As I said before, this isn't impossible to do but would take a well-organised team and really couldn't be done by one person. Even if it did cost $4,000 for a guaranteed top 10 chart position, that could work out cheaper than a couple of banner ads for a couple of weeks on any of the really big sites. All of the problems raised could be overcome with international teamwork but the real problem I see is that it's not enough to have several thousand downloads over a period of weeks - they have to happen over a 24 hour period really for maximum effect. And most people getting freebies tend to take their time before actually using their codes. The reason why I'm merrily hypothesising in public is that I really don't believe that anyone will be able to do this on a large enough scale, using big enough teams, different IP addresses, email accounts, iTunes user IDs etc to escape Apple's notice. I haven't seen where Apple states that this isn't allowed, but I guess it's somewhere in the small print.
Not true. I did a test and gifted my application to an e-mail address, which is not tied to any iTunes account. The gift was never claimed, yet I got charged for it, and the next day I saw the gift on my daily trend report. That being said, I trust that Apple will find a way to make sure nobody can abuse the system. For all we know, the system might already be set up to prevent any sort of manipulation. Another thing I noticed is that people started using the gifting feature. I received a few additional gift sales, which were not purchased by me. Hopefully, this will result in more sales for all of us
Wow! I knew the email didn't have to be linked to an itunes account but I thought the code would have to be actually used to count as a sale. Thanks for the info.
Wow...sounds like the deepest pockets will win if that is true. Just directly buy a few thousand sales and see what happens. A lot cheaper than a banner ad. I wonder if the email address has to also be valid. That's easy to get around though if it does have to be valid.
Only partially related - I found out from Apple today that there is a $100 per 30 days limit on iTunes gift cards purchased through your account in iTunes online. I can't figure out why. Doesn't Apple want my money? This limit does not include gifted apps/songs/movies.
One of the things that has struck me reading this thread and another similar one about paying companies to get downloads & reviews is that many indie devs are probably being a little idealistic and, dare I say it, naive. There's a childlike trust that Apple will protect us from anything 'unfair' and a belief in an unwritten pact between devs that prevents us from crapping on each other. (I'm guilty of holding that trust & belief too). I think we all have to grow up a little and understand that, sadly, although a lot of us signed up for some sort of egalitarian co-operative, we're in business and that means we have to compete with the big boys who will almost always have bigger marketing budgets, better contacts and therefore more ways to draw attention to their apps. What's an indie to do in such circumstances? I guess many must feel the need to compete by any means necessary. For those without an industry reputation to uphold (ie a CV) it must be really tempting to just try anything. Even more so when there's a family to support, which is getting harder & harder these days. And that's where companies offering 'free' promotions or 'buy-your way-into-the appstore', deals really come into their own. I'm not saying it's equitable or good or anything but if you're competing with EA, Gameloft, Ngmoco or whoever, clearly they don't limit their PR/marketing to starting threads on TA or even placing a few banner ads. (Given that TA members generally post pretty negative stuff about those companies, it's probably just as well). One thing I've learned recently is that although TA is the greatest place to be to get initial exposure, make contacts & get feedback (beta testing, game development etc) members are also amongst the most critical and demanding. While it's a great testing ground, there's a world out there that's never even heard of TA that just wants a nice, polished, distracting game for the price of a coffee & danish. There are so many people (many who really ought to know better) who suggest that if you're app fails it's because it was never good enough or if you complain about revenue, its because you're greedy or unrealistic. All sorts of BS about making a polished app and it rising to the top like cream... There have been so many games that I've looked at that I believe really ought to have done very well but have gone unnoticed. (I'm not talking about Ground Effect here, as its been featured a couple of times & got good reviews). The reality is that a lot of very talented people have put a lot of time and sweat into developing really cool stuff that the consuming public chooses to treat as disposable entertainment, not even worthy of 3 stars for effort. I'm not saying that what we're seeing with devs considering how to manipulate chart rankings by using review services, free promotions or gifting apps is right or wrong - just that the issues are not necessarily black & white. Go on! Flame me!
Overall, I think the gifting feature is good. It should end up generating more sales for everyone. I had customers ask if it was possible to gift my Graphing Calculator to someone, so I'm glad this was introduced. Right now nobody knows how gifts are calculated for the ranking algorithm, but I have some ideas. 1. Gifts don't count. This would be a problem because if the gifts end up being a significant percentage of the sales, they should be part of the ranking algorithm. 2. Gifts count like regular sales. This would also be a problem because it's too easy to abuse using the methods mentioned in this thread. Anyone could purchase their own app a 1000 times to push it up the list. 3. Maybe you are allowed to gift an app to as many people as you wish, but only the first gift purchase of any app would count toward the ranking algorithm. I'm betting Apple is smart enough to be doing something like that since option #1 and #2 are clearly not good for developers.
Looks like Imangi is doing the same thing, trying to buy their way into the rankings. http://www.imangistudios.com/contest.html
Getting more and more interesting everyday! Should it really be considered to be buying your way into the rankings store any more than paying for banner ads is? Maybe we should set up a poll, but I guess lots of people are as undecided about this as I am.
I think it's more likely that they did consider it, but didn't have a great solution. It is possible thougn that gifting doesn't count in the rankings as much as a straight purchase, we'll see.
Hmmm... I'm thinking though that if I gifted my mum her favourite tune & paid for it with my virtual cash, my purchase should register the same as the next person's. Why should this be any different with gifting apps? I agree that that Apple might consider imposing some sort of gift limit but why? I'm turning these things over in my mind... If you were getting married or something and you wanted your 500 family members & close friends to receive a gift of your special tune, would there be anything wrong with that? I can't imagine that Apple wouldn't accept that sort of mass gifting without explanation. I wish someone from Appe would let us know. I think I may be suffering from App Store psychosis - can't seem to focus on anything else but App Store stuff right now. You may laugh but where there's blame, there's a claim
I think it is unreasonable for us to think that Apple cares. Day in and day out, they make a metric assload of cash through the App Store. They don't care who is in the Top 100, they make huge amounts of money regardless who is there. The only time Apple cares is when the issue becomes a potential liability.
Imangi may not necessarily be doing it to take advantage of the rankings, and it could just be an innocent promotion of Harbor Master on the iPad. Either way, maybe Natalia and Keith would be kind enough to report back after their contest, and if gifting affected their ranking.
