How do apps climb the charts?  I’ve been watching our Air Hockey Free battle the App Store for 19 days now and I think it’s pretty interesting.  It still has a long way to go before it’s crowned the #1 app in the world, but here’s the story so far. 

On day 1, Feb 4, I announced it on twitter.  I don’t have a huge following there, but a few people retweeted my announcement.  A day or so later, I started a 36-hour PR-a-thon at Touch Arcade.  I announced Air Hockey Free and asked for private messages of those interested in a promo code for the full version of Air Hockey.  I got over 100 PMs & gave away 10 promo codes.  The thread had roughly 800 views and at quite a few of those downloaded the free version.  Several people PM’d me saying that they bought the full version after trying the free one.  Success?  Maybe.

About the time that the Touch Arcade promo was over, the first weekend happened.  I’ve known from my paid version over the last 5 months that weekends are the big money makers.  For free apps, there’s a download spike over weekends too.  That Sunday, roughly 3,000 people downloaded Air Hockey Free.  At that time, Air Hockey Free was in the top 100 arcade games and the top 100 kids games, but wasn’t in the top 100 games – not even close to the top 100 apps (all of these are US App Store rankings).  Visibility wasn’t huge, but better than nothing.

Monday’s have historically been the low point for sales each week.  The first Monday’s dip was about 30%.  Since then, I’ve just watched what Air Hockey Free would do by itself. A couple web pages reviewed Air Hockey Free and downloads increased throughout the week.

The next weekend caused another big jump in downloads.  By the second Monday morning, Air Hockey Free made it into the top 100 free games list.  A week later, the downloads per day had doubled again.  Yesterday roughly 9500 people downloaded Air Hockey Free for the first time.  As of today, more than 75,000 people have downloaded Air Hockey Free.

Air Hockey Free’s rankings in the US store have been fairly static over the past week.  The US downloads are still increasing, but the big push over the weekend was from somewhere else.  Germany.  I looked last night and again this morning – Air Hockey Free is the #3 app in Germany.  I love Germany.  (devs, to answer your question…no, I didn’t translate the app to German…it’s an air hockey table though – dead simple.)

I wish I’d been watching the story of the German App Store unfold.  Dang.  I’ll just have to watch it happen in the US.

If you don’t have Air Hockey Free, please download it here. Spread the word!

There’s more you devs want to know, right?  Does the free app generate full version sales?  Maybe.  The current “upgrade action” for Air Hockey Free users requires them to open the setup page while in a game, then click on a “Full Version” button.  I did this for a couple reasons.  First, I wanted the app to get approved by Apple.  The rules on what a free app can be are, well, how shall I say this, perhaps a bit open to reviewer interpretation.  Non-obtrusive design meant to me a better chance of the app making it to the App Store.  Second, I didn’t want to offend users by being to “in their face.”

Since its release, I’ve done some more research on how other free apps have touted their full versions.  I’ll just say, Air Hockey Free has the most non-offensive upgrade button I found.  A change of this strategy will likely increase full version sales.  We shall see!

Again, download Air Hockey Free.  Seriously.  Do it.  Now.

Air Hockey Free was released 12 days ago and it’s daily downloads continue to grow. Over 30,000 people have now downloaded Air Hockey Free. Over the weekend, downloads per day roughly doubled and the App Store ranking in free games went from approximately #110 to #99 last night to #91 this morning.

Not to get too excited yet, those numbers are just for games & that still places Air Hockey Free well outside the top 100 apps in the App Store. Today, the #46 game is the last free game in the top 100 overall.

We expect downloads take the normal Monday hit, but hopefully being in the top 100 games will combat that a little.  Stay tuned for more of the Air Hockey Free story!  Get it at the App Store link below.

Air Hockey has been in the App Store for about 5 months now.   In the life of a video game, that’s forever.  Watching sales on a daily basis has been an interesting past time.  I threw together a weekly sales stats chart to show the big picture of what’s happened over the last 5 months.

As of December 28th, Air Hockey has sold 203,485 copies.  Air Hockey’s been priced at $0.99 since its release.  Do the math.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from the rest of the data.  I’ll summarize what I’ve learned:  holidays are nice, free competitors aren’t all that great, free competitors aren’t all that bad, and listen to your customers.

After the launch of our next (still secret) game, I look forward to hearing from those who buy it.  Like I currently do with Air Hockey, I’ll pass along a few free promo codes for the new game on twitter.  To get in on that action, follow us on twitter.

Happy New Year!

p.s.  If you don’t own Air Hockey, buy it!  It’s still just $0.99!