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Bronze Award-winning puzzler TCHOW Rainbow goes free just 2 weeks after debuting

Other side of the coin

Bronze Award-winning puzzler TCHOW Rainbow goes free just 2 weeks after debuting
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iOS
| TCHOW Rainbow

Bronze Award-winning action-puzzler TCHOW Rainbow is free until the end of today (January 27th). It's not even two weeks old.

At the end of today, TCHOW's game will return to its original price of £1.49 / $1.99. Still, aren't we sick and tired of game developers slashing the prices of their brand-new titles?

Well, yes. But maybe there's more to this "disastrous" price drop behaviour than first thought.

Front and centre

We spoke to TCHOW, a.k.a. developer Jim McCann, to find out why he had put his game on sale so close to its release date. Here's the other side of the argument, then.

"There's a site (iapps.im) that offered to front-page link the app if it were free for a day," McCann explains.

"As Rainbow is no longer listed in the New Games section, its sales were down to roughly four units a day, so I figured there wasn't much to lose in terms of revenue, and there was much to gain in terms of player base (especially in China, where there have been only about five installs to date)."

Rainbow

"Another reason to do this is that I'm adding some (very basic 'post a screenshot of your high score') sharing features in the 1.4 update so more players might translate into more sharing, and thus more visibility for the app."

"I'm hoping this doesn't impact player goodwill. I really do think this game provides $2 of amusement."

In our review of McCann's game, we said: "Cute, original, and challenging, TCHOW Rainbow is definitely worth a look."

You better be quick if you want to pick up TCHOW Rainbow for free. After today, it will be available on the App Store again at the launch price of £1.49 / $1.99.

Chris Priestman
Chris Priestman
Anything eccentric, macabre, or just plain weird, is what Chris is all about. He turns the spotlight on the games that fly under the radar.