Ads or 99 cents..... Which way to go???

Games
#1

I’m working on getting some quick games up, just to have some inventory.

I put up a Thanksgiving themed game, your basic arcade shooter and I chose to do it ad supported using inMobi. Financially this has been a huge fail. Part of the problem is I decided too late to do this and I got the game live in the app store 2 days before Thanksgiving, which was way too late… (NOTE: I was proud that I turned the complete game around in 15 days though!)

So now I’m working on my Christmas themed game which I really wanted to submit yesterday and now I’ll be lucky to get this in the app store much sooner than a few days before Christmas.

But this game has 9 distinct levels that give me “loading” screens and of course I also get reloading screens when you fail (and you will fail…)

So I’m torn. Should I…

  1. Just put it up for $0.99 and make a few bucks off of it.
  2. Try the new inneractive banner ads and see if I can make some ad money.
  3. Use full screen ads on my loading screens which should drive a higher price.

I would like to get IAP working so the people could decide to turn that off, but based on the struggles of others and having not done it before I’m not sure I can get IAP in within a timely manner.

I’m concerned that full screens would be too annoying and we still don’t know what kind of money we are dealing with using inneractive.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Changed the title since Ads or Free didn’t make a lot of sense!
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 318997[/import]

#2

I say just use basic InMobi ad’s in your game. It should work well enough and if your lucky, you could maybe get around 100 bucks out of your game.

Good Luck!

Regards,
Jordan Schuetz
Ninja Pig Studios [import]uid: 29181 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73141[/import]

#3

Problem is I’m making less than diddly squat with InMobi’s ads. My usage volume is too low. Which makes me ask if inneractive will have the same problem. But I’m hoping with higher fill rates and better ads it will be different. [import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73250[/import]

#4

Almost 10000 downloads in Android Market and 1 month I got about 10USD from InMobi and 70USD form App Store (2 weeks) for 0.99USD app. So go for paid app in my opinion.

BTW. 90-99% users will use piracy copy of your app so think about some kind of copy protection. Checking plist file size is just enough cuz they need to be modified in cracked version. [import]uid: 12704 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73277[/import]

#5

Hey, @gtatarkin, about plist file size, it’s good to know. Thank you for the tip.

That said, I don’t know how I’d go about checking plist file size. Would you mind sharing an example code snippet? I’d be so grateful.

Naomi [import]uid: 67217 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73298[/import]

#6

+1 to code sharing. I’d like to know too.

However I am guessing . . .

Since the plist is a text file, I suppose you could to a file open on it, read it into a string and get the length. Once you know it, you can then code against that length and you would just have to make sure to update your code if you changed your build.settings file.
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73301[/import]

#7

Same boat here and went for $0.99. Market is flooded, you sell yourself (experience, skills, attitude towards the community) before selling your products.

In parallel and having Corona SDK under our hands, a “release often” approach (new apps, updates, different business models) will not do any harm. [import]uid: 67641 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73302[/import]

#8

Unfortunately this whole business of trying to prevent piracy is a bit of a futile exercise.
I’ve tried many different approaches in the past and it’s literally just a matter of hours before hackers have reverse-engineered the code and bypassed any attempt to stop them.
Sure you might be able to stop some amateurs, but they’re not the ones spreading your apps.
And if you think of it, Microsoft, Adobe and Apple have whole teams of people working on piracy prevention, and even they can’t stop it.

It’s crap that it exists, but not everybody has a jailbroken phone, and not all jailbreakers install pirated apps either. It’s not worth the time and effort to try to stop it, at least not for me as an indie developer. That time is better spent developing new apps.
I’ve decided to drop my pursuit and look at these as sort of “free advertising” or “buzz generators” now. The more people that get to know about my apps, the more likely I’ll get more real sales.
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#9

I think ingemar nailed it with his response. Me personally? I’m still trying to make something worth pirating LOL. [import]uid: 31262 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73334[/import]

#10

I think I would be happy if someone pirated my stuff. It would make me feel popular at least.
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73337[/import]

#11

I would personally suggest the following :

Option A)

Free with in app purchases (with optional ads)

Option B)

Paid.

Only do option A however if you feel the in app purchases are worthwhile. A lot of customers react badly to senseless or un-needed IAP. Make the purchases feel warranted and not just a way to make a buck :slight_smile: [import]uid: 84637 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73357[/import]

#12

With my game, I have first 9 levels available for free, and using IAP, additional 9 levels can be unlocked. I’m also working on adding some consumable items (powerups) that users can purchase, but powerups are only added fun. Not having it won’t make the game less fun, I think. But still, hopefully, some people will find my game worth paying to unlock (and worth buying powerups) for. I’m also planning to add some banner ads & full screen ads for extra revenue. I hope it will work out somehow.

About piracy prevention, I agree it’s probably not possible to prevent it. And yeah, having more people pirating my game is so much better than no one playing it at all. It’s just that, I thought I would make it a little more difficult to pirate and get hundreds of powerups for free (if it’s do-able at all with what I can do with limited knowledge & skill). It’s just that making it too easy doesn’t feel good to me – is all. (That said, I might eventually feel heck with it, and won’t bother after a while. Who knows.)

Naomi

Edit: And you know, I’m making game to make a living. So… yeah, if it isn’t a way to make a buck, I won’t be able to justify spending most of my waking hours making games… Hopefully, people who end up playing my game won’t think badly for it… [import]uid: 67217 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73367[/import]

#13

Unless your game looks spectacular (not is spectacular, but has awesome graphics you can use for your screenshots), users will typically refuse to pay before trying it out.

You really have four options:

  1. Free App with Ads
  2. 99 cent App (see disclaimer above)
  3. Two apps, a lite version for free with Ads and limited functionality/levels, and a full version for 99 cents that is fully functional and ad free.
  4. Free App with Ads and limited functionality/levels, uses IAP to unlock full functionality and remove ads forever.

Option 4 has been the most successful for me. Just make sure not to give too much of your game away for free. Just enough of a taste that will get them to make the purchase. [import]uid: 36054 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 73375[/import]

#14

Hey all,

Would love to hear some feedback about this toolkit we’re providing to developers to really outline how the ad-supported monetization can work, and the kinds of returns you can expect given a series of inputs.

Download it here: http://www.inmobi.com/inmobiblog/2011/05/09/inmobis-economic-toolkit-for-app-developers-free-download/

And please feel free to shoot over feedback to me or marketing [at] inmobi dot com

You can reach me at my forum username @inmobi.com as well!

-Jeremia [import]uid: 109186 topic_id: 18997 reply_id: 74799[/import]