I’m looking for some advice.
I learned a lot while making/releasing my game. Quintet is now in the app store (for $1.99)… I’ve had about 10 people purchase… I have the webplayer up for free and I’ve had lots of people play and tell me they really enjoy the game.
I was chatting with my g/f and she asked me what I really wanted from all of this… and I said, “I really just want lots of people to play my game.” however… these Unity licenses are not free… So… here is my question to y’all.
I was thinking of one of these paths:
Free + In App Purchase
(note: I have a free cowbell app in the app store… .it gets 1000 downloads a month… however the paid version is around 15 a month).
- Make my app free in the app store. And add an in-app purchase for additional levels/missions. (I like pay for content, not pay to win)
- What do I do with the webplayer? Do I leave it without those levels, and then try to get it on Steam or somewhere else where I can make some money?
Kickstarter
- Personally, I’d be happy just making the $3000 I spent on Unity Pro + iOS pro.
- I could just make the app free (web and iOS)… this way I could spend time on content instead of purchase systems
- What do I make for rewards? It’s a pretty simple game… do people really want mugs and stuff?
Something else?
Thank you all for any advice and input.
-Carmine
A free app with IAP works, but if you’ve released it as a paid app, then change it to free, you’re gonna peeve the folks who already bought the game.
Perhaps create a slimmed down, free version of the app and release that. That will draw in more players, who will then, hopefully, move on to the paid app.
As for Kickstarter, I don’t know of many projects that ran a Kickstarter after releasing a game. In my opinion, people will see that as “no one is buying my game, but give me money anyway.”
Also, in my experience, no… people do not want your coffee mug. Most don’t want your t-shirt either. In Kickstarter, they’re typically looking to JUST show support ($1 - $5) or they’re looking to pre-order the game (usually $20). Then, of course, you sometimes get the crazy rewards, like the whole “Have dinner with Tim Shafer for $10k!!!”
What about a free version on ipad with Ads ?
I originally thought of this and did a lot of coding for it… the ads just make it look so ugly… 
Also… the ad revenue I’m getting for the 1000 downloads is pretty close to the $15 i’m making from paid. However that app is really simple. This kind of game people stay in for a long time so it could be better.
That’s the point. You’ll never make much money off of ads. You want people to buy the full version so they don’t have to deal with the ads.
The problem is that you’re not going to make the cost of the unity engines back from that agme, whether you run ads, or a kickstarter. I got into doing an iPhone game back when it was still iPhone 1 and there was no available info on sales figures, everyone was keeping stumm. I no longer do these games because the chance of having a success is less than winning the lottery. there are a couple of options though. A company called Astraware in the UK makes a decent living on just publishing to mobile devices. It would mean a little more expenditure but you could get Marmelade (or something similar) which allows one to port to over 650 million devces worldwide, but, and it is a big but, the last time I looked there were only 3 other viable mobile markets including the windows phone. This is a business model that can work with ads but probably won’t. The other option is to do a kickstarter but not for this game for something to take yourself further. Look at what this guy is doing:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2059856091/power-up-the-modern-retro-shmup-for-xbox?ref=category
Approach it from that angle and possibly you could raise enough to cover the original cost of setting up.
BTW, the uptake from a free app to a paid one is minute, less than 1%. Also if you wished to change it to completely free I wouldn’t worry too much about annoying the 30 people who have downloaded your app. Note in the app store that a lot of these assets go on sale, a great many I bought for the full price, but I was satisfied it was worth it at the time so don’t get too annoyed when the same asset goes on sale.