My Thoughts on Unity Ads and Game Dev

Well i found an easy way to develop a smart phone app and add an advertizing package into it. But my research lead me to think its not such a great idea. You see i would be lucky to pay 33cents per install and be lucky to get .009 cents per video watched and lucky to have users watch 5 videos per session. The real killer is that about 20% of downloads will be abandoned after 1 use 80% will play the game twice and only 16% will play 3 times or more. So lets say you spend 4000 dollars on installs at .33 cents you would get 12000 downloads for you budget. Lets say your game has a good hook that gets you 25% that are daily players viewing 5 ads per day and they play for many months or till game end (which is not likely) that (2550players x 5ads) x .009 = 114.75 per day x 30days = 3342.5 + 425 for the other one to two time plays Gives you 3767.75 in a perfect first month with 12000 downloads on day one, which will never happen. I saw one study of downloads which got 4000 in 2 weeks so it would likely take 2 months to get 12000 downloads. So month 1 and 2 would bring in 1671.25 from regular players and 212.5 from two time players. Giving us 3767.75 for the first two months and 3342.5 for the 3rd month. So in a perfect situation we earn 7110.25 which is not bad but got to remember we would probably not do that well as getting 25% of players to keep playing is merely betting that our games twist will do better then the 16% and getting the players to view 5ads per session will be tricky to pull off but i have some ideas. Anyways now that we have made 7 grand we need to invest another 4k to do more ads for installs so we are left with 3110.25 profit for 3 months or about 1000 dollars a month not really that good knowing that profit is a perfect world reality is probably half that. Knowing that a perfect world does not return a great amount for the amount of views you get one has to conclude that its a risky investment unless you can get a lower install cost like .25 cents and are able to insure a better per view pay and the best that unity ads offers 1.2 cents it rates the quality of each ad played so you get anywhere from 1.2 .006 cents per add. I believe that there pay range is too low I think they should be giving a better share of the pie seeing how we pay them to develop with there app, we spend the time and money developing a app, and risk money getting installs to make them money. Im sure they are getting allot more and could afford to pay out more making app development and advertizing less of a risk. Right now as an investment it only works with perfect numbers or your app is out of this world hot and takes off like a bat out of hell. Honestly Unity waking up to this problem and giving a better share would only make them more money because people would develop and advertize because they can make a profit. What do i think is fair well i think they should go 50/50 with its developers, If they did this they would only stand to increase there revenue from ads, sales of software and assets. Unity would get way more action all around if they went 50/50 on the ads. The Unity Ads Network would become the number one net work and advertizes would be willing to pay more because they know the network has the most developers which are supported better then any other network. I know im right. The game i want to make i call Sacred Berry Blast and i have two new ideas to put in the game to increase interest and to keep interest in playing basically i have 2 rewards that can be unlocked by leveling or unlocked to a limit by watching ads. Also one reward also will have an additional reward if the player wishes it. Well this area of game design its over populated I believe I stand a chance at doing better then what the stats predict. But i do feel that i might abandon this investment do too high cost to advertizes and low returns. It would be a 5k easy investment that could go south i have to consider that prob has a 66% chance of success. Well if you read this far i thank you for listening to my ramble. Im sorry i did not proof read so pardon my errors. If you have experience or knowledge in getting install cost down and in game ad revenue up, please comment im all ears. Also please comment on anything even if you just want to tell me off and say im stupid i can handle it just make sure you make your case as to why so i can improve. And Unity people if you happen to read this could you address the idea of 50/50 share on the ad revenue as what you pay now in reality is only good for people that have a smash hit. People could get money to advertize if the numbers were better, right now i cant take it too the bank because revenue rate is too low. I would like to develop this game and advertise the crap out of it to get it too top ten lists so i can make enough money to employe people. I actually have a old game i want too buy the rights from Sony and develop it for 5 systems it would be a first on the PC and because of its difference it is sure to be a hit. I would use unity game engine and i would have ingame ads which if i made a million from unity ads i would leverage all of that money to get enough money to be my own ad network if unity ads is not paying a fair return. Trust me the game i want to port from and old Sony game, will sell great because it will be one of kind on PC its my understand Sony sold over 75k units. I plan to make the game better and sell it on 5 systems and i know of a major company that would fiance the idea if i had a success under my belt and a million of my own, because they stand to gain also. So you see if you just payed more i would be able to see it as an investment and shoot for the stars. If i was porting a game i would rent a studio and have a ton of developers using your game engine but i would sell video ad space directly at the current rates. Well i have rambled long enough.

Cheers
Jasun

 

Sorry, wall of text above... Can you please rephrase, so your points are more clear, thanks?

/Rasmus

 

My first thought, looks like a copy and paste from somewhere to be honest.

 

+1 for effort

 

Can you please break up that wall of text so it's easier to read?

 

Hey Jasun,

I've seen you posting around the forum. Wanted to bring your attention to this post if you haven't already seen it, since it might help provide you with some insight. Feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.

Kind regards