Monetization: Microtransations vs Ads

Hello everyone,

I've seem some people here saying that if you want a good revenue you should go for microtransactions instead of ads(or both, not relying only in ads).
So i'd like to ask some of you who have the experience, do you agree with it? Are the possible revenue for ads very low?
I have a startup company, i dont't have any game in play store/app market yet but will be releasing them soon, so do you guys think it's worth going for microtransactions in ALL games, or do you think we should mix with some games that have only ads?
Can you guys recommend a good plugin in asset store for in-app purchase?

Thanks in advance!!!

 

In-app purchases (IAP's) have the potential for more revenue than ads, but only if the game is built for this type of monetization. For example, Clash of Clans supposedly has an Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)/Lifetime Value of $5.10. Games like this are tweaked to "perfection" to make the most money possible. I even thought I read somewhere that they employ behavioral psychologists, but I can't find a link. But there are many more games that earn very little with IAP's. Some of the things that seem as if they would be popular and fair don't work very well. For example, I've heard that these don't seem to work well:

1. Try and buy: The first levels are free, then players must pay to play further. Apparently players overwhelmingly delete the app rather than pay. Then the player is gone forever and there is zero chance at monetization.
2. Pay to remove ads: Players love to complain about ads. But given the chance to pay a small fee to remove them, very few do.

Ads are a much more predictable form of income, but they don't pay very well.. $10/1000 impressions is incredible for an ad.. but that is only $0.01 per ad impression. So, statistically, a player must view 100 ads to be worth a dollar.

The other problem with monetizing through ads alone is that it is very hard to pay to get players for less than their lifetime value, since paid acquisition is typically over $1 per player these days.

I think the best idea, for making money, is to design a game with IAP's in mind and include both IAP and ads. There are many web articles that can tell you more about that than I can

 

Ads are bad if you aren't the one selling them. They're rude, they're crude…

IAP or charge up front is the way to go.

I used to use an app called i.TV that was ad supported and it was hugely popular at first but the known brands (e.g. TV Guide) chopped away at it and i.TV doesn't work anymore.

LOL, ads are something you'd use if you wanted to make more money from a game with plenty of up front and/or IAP profits that already had lots of players and lots of profits. You know the greasy feeling that playing Zynga games gives, that's when ads can make a lot of money.

 

I recently released an ad supported game and it did pretty well. Granted, it was featured by Apple which gave it lots of downloads, but I think it has made more money through ads than it would have made as a paid download. It is very hard for an unknown developer to convince people to pay up front for an unknown game these days. Paid games get 1/25 the number of downloads.

Also, the game "Threes" was a top paid game, and "2048" a top free game. I don't know for sure, but I would bet 2048 has made WAY more money than Threes.

 

But with IAP or Ads? I played your game it's pretty good but I don't remember any ads unless it was 1 ad at startup.

I did forget about the Flappy Birds guy and his supposed $50K a day was with ads only so he must of had 5 million users that played daily or rather 5 million ad impressions.

But is an ad impression simply that the ad gets served or are they playing games that one must click though?

I know a guy that has regularly made web pages (useful but very niche and junky looking) that makes $1000s he claims but he's still working as a traveling consultant so he' not rich from them. Maybe I'll ask him for marketing advice. $1000s for those web pages is no mean feat.

 

My game has occasional full screen interstitial ads between levels. 2048 has an IAP to remove ads, but if you look at the Top Grossing it is nowhere to be found. This means it is not making much money off of IAP's. The "Flappy Bird" guy said he was making $50k/day from ads as the #1 Free App. 2048 was #1 for a many weeks, and is still #7. 2048 has a great replayability, so I bet they are still making huge money.

But, in general, all forms of game monetization currently suck

 

Can you restrict ads served to maturity levels?

One thing you are in position to do since you created a recognizable unique character is to try IAP with alternate characters with your current game and upfront charging for sequels using your character.

You're probably not old enough to remember but when I was a kid there was plenty of popular 'toon' style promotional characters like Quisp Alien, Caption Crunch, the McDonald's gang, the Freakies, and so on. Some of those characters are still around.

 

I know many companies let you restrict by category and even block certain games. I don't know of anything specific to maturity.. maybe someone else does?

 

I will research then and probably choose one that does ads how yours did you ads in your game, I remember now it wasn't rude at all, lol, almost polite compared to typical ads.

 

Whatever happened to good old `up-front` pricetags?

 

There are so many high quality, free games that few people even consider paid games anymore.

 

When I had cable / satellite television long ago there where so many channels that most were infomercials. I think today even network television affiliates fill up non network time with infomercials at least much of the time.

You can consider indy gaming to be what YouTube could be in a 'Sundance' manner of speaking, only truly indy.

So you can consider yourself a network provider and IAP and ads your means of support. Your income is your network's ratings, nothing more. Only expect to makes lots of money upfront if you can get your game behind a glass case at retail generally.

Of course a graphic light Unity game is at #2 with over 500K copies sold in the Paid Games in the Apple App Store (and expensive App Store wise at $1.99) as I write this so that's $700K after Apple but before taxes. They can't retire but that's enough to spend 5 years developing games.

Those brothers probably have made much more money than your game but if I was to choose one of those games to move forward with it'd be MooseMouse's and not the other game. Nothing against that game.

It takes at least a million after taxes to retire to the beach drinking pina coladas in industrialized countries.

 

Ain't we covered this? "Free" by Andersen is a good start. Having tried all forms of monetization, I've settled on a mix. I have premium products (pure up-front). Then I have free products that guide customers toward the premium products. If the free product is also designed for LONG exposure, I include Ads. IAP's exist where it makes sense to provide compelling premium experiences (ex. content or burst play). That's my story .... from the school of hard-knocks.

Stats on free? My most successful free product consistently pulled 500 downloads/day. When I changed to an up-front charge, it dropped to 3-5 per day (at $4.99). At $0.99, purchases went up slightly, though made less overall. For those following, that's less than 1%!

Gigi

 

They joined the typewriters and ice factories

(reaches for popcorn)