Every now and then I spend some time on google store and itunes, looking at the ratings and downloads for different Hosted Games and CoG titles. Theoretically, there should be a relationship between rating score and download, but many highly scored games hardly have any downloads (on google store, for example). I guess there are a number of other variables, such as for example the genre of the game. Zombie movies seem to attract a lot of downloads, for example? Superhero games also tend not to do badly, where fantasy seems to be a bit more hit and miss?
Any thoughts on this? (I guess I donât have a special point in mind, just trying to discuss the issueâŚ)
Isnât it because the score is an average so if you have a lot of downloads your score would have more variability and thus being lower. Whereas a game with less downloads would have a higher number of high scores which will bring the average up
You also have to pay attention to whether the app is free to download or whether you have to purchase it before downloading. The free to download apps will always have more downloads. When you compare the HGs and CoGs that have to be purchased to one another, though, itâs clear that the ones with the better reviews have more downloads in general.
Yes, this is true⌠but I was getting more at the influence of the genre of the game on the overall number of downloads, and how the rating score influences that (not sure if I am too confusing⌠for example, I get the feeling that the zombie genre is very popular at the moment?)
The free or paid also has a larger affect like Sam says. It also has an affect on the score games like UnNatural and Zombie Exodus have passed 50k downloads but also have several bad reviews by people who feel cheated by having it free but having to pay to unlock the later half of the show, whereas paid games donât even get half that download wise. So it does have an affect on overall ratings.
âŚdunno, some games just catch the attention and glue the user to it, sometimes you might get surprised how well a small game can attract the users for example "the great tournament " its huge only because there is a loop for actions for 300 days otherwise it will end rather quickly,moreover its free, this is also the ultimate reason it has got more than 50k downloads, i was having a conversation with my colleagues last week and found that (no offense) they hate games that manipulate them its free and they find a paywall suddenly after 2~4 chapters,
Its understandable for me because im part of this community and know how things work here, how demos are created and all, but who will explain the story to every random user who is new to these things?. Worst part is the pricing which is adequate for some books but really high for others, so some are rather forced to think why âshould we spend money on a book when we can spend it on a graphical video game?â which are cheaper compared to some books.
Finally, the waiting time for some sequels forces the user to lose interest in the series (best example? Samurai of hauyga.)
I have spent considerably time noteing these facts but also found that it also comes to user âtasteâ
Like for me i cant resist a good medieval theme game wheather its cog or any other.
Iâm still kind of surprised it gets seen that way. I can understand people who get peeved downloading a âfreeâ app to find itâs a demo if theyâre not used to this companyâs structure, but the very first page of all COGâs say: You can buy it now or try the first few chapters for free. If thatâs not to someoneâs taste and they donât want to spend any money they can simply delete it. The âit tricked me so I canât finishâ argument doesnât hold. (Although there are lots of complaints along this line). No ones manipulating anyone
As for what seems to go well, as far as I can tell as you said, zombie and superhero stories seem to get a lot of attention, a lot of fantasy based ones as well (especially the warrior/fighting type ones). Vampire ones too (although thereâs not many). Real life and true historical ones donât seem to get as much attention, and surprisingly neither do space age based ones. (Thereâs a few space ones but you rarely see them discussed and I donât think any of them (hosted or COG) have made it onto steam. Some of the more real life ones have.
UnNatural says in the app description the first episodes are free then you can pay for the remaining episodes. The big problem is a LOT of people donât read the descriptions so even though it tells them the fact they still rate badly and say they were mislead.
And you forgot "not every person goes through each and every word in description ", it not you, not me or anyone who has control over the users, they download to play free, some may be used to such tactics but everyday new people stumble upon these games they dont find it every âexcitingâ
@adrao, well considering most customers are probably Millennials, I donât think itâs surprising that zombies, superheroes and fantasy frequently sell well. That being said, I think you still need to make âthe genre your ownâ when writing, even in a popular genre.
Some genres are more geared to older audiences. Historical romance, for example, might appeal more to women in their 30s/40s. Military fiction/Tom Clancy stuff, appeals more to middle-aged men. I know many friends my age who enjoy true crime stories and gritty stuff like that. Thatâs not to say that Millennials canât like those genres; itâs probably just a harder sell.
I do think that some CoGs are hard to categorize or might straddle different genres. Thatâs not a bad thing at all, but it makes it a bit harder to describe.
EDITED TO ADD: And regarding the whole âfree to sampleâ approach; I think it DOES result in more 1-star reviews, BUT, I think it also results in MORE sales, because youâre getting people past that initial price barrier. Some of them will enjoy the sample enough to justify them buying the game, when they may never have risked buying it sight unseen. Those people may be giving you 4-star and 5-star reviews (that you never would have gotten without the free sample), but they rarely include âI tried this for free and liked it enough to buy it!â in their reviews. Some will say that, but most wonât.
I know what you mean, its just the âperspective visionâ the normal people have towards free games
But ill be frank when its âfreeâ anyone thinks that âits free yeah, must have got a lot of iap thoughâ
But nobody expects a âpaywallâ to proceed further which is not a characteristic of free game
And the sentences âyou can play the first few chap free âŚetcâ i written not in Google playstore description but in game itself, so you only know it after you get it, and you know it wellâŚwhat may happen next.
Its good to give a demo but this i dont think fits well with book games in my opinion. Instead there should be a price tag itself in store, so users will know they need to pay to get.
But its not my place to judge, everyone have their own thoughts on it, but i feel both the aurthors and buyers are right in their own ways.
It is true that zombie games tend to catch more attention for me due to the fact that they can offer a rich story every time ( not saying that others donât provide it too) as in a post apocalyptic scene the author tend to get a freedom as there is no society, very less people to interact so they more focus is on the story than on conversations ( thatâs what I love ). True there is also a factor about genre popularity as there are a lot of zombie games and movies and those sometimes just sticks to your mind like how would it be like to be all alone in the world is it going to be cool or scary and thoughts like that tend to promote them to download a cog and hosted games and find it out first hand.
same with superheros as there is huge superpowers at stake (Hehe)
fantasy games are a bit hit and miss due to the fact that there are huge type of different topics/sub-genre in fantasy games and not there is not a thing or topic that have such popularity as the others so it tend to look a bit hit and miss and secondly its just not everyoneâs cup of tea (detective type, history related etc)
Let me just start by saying that rating donât help in providing much insight on the games ,if the customer feel disappointed then they will give negative rating but it might be because lack of proper insight on the game contents , for eg a game has been released by stating it is free but later found out that it was just a demo or the end is too tough to reach without inapps , and no such discription is given then they should feel disappointed and give it low rating even though they enjoyed it âŚIt is just one situation I have like dozen more since I am a customer here so i know about it personallyâ âŚ,and i also restraint my self from typing all those other reason since I prefer non bulky comments âŚ
Games apps Say it is a demo but not the title people only read titles . So they would give you a bad rating, yes. But about at least 50% of people who try out demo would buy the game, people would never buy it without the demo. It is a given take situation. I think free app is better for obtain a broad spectrum of audience.
Other 50% will give bad reviews like it should be free and all that ( like in most games ) and give bad reviews ultimately it ends up being underrated.
Still the most best option is to give a demo but mention that you have to pay for playing full game in description ( very little game mentioned it )
Not 50% give you bad ratings because if not games would be far down the rating they have now. It is just a vocal minority. And you gain a volume of people who try out and like it. No many people would pay four or five dollars without a trial
I am not talking about ratings I am talking about money in the pockets aka people buying the iap full price. Most of people happy donât rate thw game because they are lazy. Is the entitled minority who rate games I donât take account ratings at all because people comments are stupid. Something there is no cool guns in your game I give it a zero. And game is in medieval period⌠or worse⌠@JimD has some of most bizarre one stars reviews ever. People even didnât know this was a text story and accusing him of scam
Okey let us say you are just surfing the play store or web for IF and you get to know about CoG . now the first app you will download ( and buy ) will be a five stared one or a three starred one . for me it would be a zombie one ( lol ).
You got a point that only games with trials are going to make money as they leave you hanging where you canât even go back - 3games , metahuman etc so you think just get this over with and pay so its a good tactic for making people pay .
Hi I donât think play store has a category for text based games âŚAnd I think I saw someone put his game in role playing type âŚIt might confuse some people , believe me I got confused in my first choice game for a different one and then I liked it , but I donât remember giving even the worst app a 1 star unless it is a scam to fool people , and I donât like people giving 1-2 star because of grammar mistakes like in some choice game I had seen âŚ
