Improving Your App: Today’s Top-Earning App Characteristics
Apple App Store
NOTE Italicization signifies an app that shares a top spot across both of major app stores
Gaming:
Mobile Strike
Clash of Clans
Game of War — Fire Age
Candy Crush Saga
Clash Royale
Entertainment:
HBO NOW
Netflix
Music:
Spotify Music
Tidal
Pandora — Free Music & Radio
Google Play Store
Gaming:
Game of War — Fire Age
Mobile Strike
Clash of Clans
Candy Crush Saga
Candy Crush Soda Saga
Clash Royale
Clash of Kings
Slotomania — Free Casino Slots
MARVEL Contest of Champions
Entertainment:
HBO NOW — Entertainment
Landing Pages/Websites
13 out of the top 14 top apps between the Android and iOS markets have a website that’s either designed for the sole purpose of advertising the app through App Indexing or are included in the main website with a Deep Link to the app’s page on the app store:
Gaming:
Mobile Strike — http://www.mobilestrikeapp.com/
Game of War — http://www.gameofwarapp.com/
Clash Royale — https://clashroyale.com/
Candy Crush Saga/Soda Saga — http://candycrushsaga.com/
MARVEL Contest of Champions — http://playcontestofchampions.com/
Clash of Clans — https://clashofclans.com/ | http://supercell.com/en/games/clashofclans/
Slotomania — https://www.slotomania.com/
Clash of Kings
Music:
Spotify — https://www.spotify.com/us/
Tidal — http://tidal.com/us
Pandora — http://www.pandora.com/
Entertainment:
Netflix — https://www.netflix.com/
HBO NOW — http://play.hbogo.com/
Design
Progression systems
Each gaming app is designed around a progression-based system. Similar systems are common in all areas of game development and many app developers are finding the approach exceptional for combating declining user retainment rates. Unlockable content is derived from the concept of progression-based gaming, and it’s what each and every top gaming app has implemented. By making additional content something users must achieve, users are given a natural and rewarding incentive to continue playing each game.
Push Notifications
Social implementations
Whether it’s to indirectly advertise their app by means of helping users share their progress with others or to help them invite their Facebook friends to play directly with or against, social implementations have given every top gaming app a clear-cut marketing advantage above the the rest of the competition. Creating an app that allows users to post their progress or to invite their friends on social media is essentially like creating an app that can market itself. The top gaming apps prove that, if you have a great app, then compelling users to share it with their friends will be an easy feat; all that’s required is that you provide the tools for them to do so:
Most of the developers behind these top gaming apps are enabling communities to form around their app. Two of the major variables that each app stores’s ranking algorithm factors in is how frequently users both log in and remain active. If users are constantly engaging with the app, even if it’s just to message a friend, your ranking will increase in response to increased user activity. Providing tools for communities to grow both within and around your app gives users the chance to utilize the app itself as a central hub where they can interact and even form alliances with each other.
Even if they don’t feel an urge to just play the game itself, incentivizing user interaction within the app gives users a reason to log-in; realizing the potential for growth behind user interactions, some developers have done just that:
Game of War (Developed by Machine Zone, Inc.)
Mobile Strike (Developed by Epic War)
Marketing
Aside from our more obvious feats in intelligence and socialization, what makes humans so exceptional is our inherently curious disposition. Most people nowadays turn to social media to keep themselves in the loop, but most outlets have shifted into what seem more like a hotbed of growing discussion for the sake of awareness regarding new and interesting trends and other updates in the news. Realizing this, major app developers have been carefully weaving Facebook implementations into their apps in a non-obtrusive way to make the ease of spreading awareness about their apps as seamless as the implementations themselves.
Social Media (From Highest to Lowest Facebook Likes):
Candy Crush:
Facebook = 75,000,000+ Likes | Twitter = 154,000+ Followers
Slot mania:
14,000,000+ | 12,000+
Clash of Kings:
3,600,000+ | 160,000+
Clash Royale:
750,000+ | 219,000+
MARVEL Contest of Champions:
625,000+ | N/A
Mobile Strike:
500,000+ | 15,000+
Game of War:
160,000+ | 108,000+
Every gaming app has a Facebook page, yet some are so deeply integrated with Facebook that they’re available to play directly on user Facebook profiles from a computer or laptop device:
- Candy Crush: https://www.facebook.com/candycrushsaga/
- Clash of Kings: https://www.facebook.com/Clash.Of.Kings.Game
- Slotomania: https://www.facebook.com/slotomania/
On the other hand, some are not playable on Facebook. Instead, clicking the “Play Game” tab redirects browsing users to the app’s landing page.
- Game of War: https://www.facebook.com/GameofWar/?fref=ts
- Mobile Strike: https://www.facebook.com/MobileStrike/
- Clash Royale: https://www.facebook.com/ClashRoyale/?fref=nf
- MARVEL Contest of Champions: https://www.facebook.com/marvelcontestofchampions/?fref=ts
The outlier, however, is the method engineered by Mobile Strike’s developers: by clicking “Send to Mobile” from the app’s Facebook page, a push notification is sent to the user’s mobile device. Once opened, the notification sends users to the Mobile Strike’s app page on either the App Store or the Play Store (device depending).
Prices
Every app on the top-grossing list is free of charge. How is that possible? They’re what’s commonly referred to as “freemium apps.” Freemium refers to a model for revenue acquisition in which the most basic rendition of the service is free of charge, and additional services that improve user experience can be paid for.
In-app purchases
Gaming
Each and every top-gaming app offers a variety of purchasable in-game currency that’s designed to save investors the most invaluable resource of all; time. A small purchase or a “microtransaction” is enough to speed-up a user’s progression, thus indirectly helping them with unlocking content and earning rewards. Notice the similarities below:
Candy Crush
Clash of Clans
Clash Royale
Game of War
Mobile Strike
Entertainment & Music
Every non-gaming app is built around a media service that requires high amounts of constantly streaming data — a service that’s a better fit for a computer or a laptop. Given that services such as Spotify and HBO GO were already popular before becoming mobile apps, the conveniences offered by mobile devices makes these apps seem more like a marketing tool for the desktop-oriented services from which they are derived.
Spotify
Pandora
Tidal
The biggest takeaway is discerning just how effective the monetization strategy of freemium gaming is, and how it — coupled with social media implementations — effectively ushered the gaming category’s rise to complete app store domination.
