The two App Stores
marco.org
marco.org
At least for me, they're entirely correct. I must have seen that game in some list or another (new releases, etc.) at least 20 times, and I until now assumed it was a skateboarding game. Really hammers home how important the icon and name are.
What we think is good marketing (what the iconfactory has done), isn't just good per-se. What makes it good is its effectiveness...and by that metric. Ineffective marketing <> a bad AppStore.
I finally got around to buying Ramp Champ the other day after seeing the 2-dozenth person on Twitter compliment its design and from knowing of IconFactory from their icon and other app work.
Only after I started playing it was I like, "Ohhhh, Ramp Champ, I get it. And, hey, the icon actually makes sense now..." I thought it was different carnival games, not just different skeeball environments.
The game is beautiful and challenging (though my fingers get oily and make accuracy annoyingly hard) -- but the name, icon and website (they only have one screenshot of the actual gaming environment buried in a slideshow on the Media page) don't do enough to explain it IMHO.
Of course this has changed somewhat nowadays, there is much sites covering mobile games/apps. But I think those tricks are still valid, as for mainstream iPhone users browsing App Store is the dominant way to learn about apps.
There is always a new blog post talking about the mathematical impossibility of making money on the app store, dependence on Apple for exposure, unfairness of the App Store rules, etc. Some of these articles even have some credibility. It's fair to say that it is difficult to make money on the App Store (or any other market). It's fair to say you can get a boost from Apple. And it's true that the App Store is not transparent.
But before you write that next screed about the App Store being an impossible-to-win game with no real reward for success, remember that you don't understand everything. As this article points out, it could simply be a market misunderstanding, which will doom a product anywhere.
Before you complain that the game is fixed, remember a lot of normal people make money on the App Store. Instapaper makes money, I make a living of the App Store, as do two close friends of mine, and none of us has ever been featured by Apple. We make good products, don't have VC capital or money to market, and the sales rise over time. You can make money on any category (not just games). I do well in Navigation, my buddy Ish does well in Social Networking, and another buddy Dave does really well in utilities.
If you try and make a product for the App Store and it fails to sell, you have no one to blame but yourself. The App Store is the absolute easiest way for an indie developer to sell software on a mobile phone... heck, to SELL software at all.
As a caveat, if you choose to play in the Games category, I suggest you be a good game programmer with a good idea, and not some two-bit hack with a get rich quick scheme. The competition is steepest in games. But, you can still win.
Really what this article is about is that a non-game developer went head-to-head with a company that has made and marketed several successful iphone games and came out "losing".
I'd love to see a follow up post to this about how to Market to App Store B. Include everything from naming and screenshots to networking with bloggers to buying ads.
Instapaper had one of the easiest sign-up processes I'd ever seen (when I designed notadouche.com, the goal was to one-up his sign-up), it was really simplistic, and it was free. The iPhone application came a year after Instapaper's site, so he already had a built-in audience. Then Instapaper became one of the top apps on the iPhone, reputation-wise, it introduced tilt scrolling to the design scene, and so Marco's become one of the "in" bloggers that gets quoted by John Gruber and Andy Baio and their enormous crowds. At some point he was picked up by Fusion Ads, but that was way later, after they'd started their strategy of placing advertisements on iPhone apps.
Marco's written multiple times about how he refuses to "network" on his blog, and how he refuses to promote what he writes in any way. http://www.marco.org/166210052