It’s been a little more than five months since our first title was released into the App Store. With each title after that, we’ve tried to improve each game, as well as our market assessment, development, marketing, support and other internal processes, as we try to build a sustainable business making casual apps for the iPhone OS (and eventually other mobile platforms).
One obstacle that we and seemingly most other indie developers run into is how to get visibility to users among the over 150,000 apps in the App Store. We tried different approaches to get visibility both within and outside our apps, with modest success at best.
A couple weeks ago, we released Emily’s Girl Talk, a fun story-telling app with charming graphics that included four games in one (MASH, Lemon and more), and which we thought that younger girls and nostalgic adults in particular might enjoy. Based on feedback from users, it seems that the core of v1.0 hit our target market, and we immediately started working on planned and requested additions for the first major update to Emily’s Girl Talk.
Still, despite the general praise and enthusiasm that we heard for the game, Emily’s Girl Talk was not reaching nearly the number of people we had hoped in its initial few weeks, hovering at or just outside the Top 25 Paid Word Games category. Then, enter Apple.
Today, we were delighted to discover that Apple featured Emily’s Girl Talk among the “New and Noteworthy” in the App Store. Within a few hours, Emily’s Girl Talk appeared within the Top 20 Paid Word Games category.
Although we might just be a lucky, random recipient of great fortune, it also feels like we received a little validation from Apple, with the hopes that market validation will follow. If we’ve built a solid product in Emily’s Girl Talk like we (and some early fans) think we have, and can benefit from a little in-app virality, Apple’s feature might just be the spark that helps us over the hump. At the very least, we are reassured that we’re not so far off, as we continue to refine our apps and processes and search for a more dependable method of distribution and marketing. And, in the meantime, we’ll enjoy our week in Apple’s spotlight, and report back with anything significant.
