There's been a lot of discussion lately about piracy, and that a solution is to start using paid DLC inside a demo app, as opposed to selling a paid app. Now, at the moment that's not very viable because ±70% of iPod touch owners are still on 2.2.1 and cannot use apps with DLC. But if we assume the next iPhone OS update is free and all iTouch owners upgrade, is it something we should all seriously consider for the future? I can see benefits in having just a single app that acts as your demo and uses DLC to be unlocked to a full version within the app itself: - notably it would counter-act piracy, - it would streamline the 'upgrade to full' process for the customer, - it would simplify marketing of two separate apps into just one app, - it should clean up all the lite versions off the App store, lowering the number of duplicate search results, and the amount of apps submitted. But I also see negatives: - Some games or apps simply can't offer a demo version without giving away most of the full functionality* (e.g. a demo of Tetris), - As the app would be free to download, anyone could leave bad reviews without purchasing or trying the full version, - There would no longer be potential to get exposure in the paid charts, as all apps would move to the free charts**, - Lose the potential for customers who will buy an app straight away on impulse before trying a demo, - Lose the effect of when a lite app becomes successful and brings sales to the paid app(?). - Customers might find it frustrating needing to go through the purchasing and downloading process twice. *could be workable if Apple allowed timed demos. **Which kind of breaks the system of the app store, so maybe Apple can fix it by separating full 'free' apps from 'unlockable' demo apps into separate charts. A few of those points are question marks, but has anyone else been thinking about this as the future 'App store' model?
You make some really great points both positive and negative. I'm really not sure that the benefits outweigh some of those negatives. I know a LOT of iTouch owners who are still on 2.x because they don't see the point of upgrading, though as more and more apps are released 3.x and up this trend may change. The points you make about appearing on the top paid charts are incredibly relevant as well and definitely something to consider. Thanks for the post and the well thought pros and cons! Q
It's only worth considering if it does really stop piracy, which I think it won't. Once the full game has been bought and unlocked then that binary can end up on sharing sites the same as it does now with only little extra effort. But a very interesting and balanced viewpoint, EP. Is there any data or anecdotal evidence out there from anyone who has taken this route?
Really interesting post. Think the review thing is an important point - I think people are more likely just to give up on a game and give it a bad review if they haven't paid anything for it, so I think there would have to be some way of limiting that.
These pros are nice - but who says that those who play pirated apps are going to purchase them if they're forced to? And I think the fact that users will have to upgrade to the latest version of the software (to use DLC) is an advantage against piracy. Not being able to be featured on paid sections is a bad thing, but how often does that occur? The worst, however, is definitely all the poor reviews users can easily give free apps.
I do. In my limited experience I've come across quite a few friends who pirate certain things but will pay for other things when they are forced to. Example, one friend of mine never pays for music and gets it all illegally, but he buys tons of DVDs because it takes him too long to download movies on his connection. He also buys $100 pairs of jeans… People who spend all their money on material goods and still pirate things piss me off more than anyone, but anyway… Even though my experience is anecdotal, I am very sure a percentage of the pirates out there will move to purchasing things if the opportunity of piracy is removed.
How does Gameloft get away with their "disposable" demos? After two plays the demo will not run anymore. A limited play demo gets around the limited content and timed demo rules apparently.
Is this a confirmed statistic? The last survey that caught my eye pointed at 2.x users only being about 20% of the entire device volume. Another relevant question is if people who don't care about updating their device care about buying games.
20% is still a large number - but, here are some real stats (from our highscore submission system) Code: Mobile 1UP : OS Versions (2009-11) iPhone OS v2.0 0.19% 100.00% iPhone OS v2.0.1 0.00% 99.81% iPhone OS v2.0.2 0.00% 99.81% iPhone OS v2.1 1.31% 99.81% iPhone OS v2.1.1 0.56% 98.50% iPhone OS v2.2 5.06% 97.94% iPhone OS v2.2.1 12.17% 92.88% iPhone OS v3.0 18.16% 80.71% iPhone OS v3.0.1 8.99% 62.55% iPhone OS v3.1 6.18% 53.56% iPhone OS v3.1.1 2.06% 47.38% iPhone OS v3.1.2 45.32% 45.32% 19.29% are using pre 3.0 versions of the operating system
I am curious, can you point us to those "disposable" demos since I think many of us would like to confirm it. And if it does, ill be happy to report them as such, Apple should threat every developers with the same set of rules.
The free version + in-app purchases is working quite well right now for us, at least we make more money with the free version than with the paid version. For getting featured it is better to have a paid version though, and like you said it's also good for people who buy on impulse with the easier apple App Store interface (or the genious feature, or with iTunes, think about parents). I'm wondering about the reviews - the reviews which we get on Cocoto Kart Free are hilarious and seldom related to the game itself. Probably most people who download free apps don't care a lot about the reviews though. I don't know if firmware 2.21 is still a problem, probably most people who want to spend money already bought the $4.99 upgrade. We have seen that 3.0 is much more stable and gives less headaches and have not seen a significant download disadvantage against v2.21 compatible games. We are however mainly doing paid apps, if your business is to make free apps with ads then supporting v2.21 is probably still interesting. About "same set of rules": Our first lite version was rejected for displaying a "Buy" button in the main menu. Apple said they only want full featured applications and we should display some link in the about-page or at the end of the game. But when I see some lite versions now that show 5 pages of advertising before you can actually get to the actual game then certainly the rules are more random.
Admob keeps track of iPhone OS adoption rate, and the last results they published showed only 35% of iPod touch owners have upgraded to OS 3.0. The results are dated end of September, so they're a couple of months outdated. I'd be surprised if they've changed dramatically since then though. http://metrics.admob.com/2009/09/iphone-os-adoption/ Are we sure that's the right assumption though? It's quite rare that I'll come across a game that doesn't support at least 2.2.1, and $4.99 can go quite far in terms of app store purchases, rather than spending it on a relatively useless update for iPod touch users. I do think Apple needs to do something to push the remaining 60-65% iPod touch owners to upgrade to 3.0, namely making it a free update. I don't know any Gameloft demos that do this, can you specifically name one or two?
Admob doesn't really have a good reputition when it's about giving numbers. Also their stats are based almost completely on free apps. The upgrade to 3.0 is far from being useless, like I said just the stability improvements would already be worth much more. Apple can't make advertising with that fact though.
Keep in mind that iPod Touch users only have wifi, so they'll also be much less likely to submit high scores and generally do things online in your app... That means that the pre 3.0 numbers would actually be quite a lot higher.
Would be interesting to know the exact number. From my experience 99% of people have WiFi, the number of players connecting to our servers and the download number reported in iTunes is almost identical. But we have 'Online' in our apps names so people without any online connectivity might not download it.
That's a good point actually… If Mobile1Up hasn't separated the OS results depending on iPhone or iPod touch devices that could be skewing those results quite a bit. I'd be interested to see the OS results solely for iPod touch devices.
We plan on making Halp! The Advice Generator into an in-app buy to full. I think that a lot of people don't really know what they're getting with the app so a chance to sample things out and then buy the rest of the advice would be better than just selling the full version. Does anyone know conversion numbers on such things? At least your own personal experience. Plus I think free + upgrade apps will go a long way to building some brand recognition for new people. We'll see!
