Advanced Tetric 3.61 pop
Solve a variety of Tetris-like puzzles.
OS: Windows (all)
File Size: 1MB
License: Free to try, $18 to buy
12/26/2002 new

Downloads: 261,490 !!!

http://download.com.com/3000-2111-10175829.html?tag=lst-0-8

Strange that this tetris collection got a high download count. I tested the game but wasn't impressed. I am interested how big the conversion rate is.

Hi,

Lots of people like tetris, but they might not be ready to pay for it. Maybe they are just checking it out to see how different it is from the tetris they have played.

Originally posted by gautam
Hi,

Lots of people like tetris, but they might not be ready to pay for it. Maybe they are just checking it out to see how different it is from the tetris they have played.

I think you are right. People like checking out some games on download.com and don't buy it.

I agree. Its conversion rates that count, downloads just mean you are paying for lots of bandwidth. I cant really afford (or dont want to subsidise...) more downloads of my demos, so I'm working on converting more into sales. I'd be happy with 100 downloads a month if they were all 20 dollar sales ;)

I'm new to this, but looking at their listing (not that I've looked at all that many listings yet) here's some thing's I noticed:

1. They call their game Tetric, but compare it to Tetris. I would guess that the purpose of that is to come up on a search for the word Tetris (which I bet a lot of people search for) without necessarily running afoul of licensing problems.

2. The download says it is 1MB. That sounds small enough that even modem users could easily tolerate it.

3. Since it shows up under searches for Tetris, calling it "Advanced Tetric" probably works very well for it. I'd be much more inclined to try it than say "Al's Tetris" -- even if they were the same game.

(anyone remember the Steve Martin routine with "Fred's Bank" ?)

4. It seems strange that for so many downloads it only has 2 votes. There are other programs listed with less than half the number of downloads but over 100 votes. I can't guess why that would be. People are downloading this game and not even bothering to rate it one way or the other.

I was kinda thinking about a lot of Tetris things over a post on a marketing thread here in which the poster (don't remember who) felt that a Tetris clone couldn't sell due to the competition.

I would have to wonder if the name recognition helps balance that. I remember when Tetris came out (I was actually working in the video game industry when the first Game Boys came out with Tetris). Tetris went from being a strange word to being a household word. My computer illiterate mother got hooked on Tetris and spent a LOT of time playing it.

I'm sure that if someone showed her a download site with software, the only games she would look for would be:

Tetris
Mah Jong (I might have spelled that wrong)
Bejeweled
Solitaire

That's not a very big list, and I can't think of any other computer game type that my mother has played in about 10 years of owning a computer.

All are great stuff for appealing to the women over 50 demographic. The question at that point would be -- how do you lead these women to YOUR Tetris game as opposed to another?

- Eric Shefferman

Original post by ferret

4. It seems strange that for so many downloads it only has 2 votes. There are other programs listed with less than half the number of downloads but over 100 votes. I can't guess why that would be. People are downloading this game and not even bothering to rate it one way or the other.


download.com handles program updates by clearing all the votes and keeping the download count. That's why most programs there have so few votes. Such a high download count is generally achieved after lots of updates. That game must have been on cnet for years.

One other thing: if all users are like me, they take the download count as an indication of the value of the product. The download count may grow exponentially. Once you have 100.000 downloads pretty much everybody with a remote interest in tetris (that is to say pretty much everybody) who sees the game would try it out.

I think they have made it harder to vote for programs on download.com.

When Fitznik was first released after 1000 downloads there were about 19 votes. After an update in October and another 1000 downloads there have been no votes.

So, either they have seriously killed their Vote : Download ratio or I had people downloading Fitznik from other places during the initial launch who liked it so much that they decided to pop off to Download.com to vote for it.

Somehow I think the former is more likely.

I also spotted a program with 200,000 downloads, 700 last week, and no votes in the last 5 months.

Pharaohs' Curse has managed 6 votes since October in only 1,698 Downloads. So there is something interesting going on.

I'm sure some developers will also vote for themselves in order to increase the perceived desirability of the product.

Yeah, I think maybe download.com has been taking a harder stance on votes. There used to be tons of meaningless votes, authors voting for their own software, or even against their competitors software. There's been lots of complaining for quite a while over the topic. Maybe they are taking a much better look at the voting, and that's why there are so few now. (that's just my guess)