Well we guess this is what happens. You spend 10 months of hard work, dedication and love in a game only for it to be instantly buried both in Android and iOs stores, when you see that the majority of visits to the pages turn into downloads, so you realize that the game is a flop not because of the quality of the game or the store pages, but because google and apple are making it totally invisible. It’s completely infurating, unfair andr frustrating seeing your game, which was almost 3 days in the air, only got 13 organic visits to the page (8 of which became installs). its infurating to feel like your game is being boycotted or something because everyone honest oppinion was good and the few people that have it are enjoying it. To know that your 10 month long journey is almost shut down in 3 days because somewhat the app is invisible to the public. And no, its not the “you have to market it” because we saw tons and tons and tons of poor quality apps with zero marketing get at least one hundred organic downloads in the first 2 days.
We would understand it if the game had bad quality, if the game crashed, if the game had a wrong gameplay perspective, if our page was badly crafted, if our screenshots werent well made, if our description was poor. This gets worse when you see a game that is literally yet-another-runner without even a death animation or sound for the character and with an ad after EVERY death, with poorly crafted graphics and probably made in 2 weeks get featured in a certain game section in the Apple app store, while our game got instantly buried and invisible. It’s completely unfair. Every time we see a “fail” story of game developing its some of the reasons listed above. We read hundreds of those to be prepared and not do the wrong things. We have a website, we have a support email, the game is decently crafted, we have a good description, title and graphic material, including trailers, facebook and twitter pages. We covered everything that could fail, yet our game is failing way more than all those fail stories in which the devs took way less effort, time and whose users had bad experiences. At least they got the hundred of downloads mark only in the android store in 4 days. We don’t have that even counting both stores. It doesnt make sense, its absurd, there is no logic on this flop. We have seen games made in 2 days that crash on startup have more visits and downloads than our game, and this surpasses any normal scenario.
If google or apple just sat down and decided “this app will not succeed” at least they should tell us, because this is not normal. Not even counting downloads, that in 4 whole days, only 13 people have seen the icon is NOT normal and we don’t know whats happening. As we stated above, the most infurating thing is that, for the few organic downloads we had, the user experience and satisfaction was good and each visit almost became a download. If our game wasn’t somehow force-buried it would be doing pretty well… This app discover rate is not normal even for apps with zero marketing.
We have to apologize for all this rant, but this is frustrating us. if our big project that everyone we showed liked is failing more than made-in-2-days games, what can we expect of the world of mobile gaming? Seems that quality is not important. We already had another good project planned but what for? Work on it with hope and love only for it to be buried while you see apps made in 1 week be featured on launch? We don’t know…
The most fun thing is that everyone says the first days of an app launch are the days it gets more exposure, visits and downloads. We don’t want to know then what will happen after our “great exposure time”…