Increasing downloads and user game-play duration for Mobile Games is always a nice challenge! Knowing what works, what people like to see and what will lead to more game downloads and game-plays is the result of some good content building, timely game updates, experimentation with graphics, etc.
App Store Optimization (ASO) refers to tweaking aspects of a game to improve its visibility in stores when users search and explore, increase traffic to listing and improve conversion rate to generate the maximum volume of organic downloads. It brings free high-quality users for Android and iOS app, helps reducing User Acquisition costs, and is the base of any Mobile Growth strategy.
We perform many ASO experiments to improve the games footfall. Here’s an interesting take on what we learned about ASO.
In May 2017, we added a new driving Mode feature in one of our top games – Driving Academy called ‘Night mode’ which allowed the user to drive free and clear on the roads without any restrictions or timers. Before we introduced these features, the game play started with this screen – The visual showed the user’s selected car on the road.
Screenshot 1: First App Store Screenshot (Before):
With an intention to improve game-play numbers, we conducted an experiment and changed the App-store starting screen to a screen with a collage of three cars, as shown in the screenshot, below.
Screenshot 2: First App Store Screenshot (After)
The Result:
The collage screenshot was live on the store for six days. During those six days, we saw a drop of 25% in Product Page Views and a 32% drop in installs.
Aside from that, the game also fell in ranks in the U.S. Racing category. To remediate the situation, we did a quick binary update and reverted the changes to the earlier screen (shown in screenshot 1).
Screenshot 3: First App Store Screenshot (Reverted to the Original Screen):
This led to gradual increase in ranking on the charts! The current rank in the U.S. Racing category is #12.
Learning:Do a thorough “A/B Usability test” for game asset changes internally within the team or with certain gamer focus groups, or even on one platform first, and then apply the changes to other platforms.
What do you think? What changes do you think will improve the ASO of the game? Write your thoughts in the comment section!
