How long do apps/games stay popular?

[andymc]

My Space Invaders game has been doing well and after an initial six weeks of ever increasing downloads it seems to be leveling out. How long can I expect this to go on? Or do people find their downloads suddenly go down to nothing very quickly? I am working on some new improved games and am planning to use the popularity of the existing game to drive downloads to those.

 

[eps]

This would be interesting to know. I have been perennially trying to get a game completed but have failed on that front. All my Apps are fairly cyclical - e.g. the installs and current installs trend pretty much the same year on year. There is an upward long term trend which is encouraging.

It would seem that updating/fixing/improving on a fairly regular basis is a good way to get new Users to try the App and old Users to revisit the App. This somewhat goes against traditional development processes which used to discourage frequent updates or releases. i.e. I could give all the data in one go, but it seems almost that drip feeding updates is better and encourages Users to install and use the App more.

Which stores do you have your App listed in? Mine are in Google Play (obviously), Amazon and slideme.org which cover most Users of Android devices I think.

 

[andymc]

I just use Google Play, aren't the other app stores much smaller in terms of users? And will admob work on amazon? I'm happy to buy a kindle fire and release on teh amazon store if it's worth it.

 

[eps]

The other stores are much smaller, but every little helps...

Admob works on Amazon. I upload the same App to all 3 stores (if free and with Admob). Of course they don't come pre-installed with Google Play services, maps etc.. So that needs to be handled.

You don't necessarily need a Kindle Fire - it's not just Amazon devices that access that store. Although I did buy one a few years ago as my Apps kept on getting rejected - I couldn't work out why until I had one to play with and could see the issues.

They are quite good at auto-testing the Apps for you as well and provide feedback where necessary. Up until recently my Apps were approved really quickly but then the change in Maps services meant they got rejected for the Amazon devices - now updated again.

I also produce a Paid For App in Amazon - no licensing server check (obviously) but get them to apply their own DRM.

All in all it is a smaller store, but seems to provide maybe an extra tenth on top of Google Play. I should have split out my Admob reporting so that it gives a different id so that I could see the impact of that as well, but didn't - so can't really tell the impact of Amazon free downloads on my App revenue.

You get quite different feedback from Amazon Store Users which is useful.

I think that your sort of Apps (i.e. games) may well do quite well on Amazon - especially Amazon Underground - which might be interesting for you to try.

 

[sorex]

I tried a few other stores and most of them barely generated downloads.

I also think most of them lack the feature to autoupdate or notify about a newer version.
Which results that some people are probably still using the first version they downloaded months ago.

Some only accept their own in-app purchase routines and won't pass your app with google's in-app routines in it.
That it has admob for ads doesn't seem to be a problem.

Slideme is very picky and I quit it after my first attempt. if your app has numbers they just say it looks like sudoku and we have enough of them, bye.

But if you don't try you don't know and it could be a viral trigger aswell if one of those other-store-users promotes you app.

 

[Peter Simpson]

I just searched for 'space invaders' on the Play store and once again you are top of the pile at number 1. Considering that that there are hundreds of space invaders games, that is just awesome.

I hope that you are getting plenty of taps on your in game ads. Anyway I've gotta go, I've got a 26 mile bike ride to contend with before jumping in my car and shooting down to London from brum, London and it's pure traffic traffic traffic again .

Anyway keep up the good work and I hope that you are still getting plenty of daily downloads, I presume that you have shot past the 200k download mark by now

BTW @andymc, this comment of your's almost got me coughing my cuppa up lol "Thanks for the review! Don't forget to play and review our other games!"

 

[sorex]

I just searched for 'space invaders' on the Play store and once again you are top of the pile at number 1.

that's because both of you are from the UK

search results differ depending on country/language and installs in the country you're in.

overhere (Belgium) it's still at a top spot tho, nr 2. so it must have a lot of belgian installs aswell.

 

[Cableguy]

I found a major bug in the space invaders 2017... If you keep your finger down, ever dead, with the game over message on screen, you can keep playing and even pass the level...

 

[Peter Simpson]

That's completely irrelevant @sorex, it's still top and that's all that matters, even if it's only in the UK or Europe, or wherever.

Let's say that you are the main singer in a teenage boy band called SOREX lol, you reach number 1 in your local music chart, are you really going to bitch and moan about it, no well then, it's as simple as that really, well not unless you are a born moaning little s..t, and I know plenty of people like that

 

[sorex]

I don't know why you are so picky, Peter.

I wrote it's at a top spot as #2 when looking at it from my side/countryIP so that it must have a lot of belgian installs aswell.

If I open up a vpn connection to the UK I'll see it at #1.

That's what I meant.

 

[andymc]

sorry guys, just saw this thread had some updates.

It's still doing well, but I did get a warning from Google to change the name, so it'#s now called "Invaders" instead of "Space invaders", I can't complain really.

Now I've released a second space invaders game with some improvements, I can say that linking a popular game to a second game does make a difference in download numbers and helps the second game succeed, I get 30% of my installs for invaders deluxe from players pressing the link in the invaders game.

26 mile bike ride???! That's nothing! I cycle 13.3 miles each way to work, 26.6 miles a day!