I'm working on a new multiplayer game that we hope to have out by the end of the year, and I want to release it for free so people are always able to find someone to play against. We were thinking about having a $.99 version with no ads and single player, but I wanted to get others opinion on it. I always told myself I wouldn't do ads in a game because I really hate them, but spending 8 months on a game we decide to release for free kind of stings too. So what do you guys think of this method? Free multiplayer with ads, $.99 upgrade to do away with ads and ad single player.
If it's free and the ads are unintrusive to gameplay, I'm okay with them. If I paid for the app and see any ads, though, I despise that.
If it's a free app I really don't mind the ads. If it's a paid version with adds then yes i do get pissed. Your idea of paying 99 cents to remove the adds and add single player seems fair enough altough i'm not sure how others will react to this but spending 8 months on an app i can understand your decision to do this.
I wouldn't mind. I would actually prefer it becuase i don't mind ads and i always love a free multiplayer game. Mind posting screenshots of what your working on?
As long as the ads aren't annoying and don't hinder the performance. Text Plus's ads are annoying as shit and they bog the app down.
I'd say do a pro version instead of an IAP since the people who write reviews seem to think that IAP is 'evil' and devs who use IAP are greedy scam artists. But they don't have a problem with a Pro or Deluxe version.
I think it really depends on how IAP is implemented. Too many devs use IAP to give players an unfair advantage in the game. If you just do benign things like cosmetic features, then it isn't bad at all.
RocketCat did something like this with Hook Champ. A couple characters had no advantage, except for Hookbot, but reviews still complained about them being greedy devs. It's not the IAP's problem, it's the consumer being spoiled by insanely popular 99cent games with free updates forever.
Yeah, generally if it's not going to affect your gameplay (like the costumes in SFIV, which you are by no means forced to purchase), then by all means, go ahead and implement IAP. I also like the idea of allowing you to either purchase the full version from within a lite version, or purchase the game piece by piece through IAP. Even when you are allowed to buy boosts or items through IAP, it's not as if you're being forced to purchase these add-ons, and it just seems like such a trivial thing to complain about.
It has to be an in app purchase otherwise the 2 versions can't play together (limit of plus + instead of my own servers). The upgrade wouldn't change the multiplayer aspects at all. It would only add in single player and remove ads. I can't really post a ss yet as I'm currently redoing the art for the 3rd time IM NEVER HAPPY