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[FTLRalph]

Hi guys.

I'm close to releasing my first Android game.  I've spent a good two or so months on it and it's coming along nicely.  It's not going to be a smash hit like some of the more popular games, but I feel it'll still be a fun little gem (old arcade-style space shooter inspired by games like Galaga, Bosconian, etc).  It's single-player and based on the idea of old arcade games - get to the highest level you can, gather points, and submit to a leaderboard.

Anyway, as it comes close to release, I'm wondering how I should go about monetizing it.  As I see it there are two options, ads or a paid version for $0.99.  I'm not sure which path to go about:

Ads:
- (Pro) Free game, more downloads.
- (Con) Not many places to put ads other than the main menu, as that's the only menu in the game besides a high scores page. Not a lot of money made?

Paid version:
- (Pro) Guaranteed at least a few bucks from people buying the game.
- (Con) Who's going to buy a game no one's ever heard of from a no-name developer? (This game doesn't lend itself well to "trial" and "full" versions.)

Anyway, looking for some input from some of you more experienced folk.  Somewhat off-topic, but I realize to be even partially successful using either method, I'm going to have to do some marketing before release, any tips on that, too?

Thanks a lot!

[kamac]

- (Pro) Guaranteed at least a few bucks from people buying the game.

Meh. Nope. It's not guaranteed.

But here is my summary for you:

Security Manager (shitty but always) has made crushing revenue of 0.95$ during one year. I used ads there.


Spell Breath (fairly good) has made 3.40$ during two weeks.


Also, don't go with admob if you want to make your game popular. I've spent 50$ on it and got 100 free version downloads and 0 purchases.

[FTLRalph]

Wow, not to be offensive or anything, but those are some pretty soul-crushing numbers.  I knew mobile games were tough unless you had a hit, but I never knew it could be so bad.

[Hima]

There are blogs that are open on how well they're doing with their android games/app. Here are some of them

http://droid-blog.net/category/money-income/
http://www.kreci.net/tag/revenue/
http://makingmoneywithandroid.com/category/report/
http://www.ziggysgames.com/revenue

All of these seems to earn $800 or more monthly. Some even reach $2000 or $5000. Looking at what they do, it seems like they optimize their ads by using many ads service and code it so that the ads fill rate is always high.

You can also do both. Offer a free version with ads, and a paid version without ads and some goodies. For example, Pop Star, a collapse block puzzle game, offer two version that are pretty much identical. Lite version, however, only let you play 5 stages and you cannot save your progress.

Some games/apps just remove ads and offer no new features. I don't have data on how well this work though.

[Tokinsom]

IMO ads in mobile games are extremely tacky and say "Hey I developed this game solely for the purpose of quick money and respect my own work so little that I don't mind plastering tampax ads all over it and hope you simply lack the dexterity to tap the (Touch Here To Play) button and instead accidentally tap the ad I deviously placed 1 pixel underneath it so I can get 0.00001 cent."

At the same time I rarely buy mobile games because 99.2% of the time I regret the purchase, but I bought it anyway so the developer still made money.

Free mobile games suggest, well, they aren't really worth money. However, I imagine a lot more people browse the free games section than the paid games.

[moi]

what makes me worried is that android advertisement is becoming more and more obnoxious like this shitty API (I think it's tapjoy) that sends spam notifications in your phone status bar AFTER you've played the game.
I saw a couple famous games wich adopted it.
Yeah android is not a very good environment for devellopers, google is more preoccupied with selling advertisements all over the web than providing a good service for devs.

[PompiPompi]

Just don't use the ads?
But I do agree the Android App store underperforms compared to iPhone's App store. The ads are just the "icing on the cake". But even if you don't use Ads, it's not an optimal environment.
The thing is, people assume that just because it's a big company, they know what they are doing. It's not always the case. Maybe they just don't care, why put an effort in something that works good enough?(sarcasm)

[Muz]

Ads need to be custom to be effective. I'm certainly not going to click the ads that say "Opera mobile browser" or "Free hot celebrity wallpapers!!!" But I did click some of the ones on Draw Something, which basically has a nice, clean pop up ad in between games. None of them are annoying, some even a little amusing.

Games don't really work well with ads, because they just get in the way. If you can build an ad into your game, instead of putting it as an ugly banner, it'll work better.


Go for a paid version. Have a good demo, then tell them about the things they get when they get the full version. Basically make them pay for extra levels.

Donation model works too. Give a full game, and just have a donation link where they can pay for a $3 'app' which doesn't do anything, but is intended to be an outlet to provide donations.

Microtransaction is also ok, as long as it's not necessary at all. The best microtransaction games are the ones where you buy visual items instead of gameplay items or 'cheats'.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Wow, not to be offensive or anything, but those are some pretty soul-crushing numbers.  I knew mobile games were tough unless you had a hit, but I never knew it could be so bad.

i've heard that 80% of mobile games make less than $100

your game will very likely be in that 80%

[Muz]

Heh, basically, you just have to know how to get really high ranked or at least something that gets a lot of recommendations. Something unique enough in its genre that pops up with the right search words.

Also good graphics. Good graphics really helps.

[moi]

It's funny that this thread premise is obsolete because Google just added in-app-purchases and subscriptions to their monetization options.
Yeah, you can make the player pay a subscription for stuff...

[kamac]

Maybe selling is not so bad. I've just earned 33$ from Spell Breath in three days. Thanks to becausewemay

[TylerYork]

I'd highly recommend going freemium for a number of reasons:

• People are more likely to try your game, which is crucial in a crowded marketplace
• People are less likely to pirate your game, which is very common on Android
• Freemium is shown to monetize much more effectively for paid apps, especially with hit games
• Even without a hit, you can still make decent revenue with ads, virtual currency and other virtual currency methods

There's good reason why Freemium is the go-to monetization method. It does take more work but it also takes work away from players to play your game

[PompiPompi]

It's funny that this thread premise is obsolete because Google just added in-app-purchases and subscriptions to their monetization options.
Yeah, you can make the player pay a subscription for stuff...

Games are sold for 5 bucks in Google Play, how much would they charge for a monthly subscription? $0.01?
Maybe a monthly subscription of $1 is a good trap, assuming your game has enough content and the player will like it enough to pay for it for more than 5 months :/
It's probably more for like... Android Dating service App or something like that. Not for games.

Edit: Also, is Monetization even a real word? O_O

[Christian Knudsen]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=monetization

[Mofko]

For marketing dependant on how confident you are with your game I suggest that you create a press release for it, send it to small games review sites, create at trailer if possible and share it on as many websites as possible.

Now the thing is, would people play your game?  Have you tested it?  Is there are market for your game?  If so, then promote as much as you like, if not then that is kind of spamming because people just wont take notice.  Depends how confident you are in it.