GTROAE Chapter 8: Great Feedback, Poor Sales

Chapter 8: Great Feedback, Poor Sales

William carefully picked up his food, stealing glances at Aunt Lisa, who was staring at him.

“Cough, cough.”

He accidentally choked on his food, and Aunt Lisa quickly handed him a glass of water. “You—”

“Oh, right!” William cut her off and asked, “Aunt Lisa, aren’t you going to the music store today?”

“No, I don’t have to. You—”

“What about Uncle Zach? Is he working late today?”

“No, he’s not. You—”

“Then!”

“Shut your mouth!” Aunt Lisa snapped, slamming the glass onto the table. “Tell me the truth — did you sell those songs to that company called Earth Games?”

“Uh?” William started sweating. “Ah! Y-yeah.”

Aunt Lisa glared at him. “Hmph! That damn company! Do you know how much money they made from those three songs?”

“I… I think so?”

Didn’t I show you the messages yesterday?

“You know nothing!” Aunt Lisa shoved her phone in his face. “Look! Over 20 million downloads across the internet! Even if they sold it for just 1 dollar, that’s still 20 million! And you? They only gave you 1000 dollar! That’s not even close to a fair cut!”

“Um…”

“Don’t interrupt!” Aunt Lisa was getting angrier by the second. “Give me his number right now. I’ll talk to him myself and make sure you get what you deserve!”

“But…”

"But???? what do you mean but! There's nothing left to but about!"

"But it's a free software..."

Aunt Lisa suddenly went quiet, like a volcano about to erupt suddenly got blocked by a giant rock. She was at a loss for words.

After a short silence, Aunt Lisa calmed herself down and said patiently, “Even if it’s free, it should still make money. Anyway, I’m telling you, those three songs of yours are worth more than this. We should take the chance while the app is still hot to ask for the money back. Otherwise, once the hype dies down, it’ll be much harder—he definitely won’t want to pay.”

William gave a helpless smile. “Alright then, I’ll give it a shot.”

“You really don’t want me to go?”

“Yeah, let me try first.”

“Alright.” Aunt Lisa smiled warmly, as if she wasn’t the one who just got mad earlier. She said gently, “Come eat.”

After eating, William helped wash the dishes while Aunt Lisa tidied up and got ready to head to the piano studio. She said she had lessons in the afternoon—otherwise, she definitely wouldn't have let William help.

Back in his room, he entered his personal workspace.

Before dinner, William had submitted the listing application for 2048. It was expected to go live in just over an hour, and would still be released under the “educational” category.

In fact, the game category had gotten a boost in popularity after Piano Tiles came out, and search volume had jumped up, but it was still way behind the popularity of educational apps. And 2048, as an “addition learning tool,” fully met the criteria to be considered an educational app.

Another piece of good news was that the iOS version of Piano Tiles had finally launched. William’s main reason for entering his personal workspace was to check its download numbers on the iOS platform.

Piano Tiles downloads: 24,218,777

Was that a mistake?

William double-checked it a few times, even pulled out a calculator to compare the growth. The results were all the same.

It had been about half an hour since launch, and the downloads had already gone up by hundreds of thousands compared to the morning. But judging from yesterday’s momentum, this wasn’t good enough. After all, the iOS user base was no smaller than the top seven brands’ user bases. Something had to be off.

Overall user rating: 3.3

Media rating: 4.8 (1 review)

The most recent user reviews were almost all positive, and the parts they praised really caught William’s attention.

“This game is super fun!”

“The best game I’ve ever played!”

“There’s nothing better than this!”

…

Game.

After looking into it, William found out that Piano Tiles hadn’t been listed under educational apps, but under games.

He re-read the message sent from the iOS platform. At the end, it said: The app does not meet the criteria for educational software. After review by our staff, the category has been changed to games.

No wonder the review took so long. The staff probably played it all night before coming to that conclusion.

Low downloads were one thing, but at least the rating had gone up. And to William’s surprise, one media outlet even gave it a score.

“A new standard in the gaming market. A revolutionary game.” — Software Daily, 4.8/5

Talk about praise.

William finally got to experience what it was like to be loved by reviewers but ignored by users.

The downloads for Piano Tiles probably weren’t going to grow much more in the short term. The next wave would have to wait until investors started hyping the game market. Once that happened, Piano Tiles might ride that wave and get some attention too.

That said, the game—completely free, with no ads—had already earned William over 200k. 200k! He’d only seen numbers that big on a loan agreement before.

A house?

A car?

Buying a computer?

Suddenly, William realized that having money could also be a headache.

Putting those worries aside, to thank the players for their support, William decided to delay the "welcome gift" plan and instead make the update for the new mode of Piano Tiles his top priority.

Originally, the new mode was going to be released only after 100 players cleared "Moonlight Sonata" and would be launched along with new music tracks. But since the download numbers were hitting a plateau and the game seemed to have a shorter life span than expected, William decided not to hold it back anymore.

Not only would the update come earlier, but the planned content would also be cut down. The original plan was to add three new modes, ten music tracks, and a new gameplay feature. But now, given the situation, William only planned to release two new modes and two music tracks before officially announcing the end of content updates for the game.

Of course, if the game picks up again later, there's no reason he can’t add the cut content back in. It all depends on how things go in the market.

The first new mode in Piano Tiles will be “Experience Mode.” In this mode, the gameplay and difficulty will be reduced, and there will even be a full-auto button, basically turning the game into a music player—perfect for players who just want to enjoy the songs.

“William, can you come over now?”

Just when the new mode was halfway done, William suddenly got a call from Aunt Lisa.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.”

Aunt Lisa was being mysterious again. William started to worry she might want to talk about Earth Games asking for money.

It’s not that he found it annoying—William was actually grateful for her concern. The problem was that Earth Games was basically just him alone. There wasn’t really a solution for that.

“Alright then.”

“I’ll send you the address. Just take a cab here, I’ll pay you back.”

“No need, I’ve got money now.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, you’re rich now. Just hurry up and get over here.”

William wasn’t sure what was so urgent that Aunt Lisa wanted him to come right away. Could it be...

The thought that Aunt Lisa might be in trouble made William stop wasting time. After all, she had helped him before, and he couldn’t just ignore that.

He jogged out of the complex and hailed a cab by the roadside.

“Sir, Glory Road, Jiangyin Music Store.”

“Got it.”