How does ASO work in the mobile version of Fortnite?
Fortnite has been among the top ten highest-grossing games on iOS since April last year. What is the situation with the project from the point of view of store optimization, The ASO Project specialists decided to find out. We share a brief version of their analysis.
Title and subtitle
There are only eight characters in the word Fortnite. This means that in the “Name” column, the developers had the opportunity to add several keywords or even a phrase. This would increase their place in the search results (now the game is not even in the top 50 of the search results for “battle royale”).
There is also an option in the App Store to add a subtitle for your game. To improve visibility, as a rule, some keywords are also used here. Fortnite doesn’t have that either. Therefore, it is difficult to find Epic Games for queries in the spirit of “pvp games” or “first person shooter”.
Screenshots and videos
Fortnite has all screenshots horizontal. This makes sense, since the project is played accordingly. However, on the screen of a smartphone located vertically, it is difficult to make out the inscriptions on the pictures. In addition, they do not really explain what is happening in the screenshots.
The ASO Project believes that increasing the font and adding contextual information will better cope with attracting the attention of users.
Fortnite has a horizontal video as a preview. Experts note this as a minus, because if the video was vertical, players would see screenshots, which are also important.
Search advertising
Fortnite is a very popular game whose brand is well recognized. However, the game, according to representatives of The ASO Project, still has room to grow in terms of search advertising.
If competitors actively use the word Fortnite to promote their own games in the output, then Epic Games is not particularly engaged in the development of this direction. The company could use this tool at least for retargeting.
Results
The main conclusion that suggests itself is that an imperfect ASO did not prevent the game from making good money on iOS. The project is still among the top ten highest-grossing games for the App Store in the world.
But Fortnite’s story is exceptional. Its colossal success on consoles and PCs allowed Epic Games not only to experiment with the game, with its distribution, but also to launch its own digital store.
In other words, given the scale of the brand, Fortnite can afford to ignore, including ASO-nuances. The question is — can small projects afford it?
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