Presentation by Nick Ralabate and Carlos Quinones of Secret Library.

1. Flooded Channels and
Frigid Tears
Discoverability on the App Store

2. Secret Library
Carlos Quiñones
Nick Ralabate
One year as Secret Library
Two games on the App Store

3. Centrifeud (April ’12)
Wall Street Journal: “Games to Play”
COOL PIZZA (Sept. ’12)
Touch Arcade: Top Arcade Games of 2012
Paste: Top 20 Mobile Games of 2012

5. The Problem at Hand

6. App Store 2008 - 2013
$99 to be start distributing your games
641+ releases per day!
19,000+ new apps per month!
775,000+ apps!
Very lightly curated
About 25% are games (real numbers hard)

7. A Harsh Mistress

8. Why we picked Apple
Large install base: half a billion iOS devices
Expectations commensurate to small games
No time to port to 80 different Androids
Medium game production time 4-12 mo.
Medium game cost between $20k to $200k

9. Caveats
Games supposedly have a harsher curve than
utility apps
An obvious way to stand out is via brand
Techniques depend a lot on how you intend
to sell your game (paid vs. F2P vs. ads)

10. More Caveats
Our first year as
marketers! Uh-oh!
Didn’t think too deeply
about target audience, so
most tactics were tailored
to “people like us”

11. Last Caveat
It would help if you have a good game
It better look fantastic, this is HUGE
“Too many games are dead from the outset
because they simply do not choose a setting
or character which is appealing to the
market. “ -Ben Cousins

13. Game Review Sites
Timing is key; try to synchronize with launch
TONS of game review sites
Emailing all of them is time intensive
Target most popular sites first
Can hire a PR firm to badger people
Could give a whole talk on this...

14. WSJ vs. Kotaku

15. In Game Tweets
(done well)
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Email your friends!
• Sword & Sworcery
• Tweet in game dialogue

16. In Game Tweets
(done pretty ok)

17. Top of the charts -->
New releases list --^
- People browsing won’t dig too deep...
+ First day + first week sales are key!

18. Cross Promotion
+ Why not!
- Kick out to store
+ Just you or a ring
- Only intra-platform

19. Viral Design
Hi-tech word of mouth
Farmville style, from the land of Facebook
+ Very powerful way to get new customers
+ Part of the design of the game
- Spammy :(

20. + Whoa! Front page! Maybe even the TV!
- Unpredictable without a contact...
There are things that make a feature more likely:
Use new hardware or iOS features
Be popular
Get a publisher

21. Paid Installs?
+100% guaranteed
- $$$
IAP only: more than $1.00 per install

22. Price Drops
Free App blogs may syndicate the price
change
+ Crazy Tweetbots from Russia
+ Huge payoff in installs
- Only 5% conversion rate
- Makes more sense for IAP games

23. Spongiform Metafount 2
Search!
Memorable names are important
Keywords!
Examples:
Centerfeud :(
Cool Pizza :|

24. App Store Copy
Under your control
Great screenshots and copy
Used by journalists when talking about your
games
Icon should stand out

25. Categories
Type of game
How competitive is your genre?
Arcade?
Local multiplayer?

26. Game Center
See what your friends are playing!
+ Free
+ Easy to integrate
- No way to measure effectiveness
About 50% for COOL PIZZA

27. Updates!
Reach out to the press... again
Hopefully your original reviewers + new
ones

28. App Store Reviews
More a matter of things to avoid than things
to do:

29. N is for Networking
Trade Shows:
GDC, SEIGE, PAX
Festivals:
IGF, IndieCade, XOXO
+ Almost free!
- But, mostly insiders

30. Game Forums
+/- Enthusiasts
+ Free!
- Not active member of forum = 0 views

31. Three days spent on
promotion
First attempt at releasing a
game on the App Store
Priced at $1.99
Hoped to stand out as
local multiplayer iPad game

32. FREE
Ten days spent on
promotion
Arcade Games category
Hoping to stand out with
unique art style and music
Tchotchkies

34. Reading List
www.secret-library.com
http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2011/09/28/results-ios-game-revenue-survey/
http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/library/studies/understanding-the-modern-gamer/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/178516/
http://gamesfromwithin.com/making-a-living-barely-on-the-iphone-app-store
http://www.pentadact.com/2012-03-17-gdc-talk-how-to-explain-your-game-to-an-asshole/

35. Check out our games
Centrifeud
Cool Pizza
Meet us in the hallway!

36. Atlantans Ahoy!
There’s lots of hot iOS gaming action in ATL...

37. Ask us anything.
ANYTHING.