CEO Ballard says Lite demos and social media marketing will be key to improving things.
Glu Mobile CEO Greg Ballard told analysts last night that the company is still working on turning critical acclaim for its iPhone games into bumper revenues.
"Revenue from this platform remains smaller than we would like given the incremental investment required," he said during Glu's Q2 financial results analyst call.
Ballard highlighted low prices in the upper reaches of the App Store games chart as one cause, pointing out that while dropping the price of games to $0.99 or $1.99 can create hits, they're not making much money at that price point.
However, Glu is working on two ways to make its more expensive iPhone titles money-spinners.
Releasing free 'Lite' versions of games to promote the paid versions has proved a success for Glu's Deer Hunter 3D, which entered the Top 10 paid games chart this week on the back of 800,000 downloads of the free version.
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"The conversion rate from free to paid is actually much higher than we would have expected coming on this platform," said Ballard. "It is higher than what we have seen in other experiences with the carriers for example."
The second strategy Glu is pursuing is increasing its investment in new forms of marketing, including building communities around its iPhone games, and promoting them on Facebook.
"We have begun internal efforts to extend our efforts in the social network, and expect over the next several months to be much more visible on our effort in these arenas," said Ballard.
Glu's soon-to-step-down CEO also told analysts that the search for his successor is going well, and suggested that mobile operators are starting to shift to the 70:30 revenue share split offered by Apple, rather than their traditionally less favourable models.
