Is it a good practice to make my paid game for free ($0 cost for a short period of time) in order to gain some downloads and increase their visibility on Play Store? I think this can increase paid downloads after raising the price again.
What has been your experience in this regard?
Did you consider giving away promo codes instead?
I have never do it. Which has been your experience with promo codes? What are the best sources to give away promo codes?
You can create promo codes from Google Play Console or App Store Connect, then give them away as you wish.
Social media, forums, reddit, webzines…
For iOs you can use toucharcade.com
You just need to figure out where they are happy to see your post and where it’s considered spam, according to your game category and communities rules.
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include micro transactions
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Maybe this has changed, but previously the stores would not allow you to change a free app into a paid app (but you can change a paid app into a free one).
I think the prevailing method for doing what you are asking is as @borismargovski has suggested: a free app with in-app purchases.
As @alanFlickGames said, if you switch a paid app to free on Google Play you cannot switch it back to paid.
Once your app has been offered for free, the app can’t be changed to paid. If you want to charge for the app, you need to create a new app with a new package name and set a price.
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Thank you @alanFlickGames
I already have two versions of the game: free and paid, so the paid version does not have in-app purchases.
Unless you are Minecraft of have major IP you need to realise no one will pay for your game. I see you are on Google game pass. How is that going?
Yes, you’re right… It’s very difficult to get paid downloads. My game ARROW Premium is the paid version of ARROW, and it didn’t get any downloads at first. It wasn’t until It was accepted into Google Play Pass that I started making a profit. For 5 months I was earning with this game a little more than a thousand dollars per month only with Play Pass for being in their section of the new Play Pass games. After being removed from that section, the downloads decreased and now I have very few users, and therefore the profits decreased.
I didn’t know that Play Pass would be so lucrative, otherwise I would have applied back then with all my apps and games. I have already applied for Play Pass for all my games but I imagine the list of applicants must be long by now.
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