Getting noticed on the iPhone is the toughest task for iPhone game makers. As a result, it hasn’t been as easy to make money on Apple’s platform as it has been on Facebook.
But there are experiments abound. A case in point is the OpenFeint Free Game of the Day Promotion, which has generated 5 million free game downloads in the past four weeks. Aurora Feint, the San Francisco company that makes the OpenFeint social game platform, is announcing today that the experiment was so successful it is creating a web site destination FreeGameoftheDay.com.
The site will promote free games across the OpenFeint platform. Game makers who use the platform can easily create game leaderboards, achievements and challenges. Now with the promotion, Aurora Feint can push a free game offer in front of 15 million game fans.
That’s a pretty powerful attention grabber, and the web site should draw even more attention to the selected games. Other free game sites can’t offer access to such a sizable and engaged game audience, said Jason Citron, chief executive of Aurora Feint.
With 150,000 apps in the AppStore, discovery is a problem for companies big and small. Anyone who can solve that will find lots of allies. Aurora Feint’s partners for the Free Game of the Day Program include Origin8, which saw one game get 160,000 downloads in one day and a million overall. During this time, Origin8 cross-sold other games for real money, noticeably increasing sales during the trial. Sentinel 2: Earth Defense, sold four times as much as it did the previous month.
Peter Relan, chairman of Aurora Feint, will be speaking at GamesBeat@GDC. Note: Online registration for the conference on Wednesday is closed but you can still register on site. Monday onsite registration is 5-7 pm. On Tuesday and Wednesday, on-site registration is open all day. Reminder: A press pass for GDC or an All-Access Pass for GDC can get you into GamesBeat@GDC. You can also get a GamesBeat only pass by registering on site.