I don't know if it is harder/easier to get your game in front of the decision makers for schools or to build awareness among parents. What's your take on this?
Our experience is that it's ultimately easier to target the parents. Going through schools and municipalities you can sometimes strike gold and get one of those huge sales, but it's a long and tiring process with a lot of red tape. It's especially funny to see how many educational institutions see us in a negative light because we're a "commercial company", while at the same time they get all their books from big multi-million publishers who drop off the "corporation radar" simply because they've been dealing with them for decades.
The people buying our game (parents) are not the same as the people playing them (kids)! This presents a very interesting challenge. We rely heavily on our product being good enough to be spread by word of mouth and high quality media, like this recent Forbes article. We don't have a big marketing machine, so the game simply has to deliver on what it promises so it's shared organically.
I found the $5.99 price tag to be high enough to give me pause and made me - absent a demo- go searching for some reviews first.
I wholeheartedly believe the game is well worth the price. As for having a demo, that's something we're debating daily.
Two main concerns with regards to having a free demo:
- We don't want to split up our reviews (Demo app vs Full app)
- We fear that some players will not take the time to truly understand the underlying teaching value of the game, and just dismiss it as a hyped up puzzle game.