Hi,
I’m a designer, indie and business owner. Most of my time I’m thinking about my games and how I can make them ‘better’.
The trouble is what is better?
Is fun better?
Is revenue better?
Is longer average user playtime better?
I’m asking these questions as a hypothetical. What I’m really wondering is how do you as designers balance the ever fighting adversaries that are fun vs monetisation design?
As a player I avoid all games with ads and microtransactions. (edit: If you need reasoning, I find that not knowing how much a game costs to give me a “proper” experience, gives me anxiety, and I don’t want that in my life)
So as a naive small time indie developer I decided to avoid them as well.
Understandable. I guess it’s up to the game and designer to clearly communicate what a player would get with each purchase/ad and therefore it’s not about the player not knowing what the entire game would cost, it’s about knowing the value of each purchase. If that’s worth it, then it’s worth it.
But you’re right to have anxiety, a lot of games and monetisation methods are designed to trick people in with good value early and then crank the dollars later with sunk cost. 
Typically, the game is “free”, the quotes are mandatory. If its free, Ill check it out of it seems interesting until I hit a paywall that seems forced, or rage at the ads. I don’t avoid them, and have bought iap on a mediocre game just because I can see the work they put into it, and see potential. Or bought the full version of something with extra features that I never/rarely use, or ads that I don’t notice just because. But free is free. Some ads are done well, like incremental games where you watch an ad to speed up progress for 4 hours. That is awesome. Only watch ads when you want to.
I do, however, avoid paid apps with ads or iap.
And as a naive small time indie developer myself, I avoid them too. I have an app that costs a dollar with no ads, and a free app with no ads or any inconvenience to the user but the possible monetization comes from an external source(not yet, but possible). I also have something that’s been done for a couple months that ill get around to releasing one of these days, Itll be free without ads or iap, but it was a quick-ish project that ill put out for “exposure”. I dislike the thought of including ads or iap, but it seems like that’s where its all going. My current “best project idea in the world” will probably have one or the other, even though I would definitely rather a one time pay
Side note about ads:
Its funny how ads are everywhere, but they don’t do anything. I tend to ignore an ad as soon as my brain registers that its an ad, but when I pay for ads, there fairly low conversion, so I figure im not the only one. If no one pays attention to ads, why are they so prevalent.
the answer to all three of these is possible yes depending on your goal. fun is better for publicity, revenue is better for sustainability, playtime is better for metrics. this is similar to the iron triangle. At any one time, you can have only two of these three: Fast, Good, Cheap.
Focus on what you want your game/app to do and build it that way, but you sure as heckfire cant have it all.[/QUOTE]
More fun = more opportunity to generate revenue.
If the game isn’t compelling enough to make player think, “by god, i have to keep this going. Spending a dollar or five is worth it,” then it’s probably not that fun.
Doesn’t mean you have to have micro-transactions.
Game life is separate issue, I think. Some games have enough depth of gameplay and content to warrant 100-1000 hours play experiences. If you can’t generate any revenue from that extended life span, the only thing you get from that is pride. Some games, like Angry Birds, have super simple gameplay and rely on more and more content to extend the games life, but they charge for new content, so the thing keeps feeding itself.
I don’t think micro-transactions and all this is “evil” or reflects poorly on the developer.
But this is a good barometer for the quality of the game
Correct again. But sadly, most developers do it the greedy way, giving everyone a bad name
Focus on fun not revenue. Players can tell when there is a focus on revenue over fun and will run away. An example of a mobile game I thought did this correct is Hungry Shark Evolution. Great game to play while I’m waiting for a hair cut or stuck at the DMV. Paying them anything is unnecessary.
I eventually gave them money to buy the megalodon even though I had earned my way all the way to the great white shark, just because I thought the game was really fun and I wanted to see if this bigger shark was any more fun. I wouldn’t have given them any money if I hadn’t already put 50+ hours into the game without feeling a need to give them anything. There’s just too many other options to kill 15 minutes to pay money for something that you haven’t already seen is worth it.
Similar experience with Clash of Clans and several other mobile games.
Equating loss leaders to bad business is I think not understanding the big picture. So you give something away for free/cheap early on and then later charge a lot more. If people still pay, then it’s hard to argue that the higher price is not what the product is actually worth.
The attitude of micro transactions being greedy is largely an ignorance of the business side of this. For one, micro transactions fit the market better in many cases. Players are playing a wider variety of games, they don’t want to pay the full price up front. When you play a game that charges nothing or very little up front, it’s still costing the company to provide that to you. They have to make that up somewhere.
Micro transactions is what consumers actually want. It’s just another form of paying over time. Nothing new, nothing greedy about it. If you pay over time you pay more. Carrying that cost has a real and measurable additional overhead for the companies providing it.
Do companies end up making more by providing pay over time options then if they just charged some kind of flat up front or monthly fee? That’s debatable actually and kind of difficult to sort out all the math on it because there are so many moving parts. You might make more in the context of a single game that is a hit. But mediocre or games that do poorly you can end up making far less with a micro transaction model then with some other model.
I’m not sure this is as universal as you make it appear to be.
I disagree.
Everyone is slightly off topic. I wanted to discuss how you as a designer balance these things, not if they are good/bad.
All features could be provided for free and with minimal friction, the issue is that to monetise you have to add some friction into the system or simply hold back some features that the player may want. I want to know how you guys decide where those boundaries are.
And off topic again:
Here’s my reasoning for why micro transactions or at least IAP is the only thing I would ever use (when targeting mobile). Making apps for Android is a real problem. it’s impossible to test everything especially for a small team. Asking people to pay up front will only result in a lot of sad people and thousands of refunds from people with devices that struggle.
My experience working on mobile games, is that it all goes back to is it a fun game. If it is you can get fairly aggressive with micro transactions.
Basically numbers like retention are going to be what drives your design and monetization. And most of that work happens post launch, or post test launch. You need real players to sort it out.
So while there is that friction you speak of, it’s kind of way down the list of things to care about, especially pre launch. Your game design is going to be driven by your retention and engagement numbers for the most part. And monetization then follows that.
For my part, I don’t like microtransactions and that people spend literally 100$£ a week on “free” games boggles my mind (especially the ones that are just time waster grinds), but Ads aren’t too bad when they’re done “right”. The older approach of forcing a player to watch an ad between levels/whatever which interrupts the game session is thankfully much rarer these day on mobile. It’s much better to incentivise the player with “watch this ad for a boost”. I saw the below article a little while ago which highlighted something I didn’t appreciate about how devs get ad revenue and their interesting take on how to encourage the players to actually take action on an ad without breaking up the players game session in your game or pushing away player to other titles. The general message of making the monetisation work with the gameplay would be my main takeaway though, don’t just slap it on afterwards.
I like games that keep their payment system out of the way. Most free to play users will never spend a dime, revenue comes from the 1%. I think it’s both better and easier to double the number of players you have than to double the percentage of players who buy stuff, so aim at widest use, not nickel and dime those who want to play for free.
Understanding psychology is important. Candy crush is a fun game with a cool concept, but what really makes it sell moves is the bright colors and flashy graphics. Any time anyway int happens there is a huge flurry of positive feedback on the screen. This is a Skinner box. They might as well make your phone give you a small bump of heroin each time because those graphics are just designed to get your brain to release dopamine, same reason casino games bombard the senses.
Disclaimer: Not full-time indie.
Fun is better.
Fun for the player - and fun for the developer. Make the game you want to make - and if the maximum number of players do not purchase/play the game - you still made the game you wanted to make, without having to put in stuff you didn’t want, without struggling with moral/design/desire issues. Maximizing roi does not mean the developer is not making enough roi to be profitable.
Since I detest ads (all ads) in games - I will not create a game with ads.
I do not think there has ever been a game created that would NOT be a better experience with ads removed from the game. If there is - please provide a link. 
Mobile has given US great opportunity to create try before you buy on a device that everyone in the world has in there pocket. This is considered a ‘micro’ transaction or pay gate but I look at it as - what it really is. A demo version that allows the players to play the game up to a certain point or experience - and if they enjoy the experience and want to continue to play the game - they will pay for the rest of the game.
Those who do not wish to pay to continue to play the game - were never going to pay.
The point where the demo ends and the rest of the game begins (gate) should be designed in such a way to incentivize the player to want to continue. Cliff hanger story point, new/great advanced features, even better than what the player has experienced so far, multiplayer, or whatever.
100% agree. A one time purchase after 1-3 levels, or maybe replayable levels, is a great way to provide a ‘demo’ version for those players. If they have trouble they will either delete, or keep the app and send notice to the developer they like the game but stuff is not working correctly. What a great feedback loop to be able to get input on the game so updates can be made before a person has purchased the game.
Hey the developer updated the game to fix the issue I was having, and now I can play it. I might even think about purchasing it because I have a 1 on 1 relationship with the developer. Cool!
A developer could infuse ads in this ‘demo’ section, but I think that just muddles up the design/creation. If a developer thinks it is necessary to monetize those who would not pay for the full experience - they can ad ads into this section, but for me - I would not.
I see where snacktime is coming from but I think creativeness drives design, retention and feedback drives any monetization tactics.
To me (not directed at anyone) when monetization starts to affect design - the entire process begins to feel slimy and manipulative. I don’t like that feeling and I can see how creative designers struggle with creating something with that design philosophy. So - I choose to avoid it and create the game I want to make. If players like it (demo) they will buy it (full game).