A gaming site in the UK, Pocket Gamer, wrote a quick blurb about our 'Joy of Giving' policy that rewards players for giving us a 5-Star rating in the AppStore. We've actually heard a few players comment about this as well, so I took a moment to address 'why' we do it as a comment on the Pocket Gamer site.
Here's the Post:
http://is.gd/41rAx
Here's my comment:
Thanks for the write up & we're glad you like it! As for the 5-Star review, here's the rationale:
When we first created gpsAssassin, we got a few positive reviews from our friends & family. Our rating was perfect at 5 stars. When we advertised it to our local community, the ratings were still good (since people knew us) - but we got a few random one stars.
We were really confused... how could so many people like the game and then someone hated it with a one star.
As we expanded our marketing & the availability, the negative ratings continued and this was VERY confusing given how popular the game was among the active players.
Well, we finally figured out what was happening. In the ENTIRE APP OWNERSHIP process, you're only prompted to rate an application when you DELETE it from your iPhone. Think about the mentality behind that - you're literally asking the WORST person to rate your app. If they're deleting it, they obviously didn't like it.
Once we figured this out (plus the fact that our latest release didn't work on an iPod Touch 2.2.1), we scrambled to counterbalance the negative bias. Our only recourse: Give an incentive to rate the app.
Ironically, we have 21,000 players and we've had less than 2000 ratings. Moreover, I'm pretty positive that a vast majority of our 1-stars come from the app crashing on 2.2.1 (just read the reviews). Regardless, our incentives have at least boosted our rating to 2.5 stars. If we didn't have that, we would definitely be rated a 1 star.
Happy Hunting!
-gpsA
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Write up in TechCrunch!
Last week, I sent to SanFran for a Virtual Goods conference. While there, I thought it would be awesome if the guys at TC could checkout gpsAssassin & determine if the readers would dig the concept. Getting into the TC office wasn't easy and I had to pull off some serious magic to make it happen - but Jason Kincaid was cool enough to hear me out.
I've posted the article below, but I'm personally amazed at how some people 'get it' while others are too busy trying to 'peg' you to even understand what you're saying. If I've heard "Oh, you're like MafiaWars" once, I've heard it 10 times :) Jason, on the other hand, was quick in seeing the unique location features & his write up captures that.
Check it out:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/28/gpsassassin-could-be-the-iphones-next-highly-addictive-hit-game
Cheers!
I've posted the article below, but I'm personally amazed at how some people 'get it' while others are too busy trying to 'peg' you to even understand what you're saying. If I've heard "Oh, you're like MafiaWars" once, I've heard it 10 times :) Jason, on the other hand, was quick in seeing the unique location features & his write up captures that.
Check it out:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/28/gpsassassin-could-be-the-iphones-next-highly-addictive-hit-game
Cheers!
Friday, September 25, 2009
Free Your Inner Secret Agent gpsAssassin
(This was originally released as a press release on September 18th)
Game development company, SideHobby, LLC, built both their new iPhone game and their company using only the "free" tools and development platforms provided by Google.
What began as a clever idea for a mobile phone game at the 2008 Nashville Startup Weekend event for entrepreneurs, became a reality this year with the launch of the game "gpsAssassins - Kill Your Neighbor" for the iPhone (available now FREE from the Apple iTunes App store http://itunes.com/apps/gpsAssassin). So many players have already paid to be among the first to play the game that SideHobby released a free version this week. Thousands of new players are being added every day now.
"gpsAssassins - Kill Your Neighbor," partially based on the real-life game played with squirt guns and first made popular on college campuses then among young urban professionals, is a multi-player, location-based game for mobile devices. The object of the game is to attack the people around you before they attack first. You play against your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers or strangers using the GPS location capabilities of your phone to track assassination targets and to be tracked yourself.
To build both their company and their product, business partners Nicholas Holland and Jackson Miller utilized all of Google's tools for operations and collaboration with partners and developers around the world, including Gmail™, Google Talk™, Google Docs™, Google Calendar™, Google Voice™, etc.
"Fostering innovation was the primary purpose of Startup Weekend," said Nicholas Holland, CEO of both Side Hobby and Nashville technology leader Centre{source}. "We took it to the next level, rethinking the resources necessary to bring a new product to market within the current razor-thin margins of mobile gaming. Google's suite of free tools was the answer. Our business model would not have worked without Google."
They used Google Docs to create and present their award winning venture capital proposal at Fast-Pitch Nashville 2009. They used Google Sites™ for their intranet, YouTube™ for instructional videos, Knol™ for written game instructions, and Blogger™ for their corporate blog. Their first product, "gpsAssassins - Kill Your Neighbor," was developed and runs on Google App Engine™ and utilizes Google Checkout™ for an in-game ecommerce market and transactions.
"Utilizing Google we were able to build an infrastructure that will scale to hundreds of thousands of players as demand increases," said Side Hobby's Jackson Miller, also creator of Statzen, a content analytics tool for bloggers. "The entire game-engine resides on Google App Engine’s servers, which allows us to constantly update the game, and provide our popular new scenarios (released every Tuesday) such as Spotlight (hiding doesn't work), Aggression (all attacks do 200% damage), Revenge (all counterattacks do 200% damage), and Lucky Charms (double blood money rewards)."
The price of the game was set for launch at $4.99 and allowed players to buy in-game currency known as "Blood Money." Enough units were purchased to allow the company to reduce that price to $0.99, and in the latest version released just this week in the iTunes apps store, to provide the game now free of charge to anyone.
Brands concerned with location-based advertising have also expressed interest in the game, hoping to offer embedded game content based on GPS locations, to encourage players to visit specific stores and receive valuable branded game elements in return (branded weapons like a claw hammer from Home Depot, or hot coffee from Starbucks). Also helping to monetize the game for Side Hobby is a partnership with TapJoy, feeding OfferPal promotions during game play by offering Blood Money rewards to those who sign-up for promotions from Netflix, DirecTV, etc.
Currently there are more than 11,000 active players of the game around the world. The largest group of players is local to Tennessee, but California is quickly gaining on their numbers. Other markets with a significant number of players include the EU, Australia, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. The game is currently published only in English. Future translated versions will depend upon market demand. On average around the world, players are spending 11 minutes per session, and play 3 sessions per day. Also, in the works is a more politically-correct version (without the killing) tentatively titled, "GPS FlagTag," being developed by Side Hobby with assistance from students of Belmont University in Nashville.
Game development company, SideHobby, LLC, built both their new iPhone game and their company using only the "free" tools and development platforms provided by Google.
What began as a clever idea for a mobile phone game at the 2008 Nashville Startup Weekend event for entrepreneurs, became a reality this year with the launch of the game "gpsAssassins - Kill Your Neighbor" for the iPhone (available now FREE from the Apple iTunes App store http://itunes.com/apps/gpsAssassin). So many players have already paid to be among the first to play the game that SideHobby released a free version this week. Thousands of new players are being added every day now.
"gpsAssassins - Kill Your Neighbor," partially based on the real-life game played with squirt guns and first made popular on college campuses then among young urban professionals, is a multi-player, location-based game for mobile devices. The object of the game is to attack the people around you before they attack first. You play against your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers or strangers using the GPS location capabilities of your phone to track assassination targets and to be tracked yourself.
To build both their company and their product, business partners Nicholas Holland and Jackson Miller utilized all of Google's tools for operations and collaboration with partners and developers around the world, including Gmail™, Google Talk™, Google Docs™, Google Calendar™, Google Voice™, etc.
"Fostering innovation was the primary purpose of Startup Weekend," said Nicholas Holland, CEO of both Side Hobby and Nashville technology leader Centre{source}. "We took it to the next level, rethinking the resources necessary to bring a new product to market within the current razor-thin margins of mobile gaming. Google's suite of free tools was the answer. Our business model would not have worked without Google."
They used Google Docs to create and present their award winning venture capital proposal at Fast-Pitch Nashville 2009. They used Google Sites™ for their intranet, YouTube™ for instructional videos, Knol™ for written game instructions, and Blogger™ for their corporate blog. Their first product, "gpsAssassins - Kill Your Neighbor," was developed and runs on Google App Engine™ and utilizes Google Checkout™ for an in-game ecommerce market and transactions.
"Utilizing Google we were able to build an infrastructure that will scale to hundreds of thousands of players as demand increases," said Side Hobby's Jackson Miller, also creator of Statzen, a content analytics tool for bloggers. "The entire game-engine resides on Google App Engine’s servers, which allows us to constantly update the game, and provide our popular new scenarios (released every Tuesday) such as Spotlight (hiding doesn't work), Aggression (all attacks do 200% damage), Revenge (all counterattacks do 200% damage), and Lucky Charms (double blood money rewards)."
The price of the game was set for launch at $4.99 and allowed players to buy in-game currency known as "Blood Money." Enough units were purchased to allow the company to reduce that price to $0.99, and in the latest version released just this week in the iTunes apps store, to provide the game now free of charge to anyone.
Brands concerned with location-based advertising have also expressed interest in the game, hoping to offer embedded game content based on GPS locations, to encourage players to visit specific stores and receive valuable branded game elements in return (branded weapons like a claw hammer from Home Depot, or hot coffee from Starbucks). Also helping to monetize the game for Side Hobby is a partnership with TapJoy, feeding OfferPal promotions during game play by offering Blood Money rewards to those who sign-up for promotions from Netflix, DirecTV, etc.
Currently there are more than 11,000 active players of the game around the world. The largest group of players is local to Tennessee, but California is quickly gaining on their numbers. Other markets with a significant number of players include the EU, Australia, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. The game is currently published only in English. Future translated versions will depend upon market demand. On average around the world, players are spending 11 minutes per session, and play 3 sessions per day. Also, in the works is a more politically-correct version (without the killing) tentatively titled, "GPS FlagTag," being developed by Side Hobby with assistance from students of Belmont University in Nashville.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Forecasting Growth and Infrastructure
We received some bad news today... Google's AppEngine team contacted us to let us know that our "special elevated free quota" will revert back to the standard free level in a few weeks & we'll be billed for any overages. AppEngine's resources were a huge part of plan & the elevated levels were very important to seeking profitability with gpsAssassin. Now that its gone, I had to go back and run the numbers again.
Over the past week, things have settled down with our metrics. The 'pirated software' frenzy has diminished to less than 30 per day and the existing players are falling into a nice rhythm. Using resource averages over the past three days, I modeled a forecast of 10x and 100x growth.
Based on CPU usage, we're very close to paying for resources already with just a soft launch! When we go free & start promoting, I fully expect thousands of players to flock to the system - especially with the viral 'recruiting' nature of the game. Achieving a 10x growth will happen quickly, and the 100x may not take long either. We can handle $285 per month, but the $4K per month is a huge expense.
The trick to this whole equation is balancing against revenue. Unfortunately, we don't know how users will adopt our 'in-game' transactions and Offer system. This lack of clarity/knowledge puts us in a precarious 'chicken or egg' situation. At this point, we have to prepare for the expense and hope the revenue works out... Ironic since I've said "hope is not a strategy" at least 100x in my life :)
Over the past week, things have settled down with our metrics. The 'pirated software' frenzy has diminished to less than 30 per day and the existing players are falling into a nice rhythm. Using resource averages over the past three days, I modeled a forecast of 10x and 100x growth.
- Total Users: All the players that have signed up to date
- Active AVG: Daily average of Active Players
- Total to Active: Ratio of players that are playing at any given time
- CPU Hours: Based on current usage, total CPU Hours used on AppEngine
- CPU Free: Google provides 46.3 CPU Hours for free (thank you!)
- Over / Under: Represents our demand as compared to the Free Level
- Daily Cost: Multiplies our Over/Under CPU Hours by $0.10 per AppEngine pricing
- Monthly Cost: Anticipates 31 days of the Daily Cost
Based on CPU usage, we're very close to paying for resources already with just a soft launch! When we go free & start promoting, I fully expect thousands of players to flock to the system - especially with the viral 'recruiting' nature of the game. Achieving a 10x growth will happen quickly, and the 100x may not take long either. We can handle $285 per month, but the $4K per month is a huge expense.
The trick to this whole equation is balancing against revenue. Unfortunately, we don't know how users will adopt our 'in-game' transactions and Offer system. This lack of clarity/knowledge puts us in a precarious 'chicken or egg' situation. At this point, we have to prepare for the expense and hope the revenue works out... Ironic since I've said "hope is not a strategy" at least 100x in my life :)
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
gpsAssassin Analysis: Week 1
As we prepared to launch gpsAssassin, I can't tell you how grateful I was for all of the generous Apple Developers that were kind enough to publish their stats and observations. To continue in the spirit of generosity, I'm going to post our stats and observations from time to time.
Time line info:
05/08/09 - Submitted to App Store
** Note: We saw an apple tester create an account within 8 days and play for approximately 5 minutes. We know it was Apple because we entered their latitude and longitude on Google Maps - revealing their location to be Apple Headquarters :) After the initial review, we saw no further activity until we were approved.
06/04/09 - App Approved
** We made a rookie mistake and had the 'release' date set to May 31st when we initially submitted. Based on external feedback, we thought the app would be reviewed within a week and felt the 31st gave us plenty of time to prepare for launch. Unfortunately, it was approved on June 4th and since our release date was in the past, it became immediately available for download. LUCKILY, we set the initial price at $4.99 and that discouraged the masses from downloading the app before it was 100% ready.
06/05/09 - First Sales from our Beta Testers
** Our beta testers helped us clock our first sales and test the store-delivered application. BETA TESTERS ARE CRUCIAL to your success. Not only did they help us develop the game, they also helped us find hundreds of bugs. Its been a week and the beta tester are still reporting bugs - which is great since most unknown users won't give you a chance to fix and will only give you a bad rating.
06/07/09 - According to Flurry, New Users surpass 150+ by Noon
** At first, you want to believe that your application is so amazing that everyone and their brother is talking about it - thus driving new sales. But after a deep breath, you realize that going from 10 sales the day prior to 30+ sales per hour indicates something else. We were watching the data and it seemed new users were popping up in Europe, Africa, Asia, Canada, South America, and Australia. It was then that we knew we were hacked.
By that evening, we had surpassed 600 new users - far exceeding the number of sales we were showing in the iTunes data portal. Our efforts to scan the web paid off and we found the app was hacked and released. The irony: We planned on reducing the application to 'free' within the next 2 weeks - after we had enough time to clean up the app for the masses. So in this scenario, the pirating community actually helped us spread the app like wildfire - something future Developers may want to consider.
06/09/09 - Here's what the data tells us
Day-over-Day Growth (as compared to previous day)
** While not precise, I can infer that hacked software is most desirable the day it is released and then quickly tapers off. I'm guessing it will continue its rapid decrease until the pirated versions only represent a handful of new users per day. If we gain mainstream popularity or media coverage, the pirated copies may increase accordingly.
Market Research for our 'Free Version'
** Since day one, our plan has been to release gpsAssassin as 'free' and monetize through in-game transactions & related in-game marketing/advertising. The $4.99 price was temporary and allowed us to collect revenue for a launch party. Surprisingly, some people still bought the app and we were able to watch their game play for the first two days. Their gameplay was similar to the other beta players in terms of frequency and length. In contrast, the usage profile for the players of the pirated version was much different.
Players who purchase the game want to play it a lot - thus the average user playing 9.24 times per day. Paying money increases loyalty/intensity of gameplay. In contrast, the player-session averages dropped dramatically once it was hacked/free. HOWEVER, its interesting to note that it levels off around 4x per day. After months of testing, our beta testers maintained a daily session average of 4.64. This leads me to believe that despite the significant drop in active users, by day 3 the free/hacked players were already playing the game at a normal pace.
In summary, it seems that the price of your app will directly affect the number of long term players you capture (common sense). Players that pay are much more likely to become loyal and will show an intense initial game play. Free players aren't vested in the app, so you'll see many of them abandon the app before they become loyal. However, once a player becomes engaged - it seems that free vs. paid doesn't matter. Common sense would indicate that all engaged players simply judge the app on its merits once they surpass the initial 'try out' period.
Other Observations
** To me, the most fascinating part of the 'hack' version is that now we have seed-groups in foreign countries. Our application is social and relies heavily on 'seeding' new areas to gain foothold. Marketing in countries like the UK, China, or Japan would have been cost prohibited. Now, with the hacked version in the wild, we have seed groups on every continent. This trend may continue once we make the app free.
Another observation relates to the psychology of success. Inevitably, people will ask you how your application is doing. Most, if not all, want to know how many times it has been downloaded. The subject of money is often taboo, so you'll rarely (if ever) have someone ask you how much money you've made. Since downloads are often the benchmark of success, a hacked version of your application can bode well for you.
Time line info:
05/08/09 - Submitted to App Store
** Note: We saw an apple tester create an account within 8 days and play for approximately 5 minutes. We know it was Apple because we entered their latitude and longitude on Google Maps - revealing their location to be Apple Headquarters :) After the initial review, we saw no further activity until we were approved.
06/04/09 - App Approved
** We made a rookie mistake and had the 'release' date set to May 31st when we initially submitted. Based on external feedback, we thought the app would be reviewed within a week and felt the 31st gave us plenty of time to prepare for launch. Unfortunately, it was approved on June 4th and since our release date was in the past, it became immediately available for download. LUCKILY, we set the initial price at $4.99 and that discouraged the masses from downloading the app before it was 100% ready.
06/05/09 - First Sales from our Beta Testers
** Our beta testers helped us clock our first sales and test the store-delivered application. BETA TESTERS ARE CRUCIAL to your success. Not only did they help us develop the game, they also helped us find hundreds of bugs. Its been a week and the beta tester are still reporting bugs - which is great since most unknown users won't give you a chance to fix and will only give you a bad rating.
06/07/09 - According to Flurry, New Users surpass 150+ by Noon
** At first, you want to believe that your application is so amazing that everyone and their brother is talking about it - thus driving new sales. But after a deep breath, you realize that going from 10 sales the day prior to 30+ sales per hour indicates something else. We were watching the data and it seemed new users were popping up in Europe, Africa, Asia, Canada, South America, and Australia. It was then that we knew we were hacked.
By that evening, we had surpassed 600 new users - far exceeding the number of sales we were showing in the iTunes data portal. Our efforts to scan the web paid off and we found the app was hacked and released. The irony: We planned on reducing the application to 'free' within the next 2 weeks - after we had enough time to clean up the app for the masses. So in this scenario, the pirating community actually helped us spread the app like wildfire - something future Developers may want to consider.
06/09/09 - Here's what the data tells us
Day-over-Day Growth (as compared to previous day)
** While not precise, I can infer that hacked software is most desirable the day it is released and then quickly tapers off. I'm guessing it will continue its rapid decrease until the pirated versions only represent a handful of new users per day. If we gain mainstream popularity or media coverage, the pirated copies may increase accordingly.
Market Research for our 'Free Version'
** Since day one, our plan has been to release gpsAssassin as 'free' and monetize through in-game transactions & related in-game marketing/advertising. The $4.99 price was temporary and allowed us to collect revenue for a launch party. Surprisingly, some people still bought the app and we were able to watch their game play for the first two days. Their gameplay was similar to the other beta players in terms of frequency and length. In contrast, the usage profile for the players of the pirated version was much different.
Players who purchase the game want to play it a lot - thus the average user playing 9.24 times per day. Paying money increases loyalty/intensity of gameplay. In contrast, the player-session averages dropped dramatically once it was hacked/free. HOWEVER, its interesting to note that it levels off around 4x per day. After months of testing, our beta testers maintained a daily session average of 4.64. This leads me to believe that despite the significant drop in active users, by day 3 the free/hacked players were already playing the game at a normal pace.
In summary, it seems that the price of your app will directly affect the number of long term players you capture (common sense). Players that pay are much more likely to become loyal and will show an intense initial game play. Free players aren't vested in the app, so you'll see many of them abandon the app before they become loyal. However, once a player becomes engaged - it seems that free vs. paid doesn't matter. Common sense would indicate that all engaged players simply judge the app on its merits once they surpass the initial 'try out' period.
Other Observations
** To me, the most fascinating part of the 'hack' version is that now we have seed-groups in foreign countries. Our application is social and relies heavily on 'seeding' new areas to gain foothold. Marketing in countries like the UK, China, or Japan would have been cost prohibited. Now, with the hacked version in the wild, we have seed groups on every continent. This trend may continue once we make the app free.
Another observation relates to the psychology of success. Inevitably, people will ask you how your application is doing. Most, if not all, want to know how many times it has been downloaded. The subject of money is often taboo, so you'll rarely (if ever) have someone ask you how much money you've made. Since downloads are often the benchmark of success, a hacked version of your application can bode well for you.
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