App Store staffers presented advice on getting featured and how to approach launching new games at Gamescom Dev earlier this week.
The talk was hosted by Abhishek Radhakrishnan, who leads product and business development for the Apple Games app, and EU games editor Sergey Kuznetsov.
Funday Games’ Deep Rock Galactic Survivor was also used as a case study on how to bring a premium-style game to the App Store using the ‘try before you buy’ model – a free initial download with a paywall to buy the full game. Later in the talk, Funday’s Emil Kjaer said the conversation rate on the €12.99 paywall to unlock the full game was 13%.
Radhakrishnan opened the session by saying the App Store gets 850m weekly visitors, is present on 2.5bn devices and has 175 storefronts in 50 languages. He spent the most time on the ‘try before you buy’ model for premium games, which he said opens up any game to many more players because it removes that upfront cost.
He also pushed Apple’s cross-platform universal purchase system, TestFlight and Game Center services. On the latter, he noted that implementing Apple’s Game Center API into your game means it could get greater visibility across the App Store and Apple Games app through various editorial placements linked to Game Center.
On pre-launch, Radhakrishnan cited the success of Devolver’s Ball x Pit pre-order campaign, noting that pre-orders can begin up to 180 days before launch, but is subject to the successful submission of a working binary (and a fixed business model if it is a premium title – this cannot be changed once pre-orders open).
He also noted Secret Mode’s use of A/B testing icons for A Little to the Left before that game launched, which used Apple’s own testing feature in App Store Connect.
A new feature in the Apple Games app also allows developers to promote limited-time IAP offers and discounts, he said.
Radhakrishnan also stated that editorial featuring is still valuable. Pools, a game Apple’s editorial team really liked and promoted, saw 70% of its downloads from its editorial featuring, he said.
For featuring, Radhakrishnan recommended that developers use the ‘feature nomination’ process in App Store Connect at least three weeks before launch so that Apple’s editors can assess the title in good time.
EU games editor Sergey Kuznetsov said that Apple spends a lot of time promoting in-game events, and referenced a ‘try before you buy’ editorial collection as an example of how Apple editors group together and curate titles on the store. These collections can be both algorithmically created and hand-curated by the editors.
He also explained that some Today tab featuring is based on celebrating local or global cultural moments like International Women’s Day, Earth Day and Pride. So developers with live games relevant to those moments should submit a featuring request at least 10 weeks in advance.
For featuring on the games tab, developers are encouraged to submit a featuring request through App Store Connect at least three weeks ahead of launch or the update going live. These requests should be as concise as possible to ensure Apple’s editors can read them all.
“There is no specific set list of things that we look at when we evaluate games, but there are some considerations,” said Kuznetsov. “Starting with gameplay design, which is of course the gameplay flow, the UI, the mechanics in your game, then we have art and animation, sound and story.”
“Then we have controls and performance…and finally, of course, localization and accessibility. This is really important for us because that allows us your game as wide as possible around the world.”
Some of the Apple editors’ recent favourites that got featured prominently include chess roguelike Gambonanza, racer Drive Rally, adventure game Mindcop, high score game Sisyphos and Afterplace, which was awarded editors’ choice and also won an Apple Design Award.
Apple does also reward other features like accessibility, said Kuznetsov, citing Dead Cells’ fully customisable virtual controls as an example.
