A few days ago we received an email from our friends at N3V Games regarding a post on their blog about how changing their icon for their Trainz simulation series of games had substantially increased their sales across all platforms. We have talked about icons briefly in the past and how a good icon helps and N3V Games has provided a real world example of how it does help to have a good icon.
The best way to think about an icon is that this little square graphic is the front box art to your game. If you were releasing your game through brick and mortar store for, as an example, the PC, you want your cover to be eye catching in order to grab the attention of potential customers who may buy your game. An icon that doesn’t catch the eye of people browsing games on Google Play and doesn’t iterate what your game is about visually won’t draw people to check out your game at all.
When you’re in a physical store checking out games for your PC, the cover is what catches your eye and then you take a close look by opening up the cover to read about the game, see the pictures and all that good stuff. The same is true for your Android game. We see the icon, name of the game and the developer along with maybe a sentence or two about the game (if looking at the web version of Google Play). Then, if it catches our interest, we open up your game’s virtual cover (that being the icon) to read the inside cover (that being your Google Play game’s full description) to learn more about your game.
Amazon sales chart with icon change
N3V Games were wondering on how they could improve sales for their Trainz series of games on iTune, Google Play and Amazon. Once they settled on a new design for their game’s icon, and made the changes on the game’s listing on all app stores, N3V Games saw a big increase in sales. The example they used is their Trainz Driver simulation game which saw a 10-fold increase in sales on Amazon’s AppStore while the Google Play and iTune copies saw a 3-fold increase in sales once the new icon went live.
Google Play sales chart with icon change
These increases happened without a change in pricing or any advertising at all, just simply changing the icon had this much of a positive affect on Trainz Driver sales. Of course these numbers will be different for everyone but it brings up a good point. The description of your game and screenshots are not the only important aspects to take into consideration when you’re about to release your new game. Your game’s icon is just as important, especially since people are going to be seeing it every day whether it’s on Amazon’s AppStore, Google Play or iTunes. If they do buy your game, they will also be seeing it on their phone or tablet every day as well.
Just something to think about before you release that new game you’ve worked hard on. We will continue to post more tips and trick on how to help get your game out there to more people and create more sales as we dig them up. You can read N3V Games’ full experience with their icon change over on their blog.
Website Referenced: N3V Games Blog
