Overpaint is an upcoming iOS game with a different in-app purchase model. It's a freemium game with "Refill lives" (consumable IAP) but also has "Lives forever", a Premium Unlock too remove all limits. What do you think? Which model do you prefer? Thanks, LANDKA team Read more about Overpaint in this [thread=253134]post[/thread] (release date: March,19)
This is a tough question. In my opinion, premium is ALWAYS better. But in the moblie market, piracy and lack of any significant income for hard-working developers on premium titles is a big problem. So I think In the mobile market (i'm taking iOS and android, not dedicated consoles like the Vita and 3DS) the best balence between enjoyable premium and devs making a profit, is freemium with a premium unlock. On dedicated gaming platforms like consoles and PC, however, I think premium should be the way to go for the foreseeable future.
The average user: Rawwwwrrr I HATE IAP IT SUCKS KILL IT NOWWWWW Me: I rather the full premuim experience or free with a premuim unlock. Paid with IAP is just a mechanism to trick you into thinking that its a full premuim balanced game (Ex. Gameloft)
If you want the greatest odds of success, build your game with the capability for all of the free to play types in mind which you can quickly modify on the fly without needing to submit an update. As far as which specific IAP model you should use, that's what soft launches are for. The people here will always tell you to make your game premium or one-time unlock, but if you actually want to make money on it you need to soft launch and tune your monetization model based on actual usage to see what people are responding to. Not having an option with an unlimited spending potential to take advantage of whales is a great way to leave tons of money on the table.
I've slightly given up there will always be free 2 play but I won't play anyway there will be always new paid games without in app and adds maybe not much as free 2 play game but who download free 2 play in the toucharacde community
Thanks for your comment and for the soft launch suggestion... Your analysis on the freemium model is right. But the problem is that the top grossing freemium developers have their games very well tuned to extract every penny they can from consumers; everything is statistically tuned, shape and size of the buy button, game progression... everything! 1-2% of the players (i.e. the wales) pay for these games Question is: Take your favourite freemium games... would you pay a fair price for a Premium Unlock that would make all the remaining IAPs obsolete?
I NEVER spend money in consumable IAPs but if I could buy "Lives Forever" in Two Dots or "Gems Forever" in Clash of Titans for a fair price, I would... and I believe that a lot of players would also.... So I think you made the right choice with your IAP model. ALL FREEMIUM DEVS SHOULD DO THE SAME!!!! Who knows, you might be creating a new trend here. And congrats on your upcoming game. Great design and the music is really good
That would remove income based on whales who pay a LOT more than whatever anyone would accept as a "fair price" for unlimited xyz.
For the top of the line IPad racing experiences like Asphalt 8 and Real Racing 3 I would pay $34.99 for a one-time premium unlock that would include the ability to earn a much greater amount of regular and premium currency by just playing the game and no forced ads but that is a given. Companies like EA and Gameloft could still make money off the free player or the impatient premium player. I doubt this would happen since iOS is not yet looked at as a premium service to the general user and 34.99 would be balked at by many in the community but it is around the premium mobile price outside of iOS/Android and I think it's a fair price if Gameloft or EA could create loaded premium packages for their showcase iOS games.
And for a casual iOS puzzle game (like [thread=253134]Overpaint[/thread], our upcoming game), what do you think? Would you pay $2.99 for a Premium Unlock?
Absolutely a fair price for an unlock of a casual iOS puzzle game. Releasing as free-to-play with a unlock to me is the best way to go about it. It's also a nice bonus if you have time/resources to release a premium edition up front to those who don't like the unlock process but it's not essential and most don't mind.
I'm not a developer. As a pure user, I like 'free + premium unlock' system. The reason I don't buy a paid game is I don't know how much fun it is. So there are many game sites like TA. But if it's free, I can download and play at least. And if I like it, I'll buy premium contents in the game.
But games are so cheap. Plus you can see lots of videos on YouTube before deciding on spending a dollar. As you say there are other sites so I think there's a wide range of sites/YouTube videos for people to decide on buying an app
Do you really think wales represent such a big slice of the Pie? What about normal folks... who enjoy playing the casual game but don't want to be explored? Maybe they are not willing to pay as much, but there are certainly more sardines (normal folks ) than whales. Your game progress should be (mostly) dependent on your ability to play de game, or the time you spend playing it... Not in the amount of Elixir, Coins or $$ you spend to speed up your game.
yeah the sardines out number the whales, but the amount the whales spend greatly out numbers the amount the sardines do
I prefer paid premium, no IAP titles, but that's not exactly realistic today in a world, where F2G games buy ad time for a Super Bowl. A lot of freemium titles wouldn't even make sense without IAPs, as they are built around that mechanic. I saw job ads for positions like 'game monetization manager', which is just sad. I always thought that bringing back the shareware approach would make sense on mobile, where a portion of the game would be free, as a sort of demo, with a one time full version unlock IAP. I would definitely buy more games (and apps), if this was more common, because lets face it, there is a lot of junk in the AppStore, paid or F2G... It's more elegant, than having a separate trial version. I don't know why, but not a lot of games do this.
Freemium I'd really like to see a freemium model where IAPs are capped! i.e. the player can only purchase 10 IAPs before being locked out of the store for good. I believe that Freemium has turned into a seedy business model and has been damaged by game developers hoping to get players addicted (similar to gambling) I'd love if Google and Apple introduced IAP caps. It would encourage fairer markets and improve transparency. Any thoughts?
