Hi guys !
I’m kinda new to mobile development and looking for “general workflow” for monetizing mobiles games.
You can find tutorial about almost every aspect of programming but do you guys know any good contents, video or blog to have an “introduction” to these practices ?
Thank you all 
The only thing I can contribute to a topic like this is that ad banners that are always present but don’t interrupt gameplay is more acceptable to the general public than ads that randomly pop up and stop gameplay. Pop ups generate more money I’d imagine because they are random enough that users accidentally touch them while meaning to do something else.
But when your game causes someone to unintentionally open a link to another game, your review section is in for a bad time.
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Interesting question… I’ve always hated the term “best practice”, but I’ve never had the opportunity to combine my hatred for it with my hatred for in-game advertisements.
What is a “best practice” with in-game advertisements?
Lexiconically, this could mean either correct or most effective. Both terms would mean very different things in this case to the consumer and to the merchant.
An effective ad for a consumer would be one that shows content that is relevant to their interests, doesn’t annoy them, and doesn’t trick them into participating. An effective ad for you would be one that is clicked as much as possible, bringing you the most revenue without annoying your customer to the point that they develop a distaste for your game.
The one shared point is that ads should not be annoying.
The most effective way you can not be annoying is to not have them at all, which would conflict with your need to have them clicked.
The least effective way to be annoying would be to have lots of ads everywhere, and frequently, and have them pop up just as the user is trying to interact with the game. This would maximize your return, but greatly annoy the customer, making them much less effective from their perspective.
The middle ground would be to have ads appear intermittently, and without trying to sneak people into triggering them by accident. This will still annoy most consumers to some degree, and not provide you with as much revenue as you could by throwing them everywhere, but it’s the closest to a “best practice” you can get with ads, I think.
But here’s the thing:
Mobile ad revenue is pretty minimal as it is. Unless you’re drawing crowds the size of Clash of Clans or Candy Crush, your payouts are going to be so small that a reasonable person would deduce the cost of negative impressions you’re inducing by including the ads is not worth the insignificant revenue you’re generating. If your game is good, sell it for a fair price. If you’re concerned about drawing a crowd first, release it for free and consider IAP to provide additional value for a price before going the ad route. And if you’re concerned about not being able to produce enough quality content to incentivize players into parting with their money, then why are you even releasing the game in the first place? (Alternatively, putting ads on a turd of a game will earn you nothing anyway)
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Interesting thoughts, thank you guys !
Duty appreciated.
I actually thought about an ads-free game with a low selling price (something around 2€) but I’m so new to the mobile gaming world that i don’t really know if there are many people ready to spend 2€ on a game that doesn’t have a “media cover” when they can find so many games fo free.
Also, what about the technical approach ?
are there any books, blogs or videos i could refer to ?
Picasso probably didn’t sell his first painting. Nobody gave John Williams a dollar the first time he sat behind a piano. Likewise, your first product (or few) may not be worth anything to your average consumer. Or maybe it will. New developers tend to get too caught up in the monetization aspect far too early, though, and don’t focus enough on just learning how to create great games. Create a good game, and people will pay for it.
Once you’ve had a bit of practice, it makes sense to consider marketing and how to make games financially viable, but doing so before you have a portfolio of work is a distraction that should be avoided.
There are, but all I’d do is Google it and paste the link here, which you’re more than capable of doing yourself, I’m sure. Research is part of learning.
Sure, I’ll dot that
It’s just that like for everything else, there are bad and good “tutorials”, and when you start learning, you can’t really tell the good ones for the bad ones, which is why i chose to ask more experienced people, not to learn bad stuff.
The current ‘best practice’ for ads seems to be opt in reward ads. Check out crossy road for a good example. Allow people to choose to watch the ads, and provide some in game benefit if they do.
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Why not try something revolutionary? Here’s 2 untested ideas I have that you may use:
Donate via ads - once an hour (or however long so your ad service isn’t spammed with suspicious traffic) your users can donate to you by electing to watch an advertisement. Instead of randomly triggering an ad in the middle of gameplay or between levels, users can go somewhere from the main menu to play an ad to support the developer
Ads integrated with the game world - In game billboards display real ads. When characters are tired and want to relax, they can watch tv… and the tv show is an ad. The character wants to read a book in order to learn something… each time they turn the page… it’s an ad. Ads everywhere, but only during idle activities where the user isn’t doing anything anyway. At the end of each day, your character sleeps, a dream bubble pops up and… it’s an ad.
Oh, I see @Kiwasi mentioned that people have started using ‘opt in ads’ for rewards. I had that idea almost 4 years ago and never did anything with it. Glad to see it’s succeeding.
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Thank you all for the comments, good stuff all the way
What about an hybride, like :
- totally free purchase with NO ADS
- micro transactions possible (and purely cosmetic, like new skins, more bonus that you would find ingame but rarely etc)
?
That model is working out for big games. If everything is obtainable without purchase and it isn’t game changing stuff, then I think people won’t mind at all.