I released an update to "Consumed", my Ataxx style board game a little over a week ago. With the update I decided to give it away for FREE and support it solely with whatever I made from iAds. It's turned out to be fairly successful, so I'm considering releasing my next game for free as well and supporting it with iAds. But I'm looking for a little more feedback on how the community at large feels about this. Is ads the best way to go, or is it more a case by case basis?
hi, i personally do not care for adds. but they only bug me if i really like the game.. so i say have the option to buy it add free for .99 or whatever.. most people who really like the game will pay full price to get rid of them.. and being free you may get more sales.. or make enough of iadds. i have a question. do you get money every time a new add pops up on the screen or if the user goes to the add's link? cause i never go to the add links.. never anything im interested in for most part.. and if i do go its by accident. chris.
Hi Chris, Using iAds (provided by Apple) the developer gets paid a small about (around 0.6 cents) each time a new ad is shown, and around $1.2 US each time a user taps on the ad. It's clearly a matter of volume and repeat launches of your app that leads to success in this modal. I personally don't like ads myself. But with Apple releasing iAds (their own ad network) there was finally a way to have high quality ads that didn't take the user out of the game. So I figured I would give it a try. With that said; I think you've got a good idea...by providing it for free with ads more people would get to try it out and if they decide they like it enough they can choose to pay a little bit to get it ad free.
If you make the ads in a nonobstrusive place that won't make anyone angry, they'll keep playing the game. Which translates into more opening, new ads, more money etc etc. I think this is perfectly fine and it already worked for you, so go for it. As long as they don't impede the game experience, it's fine. But having a 'pro' version with no ads and a few small upgrades would also be beneficial. That way people can still pay for it without ads. But if the ads aren't obstrusive then I don't think many people will want to upgrade. So that's why I think you'd need small and appealing upgrades on the upgrade. Overall, I think you should consider the game you're trying to market before slapping the Free with ads on it. If you feel as though it really blows away the competition then I wouldn't put it for free. But honestly, no one knows what's best since the appstore is so subjective.
Definetley go with a free ad-supported version released alongside a paid ad-free version. This way you will expand your customer base by letting people have the best of both worlds and choose which they prefer.
I´d rather pay for the game, as i don´t want them to constantly leech my bandwith away by downloading useless ads. Lite/Full is fine for me.
I hate ads! I delete games that have them unless they are pretty good games. An option to pay to have ads removed could work well. It has to be a pretty good game though. I paid to have ads removed from Graffiti Ball because I liked the game. Wouldn't do it with most others though.
There's different sort of adds and it's a lot about their intrusion level. If it's between each game session, there's two cases. If you die quickly in the game or if game sessions are very short then the add is too much. Otherwise if it allows touch to skip it rather fast, it's fine. If it's an ad at bottom during the gaming, I have seen once, it's an almost instant drop right after to have touch the bottom once or twice. If it's at top during the gaming, if it catch sometimes the attention then it breaks the gaming and it's the trashcan. If it never catch the attention, well I can bear it. Like some already quote, make also a paid version.
If we want this platform to grow, we MUST support our devs, esp the indies giving quality content (not the fart ones). With that said, if the ads will help them, then why not. But the argument here is whether Apple's iAds will work for the regular Joe. Just based on the responses here, people tend to get irritated with ads. If majority of app users will find the ads intrusive to their user experience, then this marketing model will not succeed. But we'll see. I am always eyes wide open for Apple to pull white rabbits and dinosaurs out of its Apple hat. Look at the success of the iPhone 4 despite its problems. If iAds will succeed, I will be so happy for our devs, which directly means more growth for this platform.
Sales will help them aswell, i personally do prefer an ad free game. My mobile bandwith is limited, so i can´t afford it being wasted by iAd. Besides, i did already opt out on iAd. You can do that yourself over here: https://oo.apple.com/
Seems this is the consensus thus far. Free (ad supported) version and a paid version without ads. I think the paid version should probably include more content as well? But that leaves the ad version as a lite version With ads.
I agree some of the other statements. The only free games with ads I keep on my device and play are the ones where the ads don't get in the way while I'm playing. Even if I'm playing and theres and big bar at the bottom with ads pushing the game screen up, thats still extremely annoying...there should never be ads in the gameplay, ever...I'll never click the ads on those games and I'll erase it immediately and will never think twice about redownloading it. There's games where the ads are at the menu only or when you finish a level or something, that's the kind of game with ads I support and will click on an ad to support and write a review.