So this makes no sense. This past year, two of our iOS games have experienced the same phenomenon:
On a single day, downloads explode. In one case, 20K more than usual (and exactly 20K). Then yesterday, on the second title, exactly 10K more than usual. For reference, these titles rarely do more than 3K-4K. The thing is, these downloads are only in the US and only on desktop. But one of these games doesn’t even run on desktop. In both cases, the downloads have seemed completely fake, because no stats support them: concurrency, ad views, IAP revenue, downloads the following few days (which always bump after a legitimate single day boost) all look completely normal. These are like ghost downloads.
We’ve contacted Apple and all they told us was “yes these are legitimate” and didn’t help any further. In the first case, the 20K one, the downloads had the BUS code associated with them, which indicates a corporate account. Apple asked us if we provided any download links to testers, companies, etc. We’ve never done that.
So somewhere some institution, reportedly in the US, is downloading exactly 20K or 10K units of our games, onto desktops on which the second game doesn’t even run or is offered on the App Store, I believe, never opening the game, and just leaving it at that?????? What the f?
I have gone back and forth with Apple and they insist there is nothing wrong with the data/their reporting. I am at a complete loss.
