How should I seperate my for pay and lite versions, feature wise?

Games
#1

When I first started planning a “Lite” version of my game OmniBlaster (http://omniblaster.omnigeekmedia.com) I had thought about making the lite version only have access to the one gun ship.

In the current version, around level 4 or 5, you get an upgrade to a 2 gun ship, then around 8 or 9 you get the 3 gun ship. Each ship upgrade has improved shielding too.

It would be really hard to get past level 5 in the game without the 2 gun ship. So I was thinking of doing a free game with a $0.99 upgrade to get the 2 gun ship, and another $0.99 upgrade to get the 3 gun ship, so it could potentially get me more money but . . .

Now that I’m putting in achievements, openfeint support, etc. It might make more sense to make the light version not support achievements and such and just do a single upgrade to the full version.

Which makes the most sense to you? [import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 10620 reply_id: 310620[/import]

#2

If I were you I would make a single upgrade. I can’t give you an advice from developer side (as I’m newbie myself), but I can suggest you as a player.

I think you should better make your OmniBlaster for 1.99$ than make people pay for it twice.

And I think it might be good idea to make few (or half, or how many you want) achievements to be available in a free version. Because achievements is a good spice for game. People may want to buy a full game just to finish collecting achievements.

It’s just my opinion :slight_smile:

If I’ll make my dream come true and I’ll create my running-shooter game I’ll make an ad-free version with infinity-running game mode (when trying to achieve high-score) and a paid-version with both infinity mode and story (levels) mode. And I would make achievements in both versions, but paid-version would have more of them :slight_smile:

I hope I helped somehow :slight_smile: [import]uid: 46567 topic_id: 10620 reply_id: 38613[/import]

#3

I agree that you should not have >1 payment to unlock all of the features. As a player, I feel that if I pay something for your game, I should be entitled to all features. [import]uid: 49205 topic_id: 10620 reply_id: 38632[/import]

#4

Ok, lets move on to the mechanical aspect of this:

Do I do an “In App Purchase” and unlock the features, or do I just encourage them to buy the paid version. Seems to me the “In App” method would capture more sales, but I’m guessing that it might be easier to just direct them to the app store for the paid game too and then I don’t have to hassle with storing data for the purchase or check on line to make sure they bought the game.

I mean what happens if you do an in-app upgrade, delete it from your phone, sync it back up from your computer and not have internet access when you go to play?
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 10620 reply_id: 38636[/import]

#5

I can’t answer this question for sure any more than anyone else, but in my game Tiltopolis I’ve got a limited number of special items and limited achievements for the free game. I have a button linking to the app store for the full version.

At present my paid for game has < 200 DL but the free version has > 1500

Take that as you will, I guess… [import]uid: 8271 topic_id: 10620 reply_id: 38763[/import]