The Big Win Grand Slam
The Big Win apps or Grand Slams are generally characterized by explosive sales from their launch. Games, by far, make up the majority of the Big Win apps. Why? Because games take advantage of the impulse buy which occurs directly from an iPhone. Games are the most likely app to be bought on impulse. The impulse buyer doesn’t care about reviews. Sometimes, a community of people is familiar with a particular development company and is hungry to purchase its new app. Some companies have made their app successful by porting an already successful PC or Mac game over to the iPhone platform.
Big Win apps have been positioned by large development companies with huge followings. Their aim is to achieve quick sales on apps that are priced in the games sweet spot from $0.99 to $1.99. At this price point, the impulse buyer is looking for something to occupy his time. The longevity of this type of app may be short, lasting only months. Then the same company releases another app and focuses its attention on that. Some winning apps are designed in such a way to bring the customer back over and over again with paid add-ons or frequent updates.
One of the most popular game apps to provide frequent releases is Pocket God. Pocket God refers to its updates as “Episodes” and has built a very strong community of users that keep the game in the spotlight. User suggestions for new features keep the game fresh and exciting.
Another common element for Big Win games is that they are usually simplistic in their premise. The masses of iPhone users purchase games that are easy to learn. Low on learning, high on enjoyment is the rule of thumb for the quick win Big Win games. The typical game buyer doesn’t want to learn tons of rules to a new game. They want to understand the point of the app immediately.
The Big Win apps can also come from independent developers (Ethan Nicholas of iShoot Fame) whose military tank battle game is a classic example of independent developer success. However, the big wins for independent developers are happening less and less due to the number of games on the App Store and because game quality is going up while the time to market is going down.
Larger companies have the development staff that can bring apps to market more quickly without sacrificing quality. It simply takes an independent developer longer to create a high powered, high quality game app. iShoot continues to do well, although its sales are not as strong as they used to be. However, once a following is created and the app is updated frequently, you will continue to attract customers and positive reviews as shown in the next image:
The last characteristic of these apps is that they often get a big break from the press as being an app to look at. Tom Clancy achieved remarkable success with his book Hunt for Red October when Ronald Reagan praised the book after he read it while on vacation. After Reagan’s comments, sales of that book skyrocketed. If an iPhone/iPad app gets a lucky break from a major news agency, it can serve as the catalyst to get sales moving in a big way. Word of mouth takes it from there.