There are people on this forum saying they didn’t try any kind of advertising but their game/app has had success.
I am trying to understand how that can happen and I would like your opinion.
Obviously the app you have just released on the market won’t appear in the top lists because you don’t have enough downloads. Also, if the app was just released and it’s the first app of a developer, it won’t be visible under the “More apps from this developer” or under “Similar” when viewing other games because it doesn’t have downloads.
The game I released 3 days ago doesn’t have a “Similar” category so apparently Google doesn’t think this is similar to other games. That means my game won’t appear on other games under “Similar”, right?
Also, there is a very slim chance the users will find your app when searching for keywords because there will be other more popular apps in the list/
So what do you think? What are the things that usually happen for a game when it starts getting downloads in the first few days? Where does such an app appear that makes it visible enough for users to download it?
you will show up in similar, related or other lists only after about 60 days, I think you are jumping around too much, just chil out for a second. I bet you dont see the real stats either because 3 days is not enough to see decent google play data, its still all cached in your dev panel
How do you know only after about 60 days? It’s the first time I’ve heard about this.
Stats on developer console refresh every 24 hours and I have a tracking system about users playing my game that is very similar to the stats from the console.
I have just released a wallpaper with no marketing whatsoever. It’s my first app on the Play Store. I, of course, don’t expect a high downloadrate. Currenlty it’s like 1 install per day. It’s fine, since I only wanted to get used to the Play Store mechanics.
The ‘similar’ apps need some time to work. I guess google has to fetch some data befoe it shows similar apps/games. I don’t know how long it took Google to show similar apps on my app, but it for sure didn’t take 60 days. I think it took about 2 weeks.
As for the apps that are in some top lists without marketing: Probably apps that just went viral on social networks.
Have another popular app and cross promote from it
Dump a ton of money (initially) into promotion of your app and get enough of a boost to get charted in “top new free” list
Create keyword spam in description and title
Assuming you get into “top new free” chart of you category… after your first 30 days are over you will fall out of it and depend on your search rankings only, here are the things you can do after your 30 days of fame are over:
Translate your app description (and the app itself) into other languages
Create MORE keyword spam in description and title to rank for more search terms
Continue dumping tons of money into promotion of your app
And thats it, more total downloads you have = more “related apps” lists you will show up on and hopefully break into regular Top Free/Top Paid lists at some point