One of the big success stories of OpenFeint's Free Game of the Day promotion has been New Zealand developer PikPok's Flick Kick Field Goal.

Not surprising perhaps, as it went free on Super Bowl Sunday, the game stormed into the free charts.

What's also been impressive is how this visibility has transferred to other games in the Flick Kick series.

We caught up with portfolio manager Jos Ruffell to get the details.

Pocket Gamer: While free downloads are good, what was the impact on paid sales the day after?

Jos Ruffell: We ran Flick Kick Field Goal as the OpenFeint Free Game of the Day title to coincide with the Super Bowl, but PikPok has additional titles in the series - Flick Kick Rugby and Flick Kick Aussie Rules.

From the hugely increased visibility of the series, we saw immediate movement on the App Store charts, with Rugby especially moving into the UK top 20 paid apps, and as a result enjoyed over a 100 percent increase in sales after the free Field Goal promotion ended.
Field Goal had to start from scratch again, but quickly moved into the top 100 games on the US store and gave us our best day on the store for that particular title to date.

As a side note, Flick Kick Field Goal has accumulated 20 years 63 days 19 hours 15 minutes 47 seconds of play time in the last five days.

Do you have any figures in terms of the impact on sales?

We have had two days of full sales data since the free promotion ended. Flick Kick Rugby has enjoyed a 402 percent increase in sales over those two days compared to a week ago, and Field Goal is up a stunning 2,409 percent.

As we are come into the weekend, and our chart positions continue to rise, we expect these figures to continue improving. Flick Kick Rugby has moved into the #4 paid app position on the UK store, and Field Goal is also within the UK top 100, sitting at 84.
Flick Kick Field Goal has just entered the US top 100, sitting at 94 paid apps, and 49 in games.

Do promotions like this change the way you view promotion and pricing of your games?

At PikPok we will certainly be more receptive to running free promotions given the success we've enjoyed with Flick Kick Field Goal, however it's not just a simple case of going free for a weekend.

Like any App Store strategy, you need to build out additional hooks and promotional methods to ensure that even the free version of your game rockets into the charts as quickly as possible. The freemium model is great at raising awareness of your title and brand, but you need to have built enough momentum and word of mouth, that it will drive people to find your game once it reverts back to paid.

By launching a football field goal kicking game on Super Bowl Sunday, with a $100 prize and partnered with OpenFeint, we ensured that we quickly gained the velocity necessary to quickly race up the charts, and hit top 5 positions on all major stores.

Do you still have faith in the App Store as a discovery mechanism?

The App Store is an extremely competitive environment, and it's a struggle to have your title found amongst the hundreds of thousands of apps. It is not viable to solely rely on a Build It and They Will Come mantra.

Instead, you must use all available tools to ensure that your app is discovered and connecting with emerging communities within the store like OpenFeint is a great place to start.

Thanks to Jos for his time.

You can keep up-to-date with PikPok via web, Facebook and Twitter.