algo isn't as advanced as big G itself, so you can get away with stuffing keywords. Use adsense keyword finder to load up every permutation it finds.

Also in the description, be transparent about advertising if it's free, ie if you use push notification ads or content lockers. Explain the permissions and why they're used, so users have a reason to trust you.

Make sure the most recent 3 ratings/comments are good. These are the ones people see on their phones by default. If you have poor ratings, pay for some on fiverr.com or get friends/family to install/rate.

Make sure the package name is relevent to the app, ie it uses keywords.

The above will get the app appearing higher up in search results.

Cross promote your other apps within the app. I don't know how easy this is to do with AppGameKit, but it's a 2 minute job in eclipse to knock up a webview of your marketplace apps.

Somewhere in the app - for example, at the end of a game - pop up the devices native share intents to "soft force" users to share your app. There's also some stuff you can do with the facebook api to get users posting on your facebook app page.

If you've got a website, host the apk's there as well. Use normal seo. Use contentbuzz.com (free) to run automated social sharing campaigns pointing to your website and marketplace listing.

Use fiverr.com to pay for +1's, fb likes/fans/friends/reviews etc. No need to spend a lot to get effective promotion.

Record a walkthrough for youtube. Add the video to your marketplace listing. Create a yt channel for all your app videos. Use vagex.com and u2bviews.com (both free) to get views, subscribers, likes, comments, favourites etc. This will get your videos appearing higher in yt search results and, quite often, an invitation from yt for that adsense profit share thing.

**Blackhat**

Get "mass video blaster" (not free). Spam yt with your videos on multiple accounts. Keyword stuff the descriptions and link to your app. Very, very effective if you can avoid getting too many accounts suspended.

Various other tools found on blackhat forums that can drive mad amounts of traffic. I wouldn't advise using any dubious tools to link to the marketplace directly, instead, use your website as a gateway.

My credentials? None really, but I've been building apps for a while after being in affiliate marketing for around six years, and my very average free apps bring in 3 figures daily from a combination of admob, leadbolt and some others.

Hope this helps someone, or at least sparks some ideas.

Cheers,

Paul.

Double post, sorry