ANALYZING UNSUCCESSFUL APPS

You've now seen how to analyze and find successful apps, but what are the benefits of looking at the unsuccessful ones, and how do you go about finding them?

Let's begin by agreeing on a common definition of “unsuccessful” by examining what unsuccessful isn't. Just as a “successful” app does not mean it is a good app, an unsuccessful app does not mean it is a bad app. If you do a little digging, you can find many great apps with stellar reviews that, for one reason or another (related to promotion and marketing), didn't sell. On the flip side, you can find many successful apps and games with merely mediocre reviews.

In the game industry, a famous example of this was the PC-licensed title “Enter the Matrix” in 2003, which capitalized on the incredibly well-known movie, The Matrix (Figure 3-11). Many millions were spent on its marketing, and it did remarkably well in retail its first month, despite harsh critical and player reviews. Though it was solid in the short term and made the developers a lot of money before word of mouth could spread, times are different now.

FIGURE 3-11: “Enter the Matrix,” a mediocre game at best by many measures, sold well largely because of initial marketing hype

A highly marketed retail game, even if it turns out mediocre or worse, may still be able to get away with the hype-to-sell approach simply because of the cost of entry. Look at the PC massively multiplayer online (MMO) “Star Wars: The Old Republic” and how much money has been spent promoting it over the past few years. Its 2010 and 2011 several-minute-long, purely cinematic trailers burned at least a few million to show it off, and, perhaps, by the time you read this, you'll know whether that tactic paid off.

On the other hand, apps have a more difficult time getting away with the hype-to-sell approach, though hype and promotion are still very important. A retail MMO in this sense has a lot in common with an app. Retention (that is, being able to lure users to stick around) still largely depends on either how good it is, or how much competition it has for its niche, just as MMOs do. One-off games without a subscription and new content might be able to recoup their initial expenses, but an MMO and iPhone apps need continued sales to flourish.

The App Store has a further risk factor as well. It not only has more competition because of the lower cost of entry and general ease of development, but also a far and away lower price point than any retail game. In the end, apps rely heavily on continued sales.

An unsuccessful app is, therefore, defined for purposes of this discussion as an app that didn't sell well (but not necessarily a bad app), or, even more importantly, an app that is no longer popular. Because it is much more difficult to find apps worth looking at but didn't sell well at all (since that includes most of them), you can learn much more from apps that are simply no longer as popular, but still on the radar. With this in mind, the benefit of analyzing these types of apps is twofold:

• You want to learn from their mistakes, be it in marketing (a best guess is okay) or implementation.
• And/or you want to learn why they are no longer popular (if they once were) — that is, how the market shifted.

To make the most efficient use of your time, there's an art to finding the unsuccessful apps you'd want to glean information from. The secret is in the user reviews, and using them as “links” for finding apps the users like better, hence guiding you from the “unsuccessful” category up to the “successful” app category.

If any such review seems suspicious or worth investigating, simply click their name link and you'll be taken to a list of their other reviews. This is a great way to weed out legitimate concerns.

Following is a definitive search technique to maximize info-gathering potential from unsuccessful apps as defined here:

1. Search by keyword to find a list of possible matches. (iTunes is your best bet here.)
2. Have a separate window open with a ranking website or two ready. Appannie.com or Mobclix.com (then under App Ranking) are a couple of good choices. These two sites allow you to see current rank, and, more importantly, Mobclix even allows you to search by keywords and rank, as well as showing a listing of reviews. (However, as of this writing, some of this info appears to be a couple of months out of date.) This can be useful to simultaneously search a site like Mobclix with the same keywords you use in iTunes, to see what comes up, and, more importantly, see a list of ranks for each search found. Try picking the ones anywhere from rank 100 through 1,000.
3. In iTunes, go into a few of the first pages of search results, because these are not necessarily those that are the top of the category — as you'll see when typing their names into your ranking search tool.
4. In the user reviews within iTunes (or your mobile App Store browser), take a look at these four things: number of ratings, whether or not it has at least a few reviews (skip it now if it doesn't), last date updated, and its current rating.
5. Simply check that the number or rating is fairly low (less than 1,000 should be good), and that it has at least a few reviews. Then quickly scan them, especially jotting down or copying names of other apps they like better, or concise features that are missing. If it does have just a few reviews, click the reviewer names for additional information on whether they may or may not be legitimate concerns.
6. If you are interested in going into further depth with the app (for example, its ranking history), type the app's name into a site like Appannie.com to get as much info as you can about it. Figure 3-12 shows Appannie's excellent rank history tool at work with “The Moron Test.”

Learning from Other People's Mistakes

You can learn just as much from an app that's almost at the top as you can from a Number 1 app, if not more. The core idea (or process) in this area is to start from one or more fairly lower ranking apps in your niche, then work your way up the ladder via reviews (user and journalist), as well as play-testing until you have a history of what makes apps in your niche relevant. This process will, therefore, make you an expert in your niche, and better prepared for guiding development when it begins.

FIGURE 3-12: According to Appannie, “The Moron Test” holds steady over time, and it is interesting to note that it once was in the Puzzle and Games category

The real benefit to competitive app research is in figuring out what competing apps (both successful and unsuccessful) are missing or haven't done right, thus giving you a chance to provide it. As you come across new apps, play-test for faults or functionality, and always check user reviews for key missing features.

Journalist's reviews become more relevant for slightly more popular apps, because it's usually only the ones that are actively promoted that get reviewed in the first place. In general, journalist reviews are a good place to get the opinion of someone who looks at these for a living. After all, you will hopefully be getting positive marks by these same reviewers on your own app when it's released.

Learning from Other People's Complaints

To learn from the mistakes of other apps, it is helpful to look at the complaints. As mentioned previously, some complaints are invalid, or just not constructive, and you should avoid these. Complaints can be found mostly in user reviews within iTunes, but also look at the developer website forums (if they exist), in addition to doing a Google search for the name of the app, followed by “review.” You'll likely bring up a large reading list for any marginally successful app.

Following is a short list of useful critical elements to look for in reviews:

• Wish list phrases such as “I wish it had <insert feature(s)>…” or “it would be better if…” or “it needs…”
• A list of cons, sometimes in the sidebar, at the end, or following a list of pros
• Summary sections of journalist reviews that usually get right to the point

As you start to see enough complaints or wish-list features, you'll get sort of a “cloud” effect, in that some will be seen more often. Take special note of these, and add to your list to possibly make a feature or to come back to during development, because maybe this particular feature is a particularly difficult/costly one to implement.