iOS publishers "buying their way up the charts

October 8th, 2011, 00:00 Posted By: wraggster

Independent iOS developers are being pushed out of the iPhone and iPad top ten by social games firms using marketing to "buy their way up the charts."
That's according to Hungry Shark developer Future Games of London, which claims that media companies are using Cost Per Install programs to quickly drive downloads, improve rankings and increase visibility by hitting the top of the charts.
"Any developer who hasn't already had a hit on the app store faces that challenge, 'can I get anybody to play it in the first place?'," said MD Ian Harper, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz.
"I think if you can get people to see you're in with a fighting chance, but the issue nowadays is lots of big social media games companies are coming into iPhone and buying huge numbers of CPI [cost-per-install] installs and advertising, essentially buying their way up the charts, which really kind of crowds out the space for other people quite a lot.
It's really an alternative to going cap in hand to one of the big publishers and doing some terrible deal with them where you end up with quite a restrictive contract, potentially having to give up your IP

Ian Harper, Future Games of London

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