The title is Red Bounding Ball Spikes.
The paid version of this game, costing $0.99, went on the top of App Store charts, in the number 2 section at one point. However, all of its fame came through illegitimate ways, and now it’s back to a lower rank. Apple however didn’t do anything for its pitfall and it’s still available on the App Store.
Now coming over to the tactics employed by Mateen Pekan (also known as Firoozeh Moraday), he released Red Bouncing Ball Spikes for $0.99 using a GameSalad template costing $10 in December 2012. On 30th January 2014, the update of the game took it at the top of the App Store, even though there wasn’t anything special offered.
A developer can manipulate the system by using a whole network for iTunes accounts, and purchase enough of the game to increase the sales to $20,000, so that it can get featured in the top of the list of grossing apps.
And normally, the high gross sales also leads to a high number of downloads, but App Annie reports that the application has low downloads, but high gross sales, so the developer may have used the same tactic. Appsfire CEO Ouriel Ohayon says that a top application in App Store U.S. can earn ‘tens of thousands’ of dollars in a day per download.
The developer of Red Bounding Ball Spikes even tried to sell the title on Apptopia – a marketplace for templates and apps:
This app is in the top 5 in overall paid apps on the app store making $10,000 a day! On Febuary [sic] 5th and 6th it was the #2 app in overall paid section with very little promotions. 50,000 downloads in less than a week.
We are willing to negotiate.
The app was later removed from Apptopia for bad publicity, but the developer demanded $250,000 at the time of the takedown. It has also been said that Mateen Paken has stolen a source code, but it remains unclear why his apps are still available on Google Play and App Store.
So be careful and try not to fall in this trap.
