Getting featured at Google PLAY

Hi,

Any one has experience with featured game at Google Play, or has reference to relevant blogs?
1. what is the chances to get a game featured? our game is Free word game, it has unique game play, and we belive it unique and people really like it...

2. how many downloads it derive?

3. for how long game shown on featured page? and does it has good impact on days after (new downloads)?

4. should we try it apply for it ourself, or we should use some publisher? any? what expected cost for using publisher?

same question regarding Open Beta Featured?


Thank you

 

Been featured often, multiple times on all the games I have worked on. Typically they reach out, sometimes if you have a dedicated rep you can have them take a look at title, sometimes it just happens (I believe the sometimes they feature games that have been featured before if the need to fill a gap). And at other times, they contact you about features they are pushing (usually this is more on the Apple side, but google does it too). Like when Apple introduced stickers, we were contacted and offered featuring if we added stickers to one of our games. And also, with the possible exception of featured launches, the featuring in each country is handled by a different team. Our ongoing features vary from country to country.

Google and Apple usually feature games that are going to make them money. The are going to promote games that will generate revenue, either through iap or direct sales. Apple will sometimes feature exceptional free games because the are also selling phones. If your game is fully free or free with ads, it’s unlikely to happen unless you already have massive traffic.

I haven't looked at the Play store in a few months, but Apple, today, handles things a lot differently than in the past. Featuring isn't always across the board, it is often algorithmically targeted based on previous purchases. If you take a look a the current featured games on Play, they are either fairly big titles, or ones with a lot of traffic already. If your game is hugely popular already, (like ~50k installs) you might stand a chance at getting featured.

The traffic boost is relative your current traffic. On our games that were well over a million installs a day, it could be like 10-15% of that. Lower, like 10-50k a day, could see something higher like 20% boost. But, quality of those users (how well the monetize) is usually a bit less than direct marketing or virally acquired users. It's definitely a nice boost though. But the best is having a featured launch, depending the scale it can help push you up the charts initially and build a nice user base.

All that said, featuring and editorial process for the stores is fairly black box. They choose based on non-disclosed criteria. Certainly if you are a big name, you will almost always get multiple features, other games... it isn't always clear why they were or were not featured. Ultimately make sure your game looks good, is bug free (as you can get it) and that all your promo material is top notch (screen shots, descriptions, etc)

 

Thank you @zombiegorilla for your great answer.