My name is JC and I am getting ready to launch a kckstarter campaign but I have a few logistical questions.
I am trying to figure out what is the best way to distribute games to backers on IOS and Android. I would like to have tiers where people can receive a digital copy of the game.
Does anyone here have experience distributing games for IOS or Android?
On iOS the sad answer is that you can't, at least easily. Of the crowdfunded iOS games that I've backed, one up sending out gift cards for the iTunes store, one issued refunds over PayPal, and one dropped the price of it's game for 24 hours and told the backers to buy it during that sale period...
Like Hodgeman said there is no sure fire way of doing this on iOS. It also depends on how many backers you think you will need to provide the app to and if you want to give them the game before or after release.
We currently have an enterprise apple account so it means that we can distribute pre release builds of our app to beta testers and high profile clients but, for a kickstarter game this is probably too expensive for you.
Apple have just announced at WWDC that they will be integrating TestFlight in iOS8 so that you will be able to have up to 1000 beta testers who can sign up just by giving you an email (there is no longer any certificate to install).
Other than that there are promo codes but these are very limited and you will probably want to save these for reviewers. Or you can send somebody a app store credit gift the minimum in the UK is now £15 so probably worth more than you are pricing your game.
Thank you for your feedback. Based on your information I think we will not be offering an IOS version of our game for Kickstarter. We still hope to make an IOS version but I think it would be best if we kept it simple and hassle free.
