How I reached top 50 in Adventure category in India google play appstore ( long read)

Talking How I reached top 50 in Adventure category in India google play appstore ( long read)
Alright I see a lot of people asking how to market thier games and apps to the top. In truth its very hard and almost impossible if you don’t have at least a small marketing budget. Now if you would like to share this on your blog you have permission as I am making this to help developers learn. Once you read post if you have a question about it please do not quote the whole post as its rather long.

Deciding What I was Going to make

  1. I decided to make a game that had very simple controls.

  2. I am just a pixel artist but I know majority of gamers like vector art. So I brought artwork from an artist who is indie developer friendly. I went for a non- serious cartoony character.

  3. I made the game easy enough so that a gamer can play it without instructions.

Before Launch

  1. After I finished the game I didn’t release it to the appstore , that would equal a fail. I played the game and took screenshots about 8 of them and narrowed it down to 3 . The screenshots I picked had to look funny or be humorous for the simple type of game it was.

  2. I posted screenshots of the game coming on facebook groups about 10-12 of them that I was on. I did this for 2 days in a row 2x a day. Also I tweeted the game is coming.

  3. I also made a video of the game did the same thing posted it on facebook groups and twitter multiple times a day.

  4. Set up android ADs with the little marketing budget I had $80 . This would give me a small boost in downloads. Used https://www.ayetstudios.com/

Launch

Link to game its now on Opera because of googleplay banning my Movie quiz apps saying it was copywright infringment as of Dec 5, 2014 . Here is the link to Bomb attack Max
http://sourceforge.net/projects/andromarkets/files/BombAttack.apk/download

  1. Launched my app , posted on facebook and twitter that its finally arrived . Also launched the small AD campaign. And here comes the numbers

Day 1 250
Day 2 150
Day 3 150
Day 4 80 Ran out of money in banner AD campaign had to find more money
Day 5 89
Day 6 190
Day 7 140 Got featured in top new free in Adventure category , lower banner AD campaign
Day 8 130 Started getting good organic traffic from Top new free section so cut down to much less banner AD campaign
Day 9 103 Finally hit #49 after going well over 1,000 installs July 4Th

Special Note**
I started the game with 2 modes of play. In those 8 days I updated the game 2 times to bring the total modes of play to 4 modes of play. This extended playing time and kept my game installed on people’s devices. Real content updates are critical to kept users playing your game especially if its a simple one. Just add different themes or 1 new badguy that stands out makes huge difference.
Special Note*

One Big Mistake***

Not saving up enough budget to reach higher and deeper on the charts. Yes I did get in the Top New Free Adventure category at number #15 but I should have saved enough to get to top #5 . In India I learned consumers there don’t really search the store the same as U.S. store they only look at top lists and not so much the category lists. I was #49 on list and that didn’t get me enough organic downloads until I reached Top Free List. Top Free List gives much more organic traffic. Had I saved enough to budget I would have had it easier when the bigger developers came and gave a hard fight about 5 days into climbing the charts. Plus some good indie games came to make it even harder. Got knocked down to #55 place after being #49 place. Also I should have been more agressive with ADs.


So as you can see no matter what store big or small its still a challenge to reach the top of and maintain. You have to think out your strategy , plan your budget. Add real content updates to keep users interested and playing your game or app. Its hard to climb up but only takes a day or 2 to lose serious ground. Any questions just ask.

As you read this thread please ignore the negative comments by other developers who just like to start fights and not help others. As you read you will see it took a while to make a profit. Any questions feel free to ask.

That is called first hand experience. Great share.

Glad you liked it, this was info I was looking for when I 1st started out myself. Only thing I forgot to mention at the end my budget doubled to around $160-$170 by the end of it.

Thanks for sharing, does you continue to get money from that app?

Thanks. I made a few mistakes you managed to avoid and it made one of my game to sink in rankings.

Yes its still on the charts in the top 100 . Even in the future when it falls off the charts I still will make money from it because I have ADs in it and I will update the game with more content.

Thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

No problem the game is still in the top 100 and in the top new free list still. Bomb Attack Max is number #60 in the ranks. Whats keeps me up in the ranks this whole week is the organic downloads from the top free list. I would say thats the list you want to get on , where more of your downloads will come.
The category rankings and top free list move differently. Even if you drop in the rankings , you can still be high on the top free list. I am #18 on the top free list for my category. The game started with 2 modes and now I updated to 5 modes of play. Thats 3 updates in 2 weeks , the goal is to keep the game installed on peoples devices. I figure like angry birds,pocket god, and doodle jump I will keep updating.

Great post. You are one of the most helpful guys on the forum, thank you for that.

I have a question though. I think you posted it somewhere but I can’t remember where. What type of campaign did you use? Pay per click or pay per impression or pay per install maybe? Also what ad network? Did you focused 100% on india market? What was your bid and other options there?

Of course if you don’t want to share such infromation I won’t insist:)

  1. I use Daywalkers service https://www.ayetstudios.com/ there is no bidding like appbrain which is the good part and its pay per install only which is the great part. The bad part is some days the service might not have all the traffic you want but most of the time it does. I was going to use appbrain but it cost too much because of bidding program.

  2. I targeted India only because I didn’t have enough money to target U.S. so since India is an english speaking country I targeted it. Also I spoke to my AD network 1st to make sure they have inventory in India so I could make money there.

As of today I slipped out of the top 100 , Iam at #103 in adventure category and number #22 in top new free adventure category. Since I am still in the top new free I am still getting downloads. Of course it’s slowed down a bit to around 30-50 downloads a day. I plan on adding another update because I have repeat players. The game started with 2 modes and now it has 5 modes after 3 updates. I figure if I continue updates I will keep the repeat gamers to continue playing the game.

This seems good Pixelpower. Thank you for the update. Do you mind sharing your total downloads thus far? Last I checked you bought around 800 downloads. Would be interesting to see how many organic downloads you have gotten out of it.

I just checked now how many downloads I got. As of today I have a total of 1,805 downloads . So that’s 1,005 organic downloads total. That’s why I stress picking a market you compete in so you reach top new free in your category. Top new free is the main goal and gives you real exposure.

I just download your game, and i have to say, with all respect, that it is almost unplayable… how could you spent money advertising it?

My advice is to focus first on quality, to make a good make. Just after that you can start thinking about promoting the game. You can buy downloads, but you can´t pay people to play the game which is going to give you the money and the organic downloads

Just my opinion :slight_smile:

Max Bomb World Attack Cup - YouTube

It depends on the device, this was tested on Nexus and Samsung galaxy 3 both worked fine. Also there are players who play the game fine I can tell by the impressions the ADs get. No its not the best game ever, but I was very limited to what I could do because its an HTML game so I couldnt add too many things or the game would slow down. HTML games run on the phones web browser not the device itself.

I actually this week picked up a new tool called corona 2D . I only worked with it for 3 days now but already I can tell I will be able to do what I want to do and not be as limited as I was before.

I did get organic downloads , more than what I brought.

I also looked at it, it does seem pretty basic (no disrespect intended). But on the other hand, it does give me a bit of hope. If you could get into a country’s top 50 with a simple game and some marketing…

It’s not important how high in the Google Play lists you get, it’s important how many downloads you get and how much you earn.

Reaching top 50 for Adventure in India is not that difficult, buying 1000 downloads in 2-3 days will get you there.

Being top 50 in Adventure in one country won’t generate too many organic installs. You need a much better place if you want to be successful. One of my games is getting around 500-600 daily downloads even though it’s listed top 5 in 2 countries, top 10 in 4 countries, top 100 in 19 countries and top 500 in more than 50 countries (for a game category).

Your game only reached that ranking because of the money you invested in it and not because of the quality.

I would be curious to know how much you earned from that game so far compared to the money you invested.

I see you have your jigsaw game linked in the signature, so any possibility that you could link the game in question? I would love to see the quality of it. Also, how did you manage to get high rated in different countries? Did you just spread your paid downloads?

I would also recommend you libgdx :wink:

Well I already answered the question of how many organic downloads I got, which is more than the amount I paid for. Also I already answered the question of my game which is a simple game and I never acted like it was the best game ever. Its only been 3 weeks so of course I haven’t made my money back yet, I expect it to take at least 8 weeks before I turn a profit. This thread is about marketing not if this is the best game ever. I only spent money that I made with previous games and apps some on googleplay and some not on google play. I made money without paid marketing and with paid marketing. I also don’t derail informative threads and switch subjects.
In the end its all about learning and helping people with knowledge. I know developers who reached top ranks don’t like the added competition but I like helping others. I rather do this than repeat the basic advice of use social media and facebook to blow up when we experience developers know better.