One More Thing 2012
Posted 12 years, 23 weeks ago.
These are the notes I took during the talks at the One More Thing conference in 2012, including the slides which I’ve collected into one convenient place.
Igor Pušenjak (Lima Sky)
- Apps are digital snacks
- “Just one more game” appeal
- Don’t limit PR to just the big guys. Email everyone.
- Be persistent and excited: why is your app special?
- Cross promotion
- Connect with players and include social media
Winter Wong (Tapatalk)
- Only show “rate me” pop up to people who use a lot (50th time).
- Don’t show when the app crashes (reset the counter).
- Turn off the rate alert remotely if there is a known bug causing crashes.
- If rating is poor:
- Update frequently, rolling out features and bug fixes
- Rating is reset for each release
- If rating is good:
- Update less frequently to accumulate ratings.
- More ratings = better sales
- Crowd source translations (Crowdin.net)
- Use DCMA Guardian to help send takedown notices if your app is being pirated.
Adam Kirk (Calvetica)
- “Power” or “Simplicity”, not both.
- The quality of your app is your marketing.
- If your app isn’t getting talked about, open Xcode and make it better.
- Release soon and often.
- If your icon is clickable on Facebook, then it’ll be tappable on the App Store.
- Releasing solid frequent updates sells more apps.
- Building a lot of low ranking apps does not compare to having one high-ranking app.
- Charging less has never helped to sell more.
- Tinker/Learn
- Big emphasis on PASSION
Kepa Auwae (Rocketcat Games/Hookchamp)
- Review sites love niche games.
- Get a forum account on GameArcade and talk about your game.
- 99c price point only works if your game is for a wide audience. Otherwise make it $2.99
- Don’t do updates. Do another game instead.
- Updates only add sales with >100,000 users
- Don’t release a game right before Christmas, publishers rule the charts at this time.
- Set all your promotions to hit in the first few days of release (Max 3)
Shaun Inman (Fever/Mint/Last Rocket)
- Identify failures, correct as you go.
- If you encounter a problem you can’t handle, unplug (Ludum Dare).
- “Failure is only failure if it’s allowed to stand as the last step in the process.”
Dave Howell (Air Sharing)
- Trademark your name and icon.
- Submit while testing & localising “What’s New”. Check the “Hold for Developer Release” checkbox.
- Don’t cheat to use private API methods, this can get your license revoked.
- Don’t enable behaviour after Apple’s review.
- Don’t change behaviour based on Apples IPv4 range.
- Discoverability is tied to keywords, name, icon, description, screenshots.
- Influence the influencers.
- PR, ads, social media.
- Get featured: study featured apps and follow their example.
- Adopt new iOS features, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense. This helps you get featured.
- Advertise to Apple employees (this apparently didn’t work).
Julian Lepinski (Pano)
- The best way to motivate a designer is to do your own design.
- Copy copiously (not in the bad way, though).
- No settings in-app (Apple)
- Communicate clearly with customers (Panic)
- Talk about your app.
- There still aren’t a ton of great apps out there.
- Talk to your users.
- How Not to Die - Paul Graham
- Don’t stop (and don’t slow down).
Raphael Schaad (Flipboard)
- Design is like chess: you kill a lot of pawns before you get to the king.
- It’s all the small things that matter.
- Don’t be bitter
- Team up.
- You’ve gotta ship.
- Ideate with everybody. Execute with a great team. Release with booze.
Matt Rix (Trainyard)
- Build something to learn your tools.
- When others are being featured or reviewed, just keep improving your app.
- Luck - none of the factors for getting reviewed are actually random.
- Be prepared to capitalise on your big moment.
- Do your research on the App Store.
- Delight your users.
- Include easter eggs in your app (this will help with people talking about the app).
- The amount of effort it takes to develop and easter egg compared to the amount of effect it could have is huge.
- Determine your personal goals and write them somewhere you can see.
- Work towards your goal every day.
- Work on projects you enjoy, projects that excite you.
Justin Williams (Second Gear/Elements/FuckingNDA)
- Do what you love (even if it means “selling out”).
Q&A
- “We don’t care to develop for users who don’t have taste” – Adam Kirk, re: Developing for Android
- “If it’s not a feature or a platform you’ll use, then don’t develop for it.” – Shaun Inman
- “Pubishers can accelerate success, but not cause it.” – Matt Rix
- The brand you’ve built around your app or your company is on of your most important assets.
- Advertising apps doesn’t work (everyone seems to agree on this).
- The best advertising you can do is to try to be featured by Apple.
Other Posts in this Series
- One More Thing 2012 (This Post)
- One More Thing 2013