How CandyCane gave away Fling! to get it into the paid top 50

Getting your game noticed on the App is becoming an increasingly difficult accomplishment.

That’s why developers are trying all sort of methods such as launching with a free version or a price cut or perhaps even more black arts in terms of manipulating user reviews or cheating the download charts.

Estonian studio Candy Cane played out a more simple strategy with its puzzle game Fling! which launched in August but gained initial little traction.

“We decided to make Fling! free for a short time in order to get it more noticed,” explains Candy Cane’s Antonio Varanda.

“While we lost some dollars giving it away, because we strongly believe it’s a game the people who try it will really appreciate and enjoy, we hoped the attention it got because it was free, and the word-of-mouth from the people who got addicted to it, would help the sales in the long run after we switch the price back.”

And it seems to be be working.

After being the #1 free app in the US, Spain and Italy, and top 10 in France and Canada, the price switched back to 99c, and Fling! has since hit the #36 spot on the US App Store.

“It’s a strategy we tried previously with our original puzzle game Fuzzle, which is still selling pretty well - 200-300 sales per day - almost one year later,” Varanda says.

As for the future plans for Fling!, there will be a free trial version released too.

“Actually the plan was to have that released at the same time as the paid one, as we originally submitted both on the same date, but delays in the approval process killed that plan,” Varanda reveals.

“You could say our making the paid one free for a short period was a kind of a plan b in response to these delays for our free trial version.”