Popularity and earning on mobile platforms

When I say mobile platforms, I think mostly android.
I would like to make a discussion out of this thread.
I am currently working on an simple android game and as I think, unique gameplay (2D ofc). I like making games as my hobby, but I am not so much programming oriented...

I would like to make my game popular and well accepted. But for popularity on just android, I must focus on Unitys integration with social networks.
On the other side, with great popularity comes the great ravenue (at least as I heard). So, I think ads are common way of earning money on games as single independent developer. As I am not well informed or skilled on this field, I would like to hear some advices. There are a lot of similar treads, but they seem a little outdated.

Mainly, I need help on some of these questions:

1. What are the best ways of spreding the word of my game (maybe before releasing for android)?
2. Does Unity support facebook and twitter integration and how well is it documented? Is it simple enough so anyone can easily use it?
3. What is the best method of earning money on android apps besides ads?
4. What is the best paid android network that works with Unity?
5. How easy or complex are ads for integrating with Unity and what is the best way of implementing ads system in your game?
6. Are in-game purchases possible through unity? How do they work?

Sorry for the long post, but I want to discuss this things with Unity users.

 

Couldn't select three, but from what I've seen Ads/IAP/Paid ads removal combo works best.

 

IMO, I would've liked to see the question from the consumer side: what do you spend money on when it comes to games. For me, I spend on expanded content. As for your questions, I'm not on there yet.

 

I never had any luck on android

 

Aiursrage2k May I see your games? I would like to try some of them if you've published any.

 

How experienced are you? Given the nature of the question, I will naively assume you do not have years of experience. In which case, I strongly support THIS ARTICLE.

Gigi

PS - Given your follow-up to Aiurs, I'll pre-answer your next question. I have 20 years as a professional software developer, 11 in the game industry, and in addition to my day job building training games, I have released nine Unity apps in the past 4 years, in my spare time. The article above is solid advice.

 

Thank you for your reply. I've read the title of article you linked. I will read it for sure, but.... I am not doing anything professionally and I like games more for their art value than actual game...ok...that's discutable... However, I am not highly skilled artist nor proggrammer, but when I was younger, I discovered Game Maker and made a few games just to play with friends in it. From that day, I started loving game development, but I didn't do anything about it. My programming skills are weak, but good enough for using Unity.

I wanted to stop making simple games for, practically miself, and I wanted to focus on the marketing first only because I've seen many examples of bad games turning into a big piles of money. I am 2nd year of high school and I know if I want to have something to do with game industry, I need to learn programming first, but it's hard choosing between art and programming because I love drawing and stuff, but programming is more needed for what I want and for, of course, making games.

Edit: Also forgot to mention that bad financial situtation had impact on my decision...

Edit #2: After reading that article... My understanding of it is that you need to get downloads first, money later. So, Stark first became the superhero and then got the money?
Either way, I still think that making games is fun!

Now...this went off the topic, so, please, read the questions above.