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This is a follow-up article for Game Screenshots that sell on the Apple App Store with data on the assets used by the first 150 top grossing and top paid games in the US App Store
Last week we talked about game screenshots that help sell your game on the App Store. There were various talks as to what would work better to convince someone to download.
I thought it would be useful if we had some data on the assets that the top 100 grossing and top 100 paid games were using. So I took roughly 300 screenshots of the screenshots from 150 games (about half from top grossing, half from top paid in the US App Store) and then analyzed them all.
I looked at the cover image or first image they used and the “first” of the remaining 4 images. Here’s what I found out:
The First Screenshot:
57.3% have a custom image. 20% have that new “fun coming towards you” type of photo while the rest have side views, background views, collages or variations with in game and non in game assets.
The other 42.7% show only an in-game screenshot or with a small character or ribbon with text overlaid.
50.7% also had the name of the game present on the first screenshot. It is important to note that this percentage is 72% when considering only the games with a custom image.
An interesting detail is that all match 3 or linking or bubble popping style games always used in-game screenshots
The second screenshot:
63.3% used only one in-game screenshot per image used. The rest usually went with more in-game shots per photo or a combo with in-game screenshot and cute or nice looking characters. And then some didn’t use in-game visuals at all.
86% of all these games have additional text or ribbons with text to support the images. And close to 50% of these texts usually start with a verb: Battle, Challenge, Plan, Tickle, Twerk your way… you get the idea.
You can see all the initial data collected plus some comments here and there in the public google doc. I did not bother uploading the screenshots but I can store them on dropbox if you think they are useful for this study.
This data is based on the screenshots taken roughly a week ago. As you know the App Store landscape changes pretty fast so of course the percentages will not exactly reflect the current list of games.
Any other useful insights regarding visuals on the App Store?
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