It's been a week since Blacksmith Games launched its Appvent Calendar.
A neat marketing idea, it enables 24 developers to each give away a game for free on a daily basis.
So far, Craneball Studios has given away its line drawing game 33rd Division, Kalio its tower defense game Tridefense, Alfonso Bozzelli his casual Snorkeling, Hexage its puzzler Totemo, MadFingerGames its actioner Samurai: Way of the Warrior, and today LeftRight Studios its smackBOTS.
A good section of genres then, although few of the games are high profile or have previously been best sellers; presumably that's one of the reasons they're being featured in the Appvent Calendar.
It certainly seems to be working as a marketing idea though.
33rd Division entered the US Free Top 100, while Hexage tweeted that Totemo has done 65,000 downloads worldwide, hitting #29 spot.
And at time of writing, smackBOTS is at #56.
It's less clear however whether this free popularity has transfered into significant paid sales after the event.
Still, as Appy Entertainment's Paul O'Connor pointed out in his recent column entitled The reason iPhone game developers are becoming digital retailers, the trend of offering different discovery options for the sale of iPhone games is only going to increase as the App Store gets more jammed up with apps.
News
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
Top Stories
News
Jun 2nd, 2024
PocketGamer.biz Podcast Week in Mobile Games E14 -Supercell's Squad Busters goes global and why Steam does discoverability better than mobile
News
May 31st, 2024
Week in Views - Squad Busters goes global, broken app stores, and Hill Climb Racing gets the LEGO treatment
News
May 31st, 2024
Mobile Movers: All the latest appointments and job moves from around the industry
Events
Dev Play Conference 2024 | Europe | Jun 3rd |
Games Mental Health Summit 2024 | Europe | Jun 3rd |
Gotland Game Conference 2024 | Nordic | Jun 3rd |
Tribeca Games Festival 2024 | North America | Jun 5th |
Guerrilla Collective 2024 | North America | Jun 6th |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
Angles 24 Freeplay Conference | Australasia | Jun 6th |
PitchYaGame Live 2024 | Jun 7th |