That’s why I’m trying out something different.  I’ve always liked isometric turn based games (XCom – UFO: Enemy Unknown being the classic) and now I’ve got some resources at my fingertips, I’m getting the team to put together an isometric strategy game made primarily for the iPhone.  But here’s the different part – I don’t want to develop this game in secret until the end.  I think it’s important to show what kind of things go on behind the scenes and to allow players to give feedback early and often.  And I’ll be letting some parts be totally influenced by the fans.

To start it off, a name has to be chosen for the new game.  All submissions welcome. Head over to http://game.jseuss.com/ for more info -it’ll be up soon.  The person who comes up with the winning name will get an App Store Promo Code for Pegs In Space, and also for the new game once it’s released.

With so many developers out there trying to find the magic ingredient to massive success, surely there are hundreds of services aimed at the little guy who doesn’t have a big name yet.

Well, there are options, and I’ve tried a few, but if ever there’s a gap in the market for an entrepreneur to fill, getting small time Apps noticed would be it.

Google Adwords

The first path for many may be towards Google Adwords. Surely a network of ads that spans the globe will easily reach into every home and spread the news of your new app.

Unfortunately, there are a few things halting your success.  Firstly (and this goes for all advertising) your app is usually cheap – real cheap.  Somehow the iPhone App market has been driven into the ground.  If one takes a purely economical rational approach to buying apps, only one thing has to be asked – What else can I buy with my $0.99? And for most of the Apps out there for $0.99, you’re doing extremely well compared to what else that $0.99 would get you.  But customers aren’t happy.  Your App is in a no-mans land where unless you make an app that’s worth much more, satisfaction will be hard to come by.  

But all that aside, cheap apps don’t do so well when advertising via Google.  To get good ad positions, with high sale rates, you have to pay up to 25 or 35 cents per click.  And that just doesn’t add up. I’ve tried smaller click costs ($0.01) but they end up going to the wrong customers and I get a whopping 95% bounce rate on customers coming in on the ads. So Google isn’t the answer.

Admob Ads

The next big things is Admob.  Here you can create ads that appear only on iPhones, so you know people will be able to download your app.  So what did I find?  Firstly, ad click costs are much higher here.  The lowest you can go is $0.03.  So given an input of $50, I managed to get some 1600 clicks in just two minutes.  I was stoked!  1600 iPhone users interested in my ad.  And so quickly too!  But what did the sales data show?  Nothing.

Not even a little spike appeared in the sales data following the ads being placed on the network. Is this due to fraud?  Or just people not wanting to buy?  

Other

There are of course other options to advertising.  Pick an iPhone app site and they’ll usually have advertising options.  They can be quite a hefty outlay with no assurance that they will increase sales, so it’s a bit of a risk.  I haven’t tried any of these options, but if you have, please let us know what you found.

If you’re not familiar with the new feature, it is just a simple pop up that appears when you delete an app from your phone and asks you to rate it out of five stars, or just say no-thanks. 

When analyzing data in any field from scientific analysis to reviews that others have made, you should always be on the lookout for confounding factors.  And what’s more confounding than skewing your data to be mostly from people who have deleted an app they paid money for?  

I’m sure the system works moderately well for free apps.  There’s less to loose if you delete a free app – you can always download it again (if it’s still free..).  And there are reasons why you wouldn’t want hundreds of free apps cluttering up your phone.  But if you’ve paid for the app then it’s a different story.  You’re either cleaning up your phone and it’s at the bottom of the ‘want-to-keep’ pile, or you just plain don’t like it and want it gone.  It’s just far easier (and economical) to keep an app if you like it. 

So where does that leave us? Now we have many reviews from people who don’t like your app or think it’s the worst one on their phone.  Personally I’ve noticed a decline in all my ratings with an influx of non-comment reviews.  

An obvious way around this would be to ask to rate after the nth running of the app.  It would be a nuisance but far less biased towards people who don’t like the app. 

Has anyone else seen this phenomenon? Any other solutions?

From a developers point of view, the reviews offer a somewhat anonymous way for your customers to give you feedback.  It’s a valuable mine of feature possibilities and ‘bug reports’.  The problem is, however, that you can’t easily get the whole picture just by using iTunes. 

You see, all the review comments are kept contained to the separate stores around the world.  So US customers and developers can’t easily see Australian comments and feedback. 

Perhaps there’s a better tool out there (if there is I’d love to know about it) but currently if you rely on iTunes to read your reviews, you’ll never be able to read all your reviews at once.

To get around this problem, you’re going to have to be a bit shifty..

1. Start iTunes normally and go to Store->View My Account
2. Enter your password
3. Click on “Change Country”
4. Pick another country that will have reviews you can read the language of
5. Accept the next screen..
6. Accept the license agreement
7. When asked for a credit card in that country, hit Apple-Q and get out of iTunes
8. Now load iTunes again..
9. Ta-Da! You’re now browsing the other country’s iTunes store

To get back it’s as easy as going to Settings->View My Account again and as soon as you enter your password it’ll realize you’ve done something odd and put you back in your native store.

So there you have it.  Again, if there’s a better way to do this PLEASE let me know!