Analytics firm App Annie has released its February data (via AppleInsider) on top-performing apps on iOS and Android for the month of February, highlighting how large developers have increasingly been able to leverage television commercials to help boost their rankings. Such tactics are obviously not within financial reach of most developers, but established players such as King and Big Fish Games have the resources to make an impact on television.
In looking at the top App Store games by revenue in February, App Annie notes that King's Farm Heroes Saga leapt sixteen places from the previous month to land in seventh place, while Big Fish Casino moved up six places to just break into the top ten. Both games have benefited from television advertising in recent months, driving their visibility and user interest.
Farm Heroes Saga made major gains in iOS revenue in February, giving publisher King three of the Top 10 positions. [...] Farm Heroes Saga received extensive TV and print campaigns in the United Kingdom and United States, and performed strongly in both markets.
Another app receiving extensive TV commercials in the United States in February was Big Fish Casino, which made significant gains to join the Top 10 games by iOS revenue. It was interesting to note that the commercials for Big Fish Casino targeted female players, a marketing stance that has been adopted by several big game publishers in 2014.
Long-standing top performers Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga have also seen significant television advertising in recent months.
The Flappy Bird phenomenon was obviously strong in the month of February, with developer Dong Nguyen's .Gears Studio ranking number one in total App Store game downloads in February, despite having only three titles in the store and Flappy Bird itself having been taken down on the 9th of the month. Even so, Flappy Bird ranked as the most downloaded game for the month, while another title, Super Ball Juggling, placed seventh.
And of course the rush of copycats also saw an impact, with a number of Flappy Bird clones seeing substantial success during the month, particularly in the wake of Flappy Bird's removal. At one point late last month, one-third of all new App Store games were either clones of Flappy Bird or inspired by the title. Only a small fraction of those titles seeking to ride on the popularity of Flappy Bird experienced success, but those that did saw very high numbers of downloads.
Top Rated Comments
Since when does working or interacting with other humans encompass 24 hours of a persons day? Work occupies 8 hours, leaving a person with 9 hours left in their day (assuming they sleep 7 hours a night.) So if a person spends 1 hour a night playing games, they still have lets say about 7 more hours in their day.
Give me a break. People like you act like you never have alone time to relax. Yea buddy, I bet you've got SUCH a busy life. Trolling aint easy.
And what are you doing right now that is so awesome?
"Hey dude! Come check out this quote on MacRumors." - Pot
"Aw man, that's rich" - Kettle
They game and you post on internet forums. I don't see the difference.:confused:
We now reached a point where the amount of apps is meaningless. There are thousands and thousands of "apps" (at least on Android) that are nothing more than a single wallpaper, or theme, or something about farts, etc.
Now, the important metric should be app quality, supported APIs, design guidelines, etc. Of course the App Store is well above the others in this metric, but (as data shows) it's not enough.
Copycat apps should be fiercely hunted down, devs penalized and the "filtering" should be tougher.
Am I wrong?