Anagram Hero - May 2013

$450. I’ll see if it is worth it and report back. If he does a good job and there are good results to report, I am sure he will get a lot of business from you guys.

And of course, I will then use him for WordHero and my next game too…

Wow that’s a lot of money you’ve invested!

To be honest I think your icon is ugly :frowning: I’d never download it :confused: Tell your graphic designer to do something like this! I’d instantly download it then

or this:

Heh… nice work. Whatever it is, it needs to end in ‘Hero’. Gotta build a Brand :slight_smile:

Also… assuming you can monetize an app @ $0.10 per installed user. If you get 1.5million installs, that is $150k.

Would you put down $15k if you believed you could make back $150k ? Of course you would! In fact, you could do that 10 times before you actually started running at a net loss. Averages are 1 in 5 games is a hit if they are all high quality.

At that point you are paying $75k to earn $150k. Still worth it. Except for the time factor. You would need to do 5 games per year and only earn $75k/year. That’s tough. But how many of those could you cross-promote to your userbase ? Say game 4 was a hit. You could then cross-promote games 1 though 3 and monetize those. So those are no longer zero income games.

Then when/if you go looking for a job, you can claim XXX games including Y hits.

I know you prob got 0.1$ per installed user with WordHero, but thats an extremely optimistic value. Well, of course it really depends on the app. It is probably higher for a RPG game and a lot lower for a prank app. But still, i would make my calculations with a 0.01 -0.03 per user!

And of course I would spent 15k if i believe i could get 150k back, but i would still consider as something uncertain, therefore i wouldn’t spend 1 single cent more than necessary. I am saying this because i think you paid a little bit too much for Anagram Hero. But hey, i paid too little and got low quality graphics hehe

Hope Anagram Hero takes off soon!

Which is one of the reasons to make an app that is ‘worth’ a lot to users. If it is a game, make it addictive. The more time each user spends playing/using your app, the higher your net monetization is per user.

Yeah, i agree.

Whats the average session length and average daily sessions for WordHero?

Lights of the Atlantis got 2 min/ session and 2 sessions/ day respectively. It is a mediocre game though, would like to know the numbers for a solid multiplayer like yours.

WordHero:
4 min 2 sec median session length (median for Puzzles/Trivia is 2 minutes).
2.5 sessions/day

Anagram Hero
4min 47sec median session length
2.5 sessions/day

and the average weekly and montly number of sessions per user? thanks for the info :slight_smile:

I’ve installed WordHero recently to check what it is (I don’t play word games so haven’t bothered before) and blimey it really is addictive. Good job, but I’m afraid to run it because little I know and another hour passess by and I’m still playing. :slight_smile:

Comparing that session length with a small app type of thing - I would say your session length is 4-5 times what I see in one of my (not so substantial) app.

Add to that your greater retention of users - since a certain percentage of your users would be using the app compulsively or again and again.
And you add in a factor of 4x (compared to my app).

So that gives a factor of 20 - which meshes with the revenue per user download figure of $0.1 that you provide vs. the 15x less figure of that app of mine.

Which suggests you are also doing plain banner ad and other stuff (and not push notifications etc. - which would NOT work for such a mainstream app - which has to give impression of bullet-proofness and robustness that it can be used all the time throughout the day).

Semi-review of Word Hero/Anagram Hero …

I have used Word Hero - and though I am not a word game player - I have used it maybe 10 times which is more than I would have on other occasions - and perhaps the reason is that it fits into the demographic of the user at the dentist’s office - when you have a couple of minutes to waste it works - the swish of the brush-like pen etc. - it gives good feedback to the user.

So it seems to have something going for it to become an even bigger hit.

I do not understand your choice of brackets around [Word Hero] - as this makes Word Hero unsearchable on google play. Perhaps your intention was to make it appear at the top (alphabetically etc.) of lists of Word games etc. But anyone wanting to search Word Hero finds great difficulty doing so.

Perhaps in your next significant update you could add something to the name which distinguishes it further (you have the characters - so use it - it will only help your searchability).

As one of the posters here suggested you could present an ad during the time the user is waiting - as there are two wait times - one to compile the results and one to wait for next session.

I suppose you could show an ad like “Here’s a word from our sponsor while you wait …” and show a counter - so that wouldn’t cut anything from the experience.

Or “Visit our sponsor and come back to the game later …” - or something which suggests they don’t lose anything by coming back later.

Perhaps doing something about the complex tables that appear after user finishes - i.e. the results appear - would help - as that is non-graphical - perhaps you could think up some way to graphically show the words or the top words or some such thing - or change the color scheme of the results.

But it is true that putting things in there for ads etc. may double revenue - but it will affect gameplay also - and you may find it better to double your user base and double revenue that way.

On the other hand if user acquisition is not doubling (as google play graph for last 30 days - this graph is of daily installs and not total downloads as I thought initially until I compared with my own apps’ graphs) - then maybe it is time to polish up the wait period - and add some ads - all while not harming the wait time for user etc. I am guessing such a feat maybe doable after some thinking or bouncing it off some friends or esp. if you can ask some kids for suggestions (that would be best).

Regarding Anagram Hero - my own impression - again I am not a Word game type user - but my impression is that it’s domain seems confusing. Once you have used Word Hero, Anagram Hero seems like the weak cousin or something - i.e. one tends to prefer coming back to Word Hero. For example I did not feel the need to use Anagram Hero - i.e. I felt a certain hindrance to using it - that was absent with Word Hero.

So perhaps it’s domain/purpose needs to be simplified. As someone said using Anagram maybe replaceable by something more “common folk”. But perhaps you need to give an impression that Anagram Hero is a variation of Word Hero - or maybe just call it Word Hero Anagram (that’s within 30 character title limit).

Could rename:
[Word Hero] to “Word Hero Classic”
Anagram Hero to “Word Hero Anagram”

This way you leverage those searching for “Word Hero” as well - and also suggests they are variations of a common theme - and a similar experience.

Someone pointed out the icon - and I had checked the icon again - and they are right - it is a SUNSET - it gives an impression of a “live wallpaper” type app, or some lifestyle improvement app.

So the icon gives absolutely no impression of the purpose of the app.

In fact - as you do with Word Hero - you may consider just using the “Anagram Hero” part of the “featured graphic” (the big graphic) as the icon - similar to Word Hero use of similar.

For one thing it IMMEDIATELY tells the user what type of game it is - if he is looking for a word/scrabble type game he knows this is something like that.

I think you are missing the demographic cmopletely with the icon - the graphic doesn’t have to be slick as others suggest - but needs to show the BOARD-type nature of your game.

Another reason for the difference in uptake for Anagram Hero vs. Word Hero - maybe that the type of user who uses these games they tend to think they are dealing with a certain format and they stick to it - and they hope to compete in it and as they get a sense for it it makes the comfortable with that environment or the competitive landscape of the users for that type of app.

That may not translate over well to Anagram Hero - as a user using Word Hero would generally have found a secure zone with Word Hero and would be unlikely to leave that comfort for Anagram Hero.

What you COULD consider maybe is in Word Hero - to alternate of switch to some “anagram games” - say you have “borrowed” it from Anagram Hero - and at the end you may suggest to them that to play more of this type exclusively you can try Anagram Hero etc.

Anyway, hope this helps.

In conclusion, I would suggest that perhaps Anagram Hero needs to look and feel MORE like Word Hero rather than break new ground.

I would guess the simplest thing you can try is:

  • change the icon to a board game one - I am guessing you may see an immediate rise in downloads from this
  • change the name to Word Hero Anagram (and maybe even go in and change the user-experience so Anagram Hero feels the same as Word Hero)

On the other hand if the downloads per day figure for Word Hero is now approaching that of Anagram Hero, then you may consider not making them look alike and forging ahead in a different direction with Anagram Hero.

@adforandroidapps

  1. Longest post ever!
  2. Thanks for the considered response!

WordHero brackets were done to allow me to hack the list and get Wordhero to the first page of listed apps. It might have been a bad idea. But it is done. Not sure that changing it at this point might be even worse.

Anagram Hero was my first game since quitting my day job. It is a technology demonstrator for a lot of reasons, including:

  • uses SurfaceView with skia
  • replacement SharedPreferences
  • Achievements
  • Graphs in stats
  • server configured advert network
  • video splash screen on start
  • updated leaderboards
  • all networking changed to use callback pattern
  • socialize included
  • IAP
  • dynamic backgrounds from RSS feed
  • using contractors for game engine, graphics, sounds

So… there was a LOT for me to learn and get working. I think from that point of view it is a success.

Problems:

  • I picked a game genre that typically has 100-500k installs. I should have picked something that has 10million+++ installs. At the time, I told myself that I did not care and that it might be an untapped market. I also thought I could release it a LOT quicker than I did. I was wrong (on both counts).

So now it becomes a question of: “Can we get the game turned around and make it a better success with the right people’s help?”. This means ASO and after that a press release service. Am I throwing good money after bad ? Maybe, but it will be a another valuable lesson to learn.

I don’t think changing the app title will do much harm - from my experience you can change the app title and it immediately affects searchabiity - so in theory one can just switch it around until one gets a better “findabiity”. Changing Word Hero to Word Hero Classic would not harm your searchability (I don’t think).

I can now see that Word Hero is more findable now - perhaps it is because Google knows I’ve installed it etc. - but I recall when I first searched for it I had trouble finding it (when searching with “word hero”). Or Word Hero may have become more popular.

In any case, Anagram Hero icon should probably be changed - as current icon doesn’t suggest it’s true purpose. Looks like a self-help improvement book cover or something - with sunset and sun etc.

Any update Mind? What have you changed? Is it working?

Working on a new icon design atm.

I used the updated/suggested ASO description (that I paid for), but it has not resulted in an increase in traffic.

That looks like a really good description, but there might be room for improvement. My limited experience has been that there is an almost immediate effect (within a couple of hours) in how your app ranks for a given search term or phrase when you change the description which makes it possible to experiment with changes and work your way up the search rankings that way.

Anagram Hero places 17:th for “word puzzle” which is great, but only 43:rd for “word puzzles” which is a lot worse. According to Google AdWords the Google searches are pretty evenly divided between “word puzzle” and “word puzzles”, which probably means that the Google Play searches are divided as well. Your description does have the phrase “word puzzle” once, but it does not have the phrase “word puzzles”. What would happen if you included that phrase somewhere in the description? A possible downside is that including the word “word” one more time in your description might trip some anti-spam mechanic. You may want to remove the word “word” somewhere else in your description so that the total count stays the same. Of course, you don’t want to remove the word “word” in front of “game”, because “word game” could end up being an important search phrase for you down the line if your game becomes more popular…

App store optimization is a lot of fun, isn’t it?

Oh and by the way the searches are evenly divided between “word game” and “word games” as well. It would probably be smart to start by conquering the search rankings for “word puzzle” and “word puzzles” now and then maybe switch to the more competitive “word game” and “word games” later when you have more downloads and have a shot at ranking high for those more competitive phrases.

Ranking for the keyword “word game” is very hard! From my research I can say that to rank for the keyword “word game” you have to get ranking for keyword “word”. The term “game” has no effect and is just filtered out when people search for it. To put it in a simple way, if people search for “word game”, they will see results for only “word”.

Right, so you mean that they will see results for “word game” but it’s only the word “word” in the app descriptions that affects how the titles rank?

Yes. I can’t guarantee though, just saying from my experience.

@mind,

I saw today in the market that Anagram Hero has around 10k-50k install rate… WTF??? How comes it can be so, even after few months being in the market?

I’m about to release my next app, which is almost the same as my main (just like you) and was thinking to do cross promotion. Considering Word Hero user base, I was thinking after cross promotion you will hit 100k in a month or earlier… Seems cross promotion doesnt work, or it didnt work out for you.
What ad-promotion did you try for Anagram Hero?

I ran some Admob House Ads recently - the CTR was better than Admob and similar to the AppBrain “More Apps” banner ads.

I was getting 2.2%-2.5% CTR for the House Ads.

No idea how many real downloads from those clicks - however that could be tracked with Google Analytics - which I didn’t have in the app - when I update I may get an idea about the real downloads per day.