Not to be outdone by our friends at HDDenver.com we’ve just put the finishing touches on our own Gravity Sling v1.1 Gameplay Trailer. This trailer shows off several moving planets levels and should give you an idea of what’s in store with the first update. Check it out!
Gravity Sling v1.1 Trailer
HD Gravity Sling Gameplay video
Our friends at HDDenver.com shot some HD gameplay video of Gravity Sling recently, and we’ve just gotten it posted on YouTube. The footage shows one of the original levels in Gravity Sling, “Go for the Gusto” though you can see from the stars in it, that it’s actually the updated version from v1.1. Those of you who are really paying attention will also see that this is level 15 of the 109 levels available in the new version!
(Press the Full screen button or view it directly on YouTube to see this in it’s full HD glory).
Many thanks to the guys over at HDDenver.com for putting this together for us. Keep checking back here or follow @RiptideGames on Twitter to be one of the first to know when v1.1 of Gravity Sling is approved.
Gravity Sling 1.1 submitted to Apple
After a few late nights, and some last minute bug fixing, we’re very happy to announce that Gravity Sling v1.1 has been submitted to Apple. We’re expecting this review process to take a while, but hoping it will be approved before Christmas so you can get your holiday swing on!
A lot has changed with this version:
Moving Planets
By far the biggest update is that we now have added in support for moving planets. While we like the static puzzle nature of some of our current levels, we love the effect that moving planets has on the game. It can make things a lot more challenging in some places, and a bit easier in others. Ultimately it definitely makes the game a lot more fun. Can you imagine trying to create a path like this in the current version?
Screenshot from the "Quadruple Box" level in Gravity Sling v1.1
Star Pickups
While most people seem to love creating long paths and seeing them play out, we always felt like Gravity Sling needed just a little bit more. With v1.1 we’ve added star pickups to most levels. Sometimes the stars will help you see the way to get a big score, and other times they may be a bonus to encourage you to try to get somewhere difficult.
"Oklahoma" level from Gravity Sling v1.1
Over 60+ new levels
We’ve more than doubled the number of levels in Gravity Sling increasing the total from 45 in the initial release up to 109 in this release. 4 of those levels are free to introduce you to moving planets, and the other 60 come in the way of 2 new level packs. We also updated almost every original level to add star pickups for an added challenge.
Deluxe Version
While we still believe that Free + In App Purchase is the best way to go for apps like Gravity Sling, we have decided to introduce a deluxe version. We’ve heard from several people that they can’t or are unwilling to purchase levels from within the app, and we also didn’t like that the initial release kept many iPod Touch users who haven’t upgraded to iPhone OS 3.0 from being able to enjoy the game. The deluxe version will sell for $2.99 (or your equivalent local currency) and comes with every single level pack unlocked from the start. Further any future updates we do will also be released with the deluxe version.
Numerous Bug Fixes and Improvements
We also spent some time improving the overall user experience. A few people had found some issues with menu performance, and some general bugginess in the UI. We think we’ve fixed all of those issues, so the overall experience should be much better.
Follow @RiptideGames on Twitter to keep up to date on the latest releases and be among the first to know when v1.1 is approved.
In-App Purchase results 2 weeks in
Our game Gravity Sling is a free app with 15 levels included and another 30 levels available via In App Purchase (IAP). It was one of the first titles to take advantage of Apple’s new policy of allowing IAP from within free apps. Apple announced this policy change on Thursday October 15th, and we submitted in the wee hours of the morning on Monday October 19th. It was approved by Apple on Thursday November 5th.
We’ve always thought that free+IAP was a better way to go for most small-form and simple titles that typically sell for $1.99-$.99 on the app store. Ultimately it provides a better experience for the end user while allowing developers to provide an easier upgrade path for “Lite” users who want to go full. However the issue is not whether or not we think it’s a better way to do things, but if end-users agree and that this type of model can result in a sustainable business.
With that in mind, we have been tracking our sales and a few other metrics fairly closely since launch, and this post is the first of what will likely be several posts in the coming weeks and months sharing our results thus far.
Results so Far
Gravity Sling has found some limited success already. It has not (yet) been featured by Apple, but we did get a few decent reviews on iPhone game sites, and several blogs picked it up. In the US, it has been ranked between 25 and 50 in free Puzzle and free Strategy consistently since launch. The most success however has come in Italy and Japan, where Gravity Sling climbed up the Free app charts peaking at #10 of all free apps (#3 of all free games) in each country.
Gravity Sling ranking graph as pulled from MajicRank (highly recommended utility!)
Conversion Rate
The most important data point we want to know is the overall conversion rate. That is, what % of users who download the game decide to purchase a Level pack via IAP. Right now our overall conversion rate is 1.91% so approximately 1 out of every 50 people who download Gravity Sling purchase our level pack for $.99. This compares favorably with the typical conversion rate of .7-1% seen in many PC downloadable casual games.
In actual #’s we have had 66,346 downloads of the app from Nov 5-Nov 22nd and 1,267 sales of the first (and currently only) level pack.
Purchase Timing / Delay
We expected there to be something of a delay between a user downloading Gravity Sling for the first time, and when they decided to purchase the Level Pack. What we found is that this is somewhat true, and the delay seems to be about a day, however the delay also appears to increase over time. That is, for the first few days Gravity Sling was available, there was little to no visible delay between downloads per day and purchases per day. 2 weeks later, we’re seeing that purchases seem to happen 1-2 days after download.
Gravity Sling's global download totals and Level pack purchases per day
Regional Variation
We have found significant regional variation to our conversion rate. To date almost 85% of our downloads have come from Japan (25,705), Italy (18,434) and the US (13,709). 80% of our purchases have come from the same three countries with the Japan leading (486), followed by the US (406) and then Italy (143). This results in a conversion rate for the US of 2.96%, Japan is at 1.89% and Italy is all the way down at .78%. Or to put this another way, US users are 3.8 times more likely to purchase a level pack than users in Italy. The difference between the US and Japan is much less pronounced with the US having a conversion rate 1.5 times higher than Japan.
Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day for the US
Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day for Japan
Gravity Sling downloads and purchases by day in Italy
The OpenFeint effect
Perhaps the most interesting and somewhat unexpected result we’ve found is the correlation of OpenFeint usage on purchases. As of last night 55% (36,980) of all Gravity Sling players had submitted a score to one of the leaderboards (which happens automatically for anyone signed into OpenFeint). However 73% (925) of all users who had purchased a level pack were OpenFeint users and had submitted a score to one of the leaderboards. Digging into this further, what we found is that OpenFeint users are almost 3 times more likely to purchase a level pack than non-OpenFeint users. Our conversion rate is 3.4% among OpenFeint users and drops to 1.2% for non-OpenFeint users.
Conversion rate % for OpenFeint and non-OpenFeint users
Also interesting here is that it appears OpenFeint users are more likely to purchase early. In the first few days of app availability over 5% of OpenFeint players bought a level pack, and that has since dropped to our current 3% level.
Non Monetary Discoveries
While we still believe that Free + IAP makes the most sense for games like Gravity Sling, there are some tradeoffs aside from the pure technical implementation. Most notably was with regards to reviews and trying to generate media attention at the launch of Gravity Sling. While many sites did cover the game, there were several which would not stating that as a matter of policy, they did not review free applications.
We also were forced to limit Gravity Sling to iPhone OS 3.0 so any users (primarily iPod Touch users) who had not paid to upgrade to the latest OS were unable to play Gravity Sling.
Anecdotally we’ve also heard that some users were confused by the In App Purchase, and would have liked to have bought the game if they knew how.
The surprising thing here is that there was very little to no user backlash at having paid content in a “free” app. We expected this to be a huge concern since this was one of the first free apps with IAP content, but we have not seen any complaints about this yet.
Conclusions (for now)
Based on our sales data to date, we can make several conclusions:
- General conversion rate for IAP is around 2%
- Region matters as US conversion is 2.96% while Italy was just .78%
- OpenFeint usage is corollary to purchase as OpenFeint users convert 3 times higher than non-OpenFeint users.
Next Steps
We’re submitting v1.1 of Gravity Sling to the app store very shortly, and are hoping to learn a lot more once that is released. With v1.0 we did not do a good job of letting the user know that a Level pack was available to purchase. With v1.1 we’ve added a couple upsell screens to make this more obvious (though hopefully not super annoying!). We’ve also created 2 new level packs so we can start to learn how many people will purchase multiple level packs.
To address the issues of getting reviews, and allowing OS 2.2.1 we will also be releasing a “Premium” version of Gravity Sling for sale. This version will not have any In App Purchase, but will come with everything in the game already unlocked. While our focus will still be on pushing the free+IAP version of Gravity Sling we’re hoping that the premium version will pick up sales from OS 2.2.1 devices, and other users who aren’t able or willing to do IAP.
Gravity Sling v1.1 is coming
We’ve known since before we even submitted the initial release of Gravity Sling that we wanted to do more. We’ve been slowly working on many of these new features, and then yesterday we all got together and pretty much wrapped up development on Gravity Sling 1.1. So what’s new?
- Movable Planets! We wanted to do these from the start, but didn’t have time to get them in. We assumed they would be fun, but already we’ve seen what a huge impact it has on gameplay. Levels become much more interesting and challenging, as this adds a totally new dynamic to it.
- Pickups One challenge that we had was trying to make levels with an easy solution but that also allowed for much more complicated and longer “good” solutions. The problem was that a lot of users didn’t realize how to overachieve like this and ended up beating many of the levels very quickly and easily. With v1.1 we’ve added in pickups that help direct you on places to try to get the astronaut to go.
- More Levels We’re hoping to be able to add 65 more levels to this update. While we’re not quite there yet, there will definitely be another 30, and hopefully a lot more. Or to put this another way, v1.1 will more than double the amount of gameplay available.
- UI Improvements The #1 issue that people have had with Gravity Sling is an unresponsive and occasionally buggy UI. We think we’ve fixed up nearly all of these problems, so it should be much less frustrating to use.
We still have to finish up a few more things, but are planning to submit this over the weekend or early next week.
Gravity Sling is big in Japan and Italy!
One of the things that we love about the App Store is how it gives us easy access to a global marketplace. Nowhere is this more readily apparent than when we see how different countries are responding to our games. Case in point, Gravity Sling is currently doing extremely well in both Italy and Japan. Since last Friday it has been steadily rising in the app store rankings and currently sits at #11 of all free apps in Italy and #14 of all free apps in Japan. Since launch Italy and Japan now combine for nearly 1/2 of total Gravity Sling downloads!
For US developers that have never even been to either country this is incredibly awesome, and we’re absolutely thrilled to see it. We only wish we had any idea why players in those countries have taken to Gravity Sling so much. If you have any ideas please let us know!
On a related note, we’re all getting together later this week to try to pound out the last tweaks on the first update to Gravity Sling. Our target is to get everything finished up by Friday, leaving the weekend to test and then submit the update next Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully that will mean that it will be released in early-mid December!
