Effect of updating an app on Google Play on downloads

Question

There might be a perfectly natural market answer to my question but I'll ask anyway.

I created a game and published it on Google Play in January 2012. After that it has seen a steady increase of downloads (over 50k combined, currently 200-300 a day) and I've kept updating it a lot. About two or three weeks ago I issued an update that had a weird effect on my new downloads. They almost completely stopped. I'm having a hard time believing that an update similar to what I've issued in the past has this kind of effect on user download decisions. Downloads dropped suddenly from 200-300 a day to 1-10 a day after the update.

I know I don't understand the Google Play search routines and stuff like that very well, but I still would like to know if there's a simple answer to my problem. What are the possibilities that an app upgrade will affect the visibility of the software.

BTW: My game update did not change the SDK requirements or available devices.

EDIT: I noticed a new permission has appeared in my application: "test access to protected storage" after I changed SDK target to 17. Can this affect my downloads?

Answer 1

From the day the app was launched till 30 days after that, your app appears in the 'Top New Free/Paid' app section in the play store (appears at almost the top in your app category). So for the first 30 days, downloads are awesome. Playstore suddenly drops it from the 'Top New Free/Paid' section and now your app will only appear in 'Top Free/Paid' section which is much more crowded and has more established apps to fight for a place.

The update surely has to affect on the downloads.

I will go so far and say that even the change in permission requirement is not responsible for the drop. One more permission request might change the mind of 10% of your potential consumers but not more than that.

Answer 2

Let me try and attempt an answer.

As per my understanding, Updates do not count in the number of Downloads. Simply because, the user has already downloaded them once. The Download count represents the unique number of downloads.

Unless the Update broke something or changed something drastic enough to drive away potential down-loaders, it has no effect on the number of downloads (per day) going down or going up. It may also be due to negative feed back and / or comments for your app. And although I cannot claim or give a source, I am almost certain the Update/s has nothing to do with stats going down.

Hoping any of this will help.

UPDATE

It is quite possible that the new permission is responsible. That being said, it really is a very subjective decision for the user to decide on the installation (because of the permission). Perhaps, to possibly remedy the situation, assuming the reason is the permission, you could put up a list of permissions used by the app and state the reason for using them in your app's listing. But that is the best that can be done to mitigate a further loss of users. Plus, you may perhaps see the stats getting back to normal too. Good luck. ;-)