
Ask HN: Our iPad game hit top 30 in free games, how do we keep the momentum? - arbesfeld
We are two MIT students who just published our physics-based puzzle game &quot;Marble Drop&quot; (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.marbledropgame.com) for iOS and Android (originally created for MakeGamesWithUs` MIT iOS games competition). The game has been a huge success in its first week, and we are now pushing the top of the App Store rankings in all of the relevant categories. At this point, we really have no idea what we should be doing as we try to grow our user base. We have been doing obvious things like talking to press, updating content, etc, but I suspect that there are a number of key strategies that are missing from our plan.<p>Do any HNers have advice on how we should spend our time and resources as we grow Marble Drop? Thanks in advance!
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bww
I developed a short-lived minor hit game several years ago which topped out at
#3 on the U.S. App Store overall free chart, right behind the Facebook app. At
the time that represented about 50-60,000 downloads a day; I assume it would
be considerably more now.

That app was languishing in the nether regions of the App Store until we got
press on some Gawker properties at which point it absolutely exploded. It was
then picked up by other outlets which only helped.

There's a million apps out there and media outlets are not going to talk about
all of them, so the way we got that press was by making writing an article
about us more valuable to them: we gave them something to give their readers.
This was a $0.99 app (these were the days before it was clear that charging
money up front for apps is not a viable strategy). We scheduled a weekend
giveaway about a week out, emailed media about it, and they got to offer their
readers more than just pointing out an app they might like, they got to give
them a deal on it.

So, in my limited experience, a good way to get traction is through some
combination the media (they have the eyeballs) and a deal (people love deals).
And the best way to get the media to talk about you is to make talking about
you more valuable to them.

~~~
Alex-Galapagos
bww, how did you get there initially? What app was it?

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biren34
Congratulations on the success! Getting a mobile game noticed isn't easy
anymore.

I'd say your top priorities should be (in this order): 1\. Keeping your
existing players as long as possible (Retention) 2\. Making money
(Monetization) 3\. Getting new users in the door (User Acquisition)

It's a tough environment right now, and you can easily spend all your profits
on marketing--so you have to make sure you're maximizing the Lifetime Value
(LTV) of every install.

As a product manager with experience working on games for Zynga, Disney, and a
few small gaming companies, I can tell you that free to play games are more
like an on-going service than a make-it-and-ship-it console game.

Successful game developers generally follow the same pattern: 1\. Collect data
to see what players like / don't like 2\. Analyze the data to decide what to
do next 3\. Implement a change / new feature 4\. See if it worked 5\. Repeat

Data-driven decision making is key to making sure you're investing your
engineering resources for the highest return.

I'd be happy to talk in more detail.

~~~
binarydreams
I'd love to talk to you in more detail, can I have your email ?

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bellerocky
> com.arbesfeld.marble_drop_test

The game's humble Android start are still evident in the link to the Google
Play store.

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xmodem
Hi arbesfeld, This looks like a fun little game but could you please consider
adding a colourblind mode. Your game is completely inaccessible to people such
as myself with rod monochromatism - The second level features three different
marbles, two of which appear the same.

Here is an edited screenshot to give you an idea of how I might see the game:
[http://i.imgur.com/IFUkvKm.png](http://i.imgur.com/IFUkvKm.png)

Can you see how similar the second two marbles look?

One common way to address this is by assigning each marble and each bucket a
letter or a number.

~~~
arbesfeld
@xmodem: thanks for the feedback - we have a color blind mode which uses
letters that should be released in the next few days. We tried to choose
colors that were as distinct as possible for a color blind player, but there
is definitely a limit to how far colors can go.

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szilto
Congrats on releasing this great game!

A couple of thoughts.

Tracking: \- If you are not yet tracking your users, start doing that (Google
Analytics, Flurry, etc.). The analytics will give you great insights into user
behaviour, retention, churn rate, segmentation, etc. Use the data to decide
what you should focus on next (e.g. if the user engagement is too low, try
focusing on that).

ASO \- Optimize keywords to ensure that you are ranking in the top 10 for each
of your keywords. I have written a series of blog posts about this topic
([http://blackboardmadness.com/blog/app-store-optimization-
aso...](http://blackboardmadness.com/blog/app-store-optimization-aso-
selecting-the-right-keywords-part-1/)) and also developed my own keyword
selection/scoring model. I'd be happy to help with this (szilard at
blackboardmadness.com).

\- Optimize file size: got a warning on the Android Play Store that the file
size is very large (probably wouldn't prioritize this too high at the moment,
though)

Review/ Rating: \- Allow users to rate your app from inside the game (e.g. use
Appirater to prompt users to rate after X app sessions)

Social Integration: \- Deep FB integration (add an invite friends button, post
achievements, FB leaderboard integration as in Dots)

Good luck!

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geuis
Just tried out the first few levels. Fun little game. The add ons for hints is
an easy standard way to monetize a free game. I can't offer much advice
graphics, but you might want to look at making the marbles look like marbles.
Polish up the visuals just a bit. Feels like it's 95% of the way there.

Other ideas: Look into some way to compete with other people. Some way to
share it.

Add the ability to text a link to the App Store to a friend. Only ask for the
contacts permission when someone initiates that feature.

Just keep iterating on the game and polishing it. You guys will get more ideas
as time goes by.

Expect the popularity to fall off at some point. That's normal.

Apple looks for apps that really show off the platform. Being in the top 30 is
great. If the visuals and sounds were a little more polished there's a better
chance your game might be featured. This can be really great for boosting you
higher, though it's not a permanent bump.

Apps have life cycles. Do the best you can now and learn from it. Invaluable
lessons for doing more apps in the future.

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gregcohn
My answer would be, it depends on your objectives. Are you hoping to build
this into a large game company? Are you happy to try to craft a "lifestyle"
game studio? Do you care about money? Are you just wanting to see lots of
people play your game? Etc.

Your options include working with a large game publisher, which would be
something to consider if you have limited resources on the marketing side and
don't want to raise venture capital.

From a pure product strategy point of view, the best possible thing you could
do is develop a viral loop, such that each of these installs you're currently
getting for free could help you generate more installs.

Often this is done hand-in-hand with some key element of game-play (e.g.
gifting) or hand-in-hand with some paid element, so people can either pay for
something (generating you revenue) or avoid paying by completing viral actions
(generating you new users).

Good luck!

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gabmuller
Guys,

Thats incredible. Apple pushes new apps in the first week or 10 days. Usually
it kind of drops after that. It might not be the case for your app. Wait a bit
before you decide to change your life because of this game. If in one month
its still getting 100 000 downloads per day... Then you got a winner

There's a few things you can do: \- focus on growing the userbase and sell the
game in a few months or years. Make your game better and better... \- try to
make money right now through ads. I would suggest to cut a direct deal with a
big game developer like supercell (charboost is good for that) \- you're
probably not making any money right now. I saw that you're not anywhere in the
top grossing

I have a few apps that hit the top 1000 overall in the us. If you wanna talk,
contact me : gabriel.louis.muller at gmail.com

Enjoy the ride,

Gab

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phaser
You might do nothing but celebrate. When we were quickly climbing the top ten
did exactly that. The "snowball effect" is mostly what keeps the momentum
going and if your app is a good one people are already recommending it and you
will keep going. If that does not happen and your expectations are not met you
can take it as a sign to improve the app.

That being said I would keep very close attention to reviews. (I use
appfigures to keep track of that) and fix very quickly everything that should
not be. Even though we were #2 there were a few bugs reported via the review
system and there is a lot of people that are kind enough to let you know,

If you have a tool like crashalytics thats even better.

Congratulations!

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alexeichemenda
Hey, congrats on the success ! I would suggest focusing on retention, social
sharing and ratings to keep yourself in a good app store positon.

Retention : add push notifications, try to stay in touch with the users (with
limited offers for example as mentioned below) and to make the user come back
to the app

Social sharing : I would suggest creating a leaderboard, and connecting to FB
to share your results and compete against others.

Ratings : Implement an incentive to let the user rate your app, to grow the
number of reviews you have.

PS : I didn't have time to download the app, so maybe you already did this. I
will download it in a couple of hours and will edit. If you want to chat more,
alexei [dot] chemenda [at] gmail [dot] com !

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daiidgo
Several of the comments suggest a social leader board; I think that's a great
idea. If you don't want to support Game Center on iOS, maybe a Facebook leader
board. You could also set up your score board using Amazon's simpleDB. They
support Facebook, Google, and Amazon logins. There's a basic article on that
here:
[http://aws.amazon.com/articles/SDKs/iOS/8829919029640036](http://aws.amazon.com/articles/SDKs/iOS/8829919029640036)
Amazon's dynamoDB does more than that, but I can't seem to find the article on
high score integration through dynamoDB. Hope it helps, and good luck!

~~~
daiidgo
Here's the quick walk through for posting scores using dynamoDB:

[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developergu...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/WIF.html)

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imbw267
Interesting name, there is already a game with the exact same one released in
1997 from Maxis [now EA]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Drop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Drop)
. Good luck.

~~~
winslow
I would think that EA would probably exercise their copyright and any
trademarks they have on the Marble Drop name. Anyone have possible insight to
this?

~~~
daiidgo
Congrats on the game guys, it's pretty cool. The federal registration on the
Marble Drop name was dropped by Maxis back in 2004 (do a Tess2 search on the
uspto.gov website). That doesn't mean that they've abandoned all rights to use
the name for a mobile game... before you panic and change the name, or just
shrug and ignore the coincidence, I would say go talk to a Trademark attorney.
I'm sure you can find plenty of them up around MIT (most firms that do patent
work will have one or two trademark guys). If you're going to continue to grow
with your game, it'll be well worth the money.

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mafuyu
Hi Matt! Grats on the success of your game.

I would recommend making a subset of the levels free and having the rest be
IAP or a separate purchase. Then, make it free for a limited time, and try to
get some blogs to cover you and promote your app on social media at the same
time. This type of model only really works if you have critical mass, but it
seems like you're off to a good start.

Good luck!

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Strang
Your game has far too many ads. I played a few levels and was irritated that I
had to close a fullscreen ad after every other level. I uninstalled the game
when the first video ad was presented.

I don't pretend to know much about the iphone game market, but I can't imagine
that these ads will help your position much.

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Dorian-Marie
Your buttons doesn't work for me on Chrome 36 / Mac OSX:

[http://www.gfycat.com/OptimisticGrossAegeancat](http://www.gfycat.com/OptimisticGrossAegeancat)

~~~
sillysaurus3
Offtopic, but which tool do you use to capture videos like this? I've been
meaning to find one.

EDIT: I'm getting the feeling there might be a niche market for a cross-
platform program that does this. QuickCast is slick, but Mac-only.
Simplescreenrecorder works, but it's Linux-only. Running ffmpeg console
commands might work, but it's a bit esoteric. Nvidia has a tool, but only for
Nvidia card owners. And QuickTime is, well, QuickTime. Interesting...

~~~
highCs
Open Broadcaster Software? [https://obsproject.com/](https://obsproject.com/)

~~~
sillysaurus3
Hmm, can OBS capture WebM to be uploaded to Gfycat?

Actually, it'd be nice to have a program that records WebM + uploads to Gfycat
in one step.

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genderup
take a minimal amount of funding from a high profile angel investor (Kevin
Rose) or vc who can help market it with a tweet etc

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jarofgreen
Well, the first question has to be what's your aim and ambition with this
game?

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arkaeologic
Get featured as an Ask HN.

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theneelpatel
Btw Marble Drop is awesome game.

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spyglass
Launch limited-time promos. People love these things. I don't know why. I
think it caters to the hoarding instinct.

Give people exclusive levels or badges or other bonuses if they download
within a time period. These don't have to be prepackaged with the installer,
they can be delivered later, depending on the installation date.

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u124556
Scrolling down is fun, but I like to scroll up once in a while too.

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jarofgreen
I use Ghostery in Firefox (17, that's what Debian Stable has). I click on the
link to the Android play store and nothing happens. Ghostery is blocking it
somehow, if I disable it it works. No idea why tho.

