Hi All, I work in business development and marketing and one good advice for those of you developers out there when pricing your games or apps is.. 1.) Always price it free first (games only for example) 2.) then charge $0.10 or $0.25 for each level up (episodes) etc...this way you get people hooked at the game and to them $0.10 or a quarter may not be alot at that time, but if you have 10 levels, the gamers have already lost track how many dimes or quarters they have paid if you price it too high, people aren't in the mental state to jump in and paid a $1.00 or even $2.99 for something they haven't tried! oh...and try cutting the game out BEFORE the level ends...probably end the trial version at level 2 (middle of game) just my 2 cents! don't know how the itunes store is setup if $0.99 is the minimum or something...that's one fact I do not know! thanks for reading!
So you don't know anything about the app store nor how it works? Thanks for the advice, but it really doesn't work that way.
I'm not a developer nor have I worked with Apple yet, but I'm just someone who just made $700K for my past company (startup of 10 employees) in a matter of 8-10months. Business is all about visibility, popularity, quality and value. In games..it's all about addiction...how can someone get addicted when they have to spend $2.99 on something they haven't tried, it's like buying a piece of clothes without trying it in the fitting room. It's also about moral, you don't trick the consumer in paying for it then it having a bug..I have an experience with an app and I swear to myself I'm not paying for a single thing coming out of that company. Won't even fix the problem! Anyway.... I think for games (level ups and episode) like "angry bird" for example I would definitely pay $0.99 for each world (episode) so that game would be worth more than $4.99 at the end of whenever it ends...and I hope it never ends....
This is all fine and good, but your particular experience has nothing to do with anything in this industry. It is a closed system, and you are basically talking to indies here. My ex-wife was the branch manager for a Fortune 500 company in New York City, she is an extremely competent business and marketing person. She was able to generate 50 million in revenue in a single year. In no way does this make her suitable for this environment- you either know someone on the inside, or you connect with someone on the inside, or you become extremely lucky. That latter is becoming increasingly difficult. There are a limited number of slots available in the app store. You are insulting a lot of developers by overstating that a game simply needs to be 'addictive' in order to be a hit. No, it needs to be lucky. I'm not saying you can't be successful in this industry. What I am saying is that your normal rules do not apply here. You might be surprised to find that the 'visibility' portion is almost impossible unless you are a branded large publisher.
Well ... microtransactions are becoming a pretty standard thing in the industry. But charging $0.10 to $0.25 for each level the player wants to play would just be awful. Cutting the game out before the level ends? What kind of nonsense? You have to give the player ALOT of quality before that trick will ever work. Please FavoriteIGames, read up on the Appstore and game design before posting threads of just assumtions and guesses.
In a certain way you are right, but my rules here ARE for gaming industry. Getting into the app store is one thing, but I have no means of insult but once you get in, you got to make money to make it worth it and there are strategies that will bring in more $$, I just attended a iphone play event where a keynote speaker of "ow my balls" said that Apple choose who gets featured on the top games, and I don't think that's luck, they choose the creative ones with good design to be featured. One way of getting more visibility ONCE you are in the app store is self promotion (networking!) and hard work which means you keep trying to promote it yourself! That's one way of getting Apple to notice you is to get more hits! I don't believe in luck, luck = preparation + opportunity you gotta prepare youself once you get the opportunity of getting in the app store. if you don't prepare yourself, that's the end of it, regardless of how many games you put on app store.
That's also one of my point, quality, if it's a quality game, they will pay for it. I've asked my friends around me and did a small survey, if they would rather pay $0.99 up front of something they didn't try or $0.10 for each levels after the 1st level trial. They all said the 2nd option, it's like going to the casino. But again, I didn't read up the appstore nor the game design section, but marketing strategies adapt to different game designs. Just my advice, no hard feelings here. I'm talking in Business ROI sense here. but as a consumer, of course I want everything free, but still willing to pay for the ones that I absolutely have to have!
I'm sorry if I sounded harsh in my first reply. I applaude you for giving your advice to fellow developers on these boards, but I don't agree with all of your advice. Lets just for arguments sake say that I create a game like Super Mario with levels in a standard progression. The game is free, and the user can play three levels before he/she is promted to buy the game. Now, since the game is free, it would be strange to feel robbed right? The potential customer might not feel robbed, but the jank out of the experience will be substantial. So this also ties into the design of the game, or the flow if you will. Now, if the game has been really top quality the customer might also think "oh this was awesome! I need more of it!" and then continue to buy another level. I am pretty sure the next time you ask the player for more money it will grow a sour taste in the players mouth ... regardless of the amount of money required. But games that have a persistent world surely gains from this method of transactions. Give away the base game for free to start build the addiction and then feed it with micro transactions. Nothing new here. So my point is that some games doesn't work well with the microtransaction model at all, and should probably avoided at all costs! I find it extremely hard to believe that such a model would ever work for the majority of games. Consider if all games did this in the end ... see a problem looming in the background?
What you're indicating might be true for some products or target audiences/markets - but you're presenting it as a 'one case cures all' approach which simply isn't the case. People should assess their product and audience on a case by case basis and decide their pricing accordingly imho. Apart from anything else not every game fits neatly into a 'sell a few more levels' category - my product is a sports management simulation which doesn't even contain the concept of a 'level' and its price of $9.99 is far from your 'ideal' - yet for its target audience its been accepted positively and has performed well .... Why is that? ... the game is one which is played for a LOT longer than the average iPhone title (its been out for 4 months now and data suggests that over 75% of our existing users are still playing it with many having played literally 'days' of game time*), its a niche title (soccer based) and as such will never go 'mainstream' outside of its target audience (especially in America), finally its got an established brand name (from our PC titles) and so a lot of our potential customers know what they're getting and have faith in the quality of our products. In summary - if you're creating a game, use research and back it up with common sense when pricing your title ... simple as that *It takes 4 hours to complete a 'season' in the game and quite a few players I"ve spoken of have retired after the 25 season limit which the game has. Thats equivalent to 100 hours of gameplay (or 4 entire days playing the game).
FavouriteIgames, It is next to impossible to know anything about the app business unless you try it yourself. The app store is not a "normal" marketplace! Having success is not guaranteed with hard work or great apps. Like Flickitty said the variables like "Luck" are just as important. The app store follows no logical business practices as is so overcrowded that being found is very tough. So unfortunately every piece of advice you have given here on this forum has very little value. Without firsthand experience it is really hard to understand the mechanics of i Tunes.
I agree with you that Apple chooses what goes in the appstore. My example was merely a single custom strategy towards the game that I have presented. I have played many mini games, and when I got to the next stage (it was still free) great for me, but in a business perspective, I WOULD have paid for the next "world" for example. Now this is where games developers should come together and look at the demographics. Too many developers develop a game from "their' interest and "not" the interest of the general consumers. Unless you are developing just for the heck and passion of it, games genre should be targetted to a certain age or group. Girls like puzzles for example and there should be a recommended for gal pal section, something like this. Thanks for all the comment guys! I'm learning alot more than I am presenting and it's nice to have discussions like this.! cheers! mimi No one has success on the model yet, because no one has tried it yet or Apple doesn't allow $0.10 or $0.25 increments. either the game is free forever or I paid up front which I never do.
I realize that no one has used this model with Apps for the Iphone/Ipad/Itouch. What kind of success have you had using this business model on any other platform? You mentioned that you made over $700,000 recently did you use this business model to do that or is this just a theory and what company uses this business model with any success?
Personally, I'd have absolutely no interest in a game where I pay .10 or .25 per level. Having to constantly take the time to upgrade my game just sounds like a big pain in the ass. For me, .99, 1.99, 2.99 already seem like very low prices to pay for games... I have no problem with it, even if I do occasionally get one that I don't really like.
The issue with microtransaction business models that work in other markets is that it seems that on the App Store people really expect to pay almost nothing for a game that is regularly updated for eternity for the single purchase price of 99¢. I know there are mobile games in Asian countries making money hand over fist selling different colored virtual hats that do nothing for your in-game avatar, but I really don't see anything like that having mass appeal with the expectations of your typical App Store customer which developers are basically tripping over one another to cater to in offering tons of gameplay for rock bottom pricing. I could be wrong, but reading the reviews of any game that is powered by in app purchase just seem to be a massive flame war.
I'm not talking about LEVEL in general, different games have different structures. It would be more like "worlds" where each world has 10+ levels...etc.
