Getting Featured On The iTunes App Store (TWICE)

Last week Apple Inc announced (along with new hardware) a new version of iTunes, complete with a re-enginered and improved App Store. For independent developers there are important changes and with the associated keynote Apple sent a clear message that gaming on the various iTouch devices is now big business, and that the iPod Touch is clearly targeting the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS handhelds.

This is all great news for independent game developers like us, but imagine our surprise when the new re-styled games homepage in iTunes was released and Uggles was a featured game!

Yes, for the second time our first iTouch game Uggles – Collect Them All has been featured in the “What we’re playing” section in iTunes. With all eyes focussed on the new style store I am sure Apple would have considered carefully the games and applications being featured, so to say we are “rather pleased” would probably be the understatement of the year so far. Clearly the spike in revenue we will see in the coming weeks is very welcome, but the kudos of our little indie game being featured twice is just astounding. Did I mention we’ve been featured TWICE!

How did we do it? Not sure really, we are true to our indie development status and don’t have huge marketing budgets (at least not for Uggles). I guess the only advice is to develop a game you love and anything else is a bonus. We’ve had hit and miss successes with the big review sites, although, one stand out is Slide To Play, who have given Uggles a ‘Must have’ rating (their highest score) (thanks guys), and a massive thank you to Apple Inc, without your amazing SDK and hardware none of this could be possible.

Game #2 is progressing well and expect an announcement soon. If it sees a fraction of the success of Uggles we’ll be very happy indeed!

If you haven’t already played Uggles you can download directly from iTunes here.