I just wanted to ask people in the community what they think is the best model for us to go with when selling our games,
1 - Paid version of the game, normal upgrade prices, IAP to buy credits
2 - Free version of the game with the ability to upgrade the game as an IAP, not able to buy upgrades until full version of the game is bought, IAP to buy credits, normal upgrade prices
3 - Free version of the game, high upgrade prices, IAP to buy credits
4 - Free version of the game, normal upgrade prices, a majority of upgrades locked until they upgrade to the full version, IAP to buy credits
5 - Free version of the game, normal upgrade prices, only the ability to play 5 out of 30 levels until they upgrade to the full version.
Please feel free to mix and match some of the suggestions I listed but we are trying to find the best of both worlds, to not screw over the player but for us to make a little bit to continue development and to feel special
It definitely depends on the kind of game, so it is hard to say. I say 3 is the most common. Also, sometimes there are upgrades only available as iAP. Make the upgrades start cheap but eventually expensive enough for people to spend money on credits.
Yeah number 3 is the most common but is it the best way to get people to enjoy your game. You as a player, do you want to get a game for free and be forced to spend money on fake money? I like the idea for having certain upgrades only as IAP’s then this way it doesn’t feel like your giving real money for fake money but like your getting a product. Hmmm…tough choices…
Free Short Demo —> Buy Full Game system has worked fine since 1988. It’s easy to implement and simplifies the game so you don’t have to deal with all that buy credits garbage everyone is doing.
I think number 3 works the best too. Paid version really requires the game to be known or have really unique and fresh idea to have decent sales. With other free options having players to see theres unlock full game might turn them away more quickly than giving them illusion that all content is available without real money just by playing. Of course getting everything with game currency would mean they would have to play for like five years but by the time they usually realize this they are most likely addicted enough to buy something.
@RandAIThor - You can buy a plugin that will do IAP’s from Prime31’s website, I think today they are selling it half off($35).
I am starting to agree more and more with give all the content for free and sell IAP’s for credits and certain items. An idea that came up to was to sell modifiers for a certain amount of days. So like you get 2x credits for 3 days or 2x exp for x amount of hours etc. Man I wish we could just sell the game a price and just make money that way, now it’s all how do we get people to keep throwing money at the screen.
Many F2P games sell game currency, exp/currency boosts for x hours or even days and so on. The more options you give them the better. Majority of players wont buy a thing so remember to add Facebook and other social media integrations to increase chances of sales. Give people some ingame currency or 1 hour credit boost for each friend they invite or other spam they send (which you can track). Some of the invited people might buy stuff or just spam more invites. Selling the game for fixed price is simpler but less profitable these days for mobile platforms at least. Remember that there are many players that use money a lot for one game if they like it enough. It really depends how the game is but some users buy alone enough to equal +100 fixed game sales.
Make a free version with ads and a paid version without ads.
One of my biggest mistakes was to release a short free “Lite” edition of the game with no ads. People played it through, and once they were done they stopped playing. I got no penny from that. Had I offered the full game with ads, I would have seen quite a bit of extra money, making the full game available this way would have made sure those players kept playing for long (I am considering a re-release doing this, but by now it’s an old game and wont have it’s initial momentum pushing it.)
You may ask “wont people just play the free game with ads and ignore the paid game?” Yea some will. But chances are those would have ignored the paid game even if the free game was lite.
Just make sure the free game ALWAYS shows an ad. If the game is offline and no internet connection is available, show built-in ad banners to other games you made (including the paid version of your game.) People that hate ads will likely just upgrade to the paid version. The ones that rather delete the app than upgrade were never going to buy your game, in no way or business model available.
If you insist going the micro-transaction route, I suggest you look at Bejeweled. There are two versions of the game out there. Plain paid Bejeweled with lots of game modes, and Free to Play Bejeweled Blitz. The Blitz version is actually making a LOT more money than the paid version, but players that hate the f2p model can opt to get the pro version and ignore Blitz. There are players that will spend a hundred dollars in the f2p version and never buy the 99c paid one. It’s just the way some players are. You can stretch your reach if you offer both models in separate apps, without attempting to ever make one single app make everyone happy (it never will.)
The paradox of choice says otherwise. Lots of options introduces complexity which leads to option paralysis, postponing of decisions, and regret (aka buyer’s remorse). On the other hand, having a few options creates a ‘compared to what’ scenario, which means that a $1.99 purchase is compared to your $9.99 purchase, rather than the game next to it which is only $0.99
@OP - Monetization is complex. If you aren’t comfortable with it, then SLOW DOWN. Read ‘Free’ by Chris Anderson (the audio book is free btw). Read online blogs. Read Gamasutra articles. And once you are comfortable with it, then systematically look at your game. ‘Whaling’ is on the decline - it’s better to establish long-term relationships with customers. Since you aren’t churning through users who are frustrated by your whale-hunting tactics, you’ll discover you’ve got real fans, who will both purchase and recommend your future products.
Yes, I agree. In an end user mindset I dread option #3, IMHO I would rather play a demo and decide if its worth the money. I like having only upfront costs as I know exactly how much money this game will cost me no matter how much I play it.
Do some research, look at sales facts and figures, look at marketing figures, look at what the uptake on upgrade from a free version is to a paid one in percentage terms. I made an app when the iPhone was in the v.1 without doing the research because there were no real facts. The app didn’t do very well. I then did the research because after the app was released information had started to leak out. It didn’t take long. It showed me which would be the best model for selling games on mobile devices, it provided facts and figures. Facts cannot be argued with. Asking humble opinions isn’t going to get you anywhere, has anyone even used every 5 of the business models you give as choices and seen the difference so that they can actually give a reasoned account why 3 is better than 5, or 2 better than 1? If not how can they possibly comment which is the best except as IMHO. If you’re serious do the footwork yourself, then you will accept what you learn because it took effort to find out.
Thanks everyone for your post. We are just trying to get peoples ideas and gauge what we feel is the best way to not screw the player but for us to make money as well. We definity are going to go free with IAP’s, but I don’t really like jacking the prices up forcing the user to have to buy credits to buy stuff. It’s like going to mcdonalds and buying a burger. You don’t mind spending money for a burger, but you don’t want to go in and buy a gift card so you can buy the burger. It just seems dirty to me and I don’t want to continue the trend of making virtual items so expensive that is requires weeks of game play to unlock, which most people won’t do. I think we will lock certain features and if the user likes the game they can unlock those features for a price. Another thing we are going to definity do is sell modifiers to customize the persons game play a little bit and most likely sell a virtual currency since it’s almost standard for some people.
I would say go freemium, make it so someone with more time then money can play through the whole game without spending a buck (but its going to take them alot of time) but the people with more time then money are going to throw down some solid cash.
Bad news for you: if you are not willing to be slimy, F2P wont work for you.
Look at cases like Punch Quest. They released a F2P game that was too generous. It did so poorly that they felt forced to revert to paid (too late to be honest, by that point they had lost momentum and the apple feature spotlight.)
The main reason people buy IAP is because they feel the game is too grindy. If the game is not too grindy, they wont spend money. I feel a game like Temple Run hits a decent balance, you WILL grind for weeks to unlock all high tier things, but it still feels like you are doing some progress, it still is grindy enough to encourage inpatient players to pay up, similar with Tiny Tower. At the end of the day, how slimy each of these games are is a very personal thing. Some will say Temple Run is great as it is, others will say its a perfect example of what’s wrong with the F2P model.
You just cant expect to go into the F2P thing with a high sense of morals, or what you perceive to be one, not if you want to actually make money.
I personally am attempting to avoid IAP not out of a moral sense, but because I rather not have to deal with these trolls. The trial is not until October and I doubt it will be a fast one. Once that’s cleared, I may jump into the F2P bandwagon, but I refuse to set myself in a position where I may have to sign an agreement with these guys or be part of time consuming litigation.
I would just have a couple of levels for free and if they like the game they will buy the unlock to keep playing more. That way they don’t lose anything for trying it. Then if you want you could add IAP on top of that but just sell something like cheats and not useful stuff in that case. That way the game wont become a grind. I don’t think you should make the game grinding and tedious just so that it complies with the AIP “norm” is supposed to be. I would rather play a non-grindy game with no IAP. And you can avoid being sued by the patent trolls if your game is successful.
While I agree you have to be a business man first, game maker second when selling your game I don’t think being 100% slimy is the best route. I think giving them a taste of the game and having them unlock it is the best route to go. Then I don’t have to jack up the prices to super high amounts and I can still add in IAP’s to speed things up. Anyways, thanks everyone for the comments and help. This really does help a lot as I been pulling my hair out on how to go about selling it. You would think this would be the easy part lol.
(which you can track). Some of the invited people might buy stuff or just spam more invites. Selling the game for fixed price is simpler but less profitable these days for mobile platforms at least. Remember that there are many players that use money a lot for one game if they like it enough. It really depends how the game is but some users buy alone enough to equal +100 fixed game sales.