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The Wild Case App Store Spotlight
September 10th, 2021
by Anh Nguyen
COO & Co-Founder at Gummicube, Inc
The Wild Case is a point and click adventure game that takes place in a remote village deep in the forest. You play as a paranormal detective, investigating strange occurrences and mysterious attacks from evasive beasts.
This thrilling game was featured as Apple’s “Game of the Day”, but how well will its visibility hold up when the limelight fades? Let’s take a look at how well The Wild Case is employing the best ASO strategies to get this game in front of more players.
iOS App Store
On the Apple iOS App Store, The Wild Case is not currently ranking in the top 50 in the “Adventure” category. Some common, high volume, core keywords that adventure game competitors are ranking highly for include “detective games” which The Wild Case is not ranked for, as well as “mystery” which The Wild Case is not ranking in the top 100 for, at number 156.
The Wild Case’s metadata on the Apple iOS App Store is lacking high volume, relevant keywords. Keyword inclusion in the Title and Subtitle is important for phrase building, but these fields are not being used to their full potential.
The Title is branded only and doesn’t employ a title tag, which is detrimental to visibility. Notable mystery adventure game competitors use descriptive terms as title tags. “Duskwood” is a great example, as they are ranking highly for the query “mystery” and include “Detective & Criminal” following their branded title.
The Wild Case does not include a subtitle in their iOS App Store listing, which means they are missing out on 30 characters worth of keyword space. The aforementioned competitor “Duskwood” includes the phrase “Murder Mystery” in their subtitle, which helps them rank for mystery-centric phrases.
Finding the right keywords can be a challenge. Thankfully developers can turn to a trusted ASO agency and powerful ASO tools to help in this process.
The Google Play Store
The Wild Case is not holding rank in the top 200 in the Google Play Store’s “Adventure” category. There is also a drought of high volume keywords and phrases in the Google Play Store listing’s metadata. Since there is no hidden keyword bank on this platform, the lack of notable terms here is hugely detrimental to the game’s ranking and visibility.
The Wild Case is the only title provided here, meaning that a full 39 characters worth of keyword space is sitting unused. Most high performing mystery adventure game competitors on the Google Play Store include the term “mystery” or “investigation” in their titles. Another relevant and high volume term that The Wild Case might benefit from including is “detective.”
One notable competitor in the detective game genre on the Google Play Store is “I Am Innocent.” This game has similar themes of mysterious puzzles and tense gameplay, and it does a much better job including feature related terms. The branded title here is followed by the title tag “Crime investigation Mystery games” which is dense with great keyword choices.
The Short Description on the Google Play Store does a much better job of including descriptive keywords that will improve visibility. Utilizing 61 of the 80 allotted characters, “The Wild Case is a 2D first-person point-and-click adventure.” is a decent representation of the game, if a bit dry and not very enticing to prospective users.
Aside from changing the language to be more exciting to users, there is also some room for improvement here with keyword selection. Including keywords centered around the investigation features, like “detective” or “mystery” would help The Wild Case get discovered by users with intent.
Description
The Wild Case shares the same description on both the Apple iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. Utilizing 2,380 of 4,000 available characters, the description is overall an adequate use of the allotted space. Although a closer look at the current structure and keyword choice uncovers some critical missed opportunities in the descriptions when it comes to ranking and visibility.
While the description may not directly impact organic ranking on the Apple iOS App Store, it does improve ad delivery for Apple Search Ads. Many of the best practice strategies for the Google Play Store can be applied in this context.
In order to improve ranking and visibility on the Google Play Store, The Wild Case can look into restructuring the description to place high volume keywords in areas that will appeal to Google’s indexation algorithm. Currently, the description not only lacks the appropriate structure, but also lacks high volume feature based terms.
Creative Sets
The Wild Case is not employing any of the common best practices to their screenshots on either the Apple iOS App Store or the Google Play Store. These screenshots are high quality in-app images that effectively communicate the tone of the game, though.
Despite their quality, these screenshots are suffering from lack of treatment. The Wild Case could apply such treatments as screenshot copy text or showcasing the game’s user interface. Screenshot copy text in a bold legible font can communicate feature related keywords, accolades, value propositions, or calls to action.
Additionally, showcasing the user interface can help familiarize users with the game before they even download and install. Both of these treatments can improve overall user conversion across both platforms.
Overall
The Wild Case is a mystery adventure game showcased today as Apple’s “Game of the Day” feature. The Wild Case’s listings suffer from not including some of the most important App Store Optimization best practices that can improve visibility and conversion. The Wild Case could consider revising their listings to improve keyword targeting and applying effective treatments to their screenshots to drive more users to convert.
Want to learn more about App Store Optimization? Contact Gummicube and we'll help get your strategy started.
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