App Developer’s Corner: Matt Martel of Mundue
Today’s App Developer’s Corner features Matt Martel of Mundue, makers of one of the most successful games on the app store, reMovem. The following is Matt had to share with us about his experience as an independent developer.
Give us a quick overview about yourself and company.
I’m a long-time Mac developer, relatively new to Cocoa. I started doing iPhone development in early 2008 when the SDK was announced. I founded Mundue LLC in July 2008 in order to publish my own apps. It was originally a part-time effort for both myself and my wife Trish. Today we have 9 casual games on the App Store. Our latest reMovem Halloween Edition was released in early September to coincide with the current holiday season.
Why did you move into the mobile space and what was your incentive to use the iPhone platform?
I wrote a Mac version of the reMovem game several years ago, but never released it. Then I rewrote it in Qt to be cross-platform (Mac OS and Windows) but still didn’t release it. Then I rewrote it when I started doing Cocoa, and when the iPhone SDK came out it occurred to me that this would be a good fit for the iPhone. After finishing an iPhone app for my day job, I spent a couple of weekends developing the free version of reMovem. I thought there was a great opportunity to publish to the App Store with its existing large customer base and worldwide presence.
How did you turn your concept into an actual business?
It debuted two weeks after the launch of the App Store, and became an overnight hit. I spent a couple of weeks developing more modes and released them as the paid version of reMovem. Because the free version was so popular I was expecting the paid version to be at least a modest success. However, we knew we needed to develop more apps and I immediately started working on the next one, which turned out to be iKeno. We released two additional games by the end of the year.
What would you say has been the most successful strategy/avenue for promoting and increasing visibility for your apps and your company?
We promote our apps in many ways: press releases, in-app ads, print ads, web site ads, cross-promotion within our own apps, Facebook fan pages, and twitter accounts. We promote our company in person at conferences and user group meetings, and I run a local iPhone developer meetup in the Boston area. We believe our most successful strategy has been the hybrid free/paid model for reMovem. The free version is used to upsell to the paid version with additional game modes. We also translated reMovem into 13 languages in order to increase its appeal throughout the world. I think in the early days of the App Store we were able to maintain the momentum of reMovem by having frequent updates. Fortunately it made Apple’s 2008 top ten free games list. Any mention by Apple is golden, and this helped keep reMovem free in the top 100 for several months. In January, one of our other games, inFact World, was featured as a “Staff Favorite.” This led to a 20x spike in downloads briefly, followed by a slow decline as it was rotated to the second, then third, page on the iTunes App Store main screen.
How has Pinch Analytics helped with app development, promotion, and marketing?
By adding analytics to some of our games we have a deeper knowledge of how users interact with them. For example, we know that a significant percentage of iPod touch owners are still on iPhone OS 2.2.x, and we will continue to support them as long as it is practical. Pinch Media’s analytics enabled us to recognize a recent milestone when the one billionth game of reMovem free was played. That represents something just north of 2,700 years of cumulative game play. This is just since we began counting in January. Wow!
Do you have any piece of advice that you would like to share?
For the indie developer it’s not enough to be a good programmer. You may need to wear many hats: testing, marketing, graphics, PR, etc. Don’t short-change any of these roles. All contribute to the quality of your product and ultimately to your success.
Take a look at our web site http://www.mundue.net and http://www.removem.net for more information on our games. My development blog is at http://blog.mundue.net. And if you would like to track how your marketing strategies translate into resulting user behavior, register for an account at Pinch Media and let us know if you have any questions getting started.
-Adit Shukla
