Monday, May 27, 2013

5-STAR Customer Ratings in iTunes (do they matter?)

It’s been just over a month since we released our largest update to * Solitaire Double-Deck HD * for the iPad and it is still going strong!


Over 18,800 of our existing iPad players updated to this version and the 5-STAR reviews keep coming in!  Whoo Hoo!  As of today, we’ve received 33 Customer Ratings and are holding STRONG at 5-STAR AVERAGE!!!


iTunes Customer Reviews are ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL for
any indie developer hoping to achieve commercial success!


We originally published Solitaire Double-Deck HD on Jan 31st, 2012, and have almost 60,000 total downloads!  Before we published this latest update we had received  289 iTunes Customer Ratings.  We had what we thought was a great overall 4.5 STAR average!  
Yippee yahoo... yea... NOT!  :(


4.5 Stars in iTunes lingo = average


Ok... so maybe 4.5 is slightly above Average... but its still  A V E R A G E!  Little did we realize the significance of the overall average not ONLY to customers evaluating a potential purchase... but also to Apple!


One can only assume that there is a super-top-secret-reveal-and-you-die algorithm hidden deep in the bowels of Apple HQ somewhere that determines which apps are ‘Featured’.  But... I think I have figured out one small piece of that puzzle.


As soon as the 5-STAR reviews hit iTunes, we also HIT the Featured “What’s Hot” List in iTunes!  At the height, we were on the What’s Hot lists in 52 countries, and we reached #17 in Casino Games in the U.S. and stayed there for over a week.  I couldn’t figure out why we weren’t moving up any higher, but that was until I took a hard look at the list.  We were the HIGHEST paid app in the Casino category!  Free always trumps paid... always.


How did we find out where we were ranking, and in which countries?  We use two online websites that collect and monitor iTunes stats including sales, updates, and rankings


There are several others out there, but I’ve found the #’s on App Figures 99.999 accurate.  The only disparity we’ve identified is a sale showing up on the incorrect date once or twice in the three years we’ve been using them.


So that’s it for this iteration... And I’ll keep striving to lengthen and strengthen these posts into something palatable and valuable for fellow indie developers.  


The only thing between you and success is YOU.

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