Last year I went through a whole bunch of different ideas for iPhone apps I might write. I dawdled for way too long, spent too much time working on apps that I ultimately scrapped, and generally wasn’t very efficient with my time. But I finally got something into the app store in June of last year. I made it free, because I wasn’t sure how it would go over. Taking people’s money is Serious Business.
I released a card game that I call Hearts Solo. It has been pretty popular. To date, it has been downloaded by 27,942 people. Of that number, 5,536 upgraded to version 1.1.0 when it was released. So I felt that I had adequately paved the way for a better version that I could charge real money for.
Once again, I took way too long with the follow-up. Adding network play turned out to be pretty close to the hardest programming challenge I’ve ever attempted. It sounds easy enough, especially since I’ve done so much network programming in the past, so I can’t explain it. My best guess is that I didn’t choose a very good internal structure for the code. The practical upshot is that it took me about six months to finish.
I put Hearts Net on the App Store on Friday the 29th at $3.99. Two people got the game with promo codes I handed out. A third person bought it with actual money, but I happen to know that it was because she doesn’t know how promo codes work and screwed up, because she emailed me about it. So I lowered the price to $1.99, and the next day I got six sales, none with promo codes. So I figured, hey, things are looking up. The next day, five sales. Yeah, this is not looking good. So I made the game free, hoping that will help get the word out, and I can start charging later.
Yesterday was the first day that the game was free. Total downloads: 1,717. My best day before this was when I released version 1.1.0 of Hearts Solo. It was downloaded 590 times on July 31.
SO. Here’s what this says to me. There is an awareness of my game among the people who might want to play it, and a fair amount of demand. Quite a few of those people are playing it. I gave them a free version to start, so they know what they’re getting into. But they’re not willing to pay even $1.99 for it?
Come on. Really? Not even $1.99? You’re breaking my heart here.