This poll will be to find out what you prefer. Btw the second option: I meant a lite version thats funded by ads which turn off when people pay using in-app purchase for more content. If you have your own preferences not listed, please post. please post why you chose that option, this is about us learning what you really want
The demo should be at least long enough to get a taste of gameplay. About 2,3 levels or 20 minutes not including intro videos.
I'm for the traditional demo/full version model but I'm not sure a poll here will really give you useful data. E.g. I recall a study showing that indie games sell better if they don't have a demo available but you wouldn't find any consumer who'd say he wouldn't want a demo. Generally I think you're better off with no demo if your game is 1$ since people won't worry much about wasting a dollar, above that you'll have to ask a marketer. As for demo content, the optimal duration depends on your game. You should offer a combination of content that will give the player an introduction to the game (otherwise he'll get frustrated, see Monster Hunter 3 demo for an example of doing it wrong) and push him into a series of typical tasks the game offers so he can experiment with the mindset required. Just picking the first X levels of your game is often a bad choice if your difficulty curve doesn't challenge players right from the start, it's a bad demo when the player walks away with the impression "this is piss easy".
Yeah thats why I thought in-app would work. You'd be playing the proper full game till a certain point with iads, then when you have a quarter of the game you need to purchase to continue (which removes ads also). Another technical challenge is mantaining saved games across lite and full versions... its possible but annoying and very tricky. Seems like most people dont understand or even use in-app purchase though.
I picked the last option. Games that don't have a demo forces people to either take a leap of faith based on the screenshots and description or do more homework on the game to help decide if they want to purchase it. Games with ads are kinda annoying; bearable, but for people on the iPhone or iTouch, there's little realty space as-is. In my opinion, developers should do focused surveying for their specific games rather than relying on a broad, generic poll. Different games will entail different demographic bases that won't necessarily be the same as the results of this poll.
I don't mind ads in games to either subsidize the price or make it completely free. However, I'm also willing to pay full price on a game that I know is worth it. So none of the options in the poll are really suitable for me.
Imo I agree with the above for the most part. My additional two cents is that when an Ad is constantly taking up screen space during gameplay I almost always delete the game immediately. It's just a personal thing. The iPhone screen is small and when even 10% is constantly showing an Ad it just seems really intrusive to me. I would never complain that a free app had these kinds of adds, I just wouldn't use it. If there are ads I prefer them to appear in transitions between levels or before the start of a new game. However, I'm pretty A-type, so take my opinion with a grain of salt perhaps.
As a consumer, I prefer the Lite + Full version model. Anytime I play a free+ads game I usually just end up buying it and having to replay the first hour of gameplay. A Lite is usually short enough that I'm not tempted to play it for very long before deciding on buying or not. TBH, what I'd really prefer is an actual demo feature and no Lites at all, but the 'Free+IAP Full Version Upgrade' model is never going to be able to compete unless they restart all the App Store rankings or something..
The problem from the developer point of view is simple: you need to play my game for 3 hours for me to break even on development costs via advertising. Thats 3 hours of total play time with ads on screen all that time. If we just showed an ad before you played we would earn around 1-2 cents a day per person - not enough for food by any means whatsoever. And yes making a higher quality game will mean we need to find a way to finanace it - the art, the music - it all costs a ton. Advertising in games has been forced on developers, because of two things, and this is the gospel truth, and I *HAVE* run trials of the lite / full without ads: 1. When we removed ads and relied on people upgrading, they didn't. Sales remained identical. 2. When we brought ads back, we are now at least able to afford to pay the electric bill when it comes. It's not much, but it keeps us in electric in the year 2010. So you guys might complain about ads but without the ads there wouldn't be a game. You are all slowly forcing indie developers to move out of the market, once indie developers are stopped you will have nothing but EA and Gameloft titles. Thats OK they are good games, but the prices will go up, and up and up. The only way to break this deadlock is when you find an indie game that is good, you gotta support it. There's a lot of great indie games out there but no exposure on appstore, no budget for advertising. I wish we lived in a world where we could just do lite without ads and then paid but it doesn't exist unless you have a budget because the small developer really needs adverts from lite at minimum. In-App purchase works for this fine. You play the demo, then upgrade it to full. I don't see the problem. However because you can put 2 products out and get in more categories it makes sense not to if you do not have an advertising budget. Angry birds was big budget and still did tho. They could have easily just gone in-app. No idea why not...
