i don't fully understand why developers are constantly turning premium games into f2p games. If they need more revenue why not just make a separate free version of the game. I don't think it would cost anymore for development so I do not understand the advantage of this. Plus this would keep the paying customers happy.
Its quite common. Happened to Table Top Racing. They need to generate money and updates arent cheap. Some people expect updates to their games forever for free (despite the app being just a few dollars). If the devs dont make enough money then they fold, go under, the game will never be updated and thats one more dev gone from iOS development. Its not great when a paid game has ad's but the reasons are often genuine.
Two apps to update all the time. Sure it'll cost time and money. I 'presume' they went with the ads as they perhaps didnt make enough money and need to cover costs. Having to update two apps constantly must be a pain
Doesnt each app you put up on the app store has an upkeep to stay listed? That coukd be another reason that devs cant have 2 versions of the game up.
Of course not. All you need is a one-time-(per year) payment of 99$ for the developer status and then you can submit as many apps as you want. Apple gets a nice cut from every sale that your app makes, so it'd be pretty stupid to limit developers with how much they can upload. And if that was the case you would see apps pulled way more frequently.
You hit the nail on the head. I currently work in the technology field and so software development. My current role is more of a designer but I did use to code quite a bit. The problem with 2 apps is that no matter how similar the codebase there will still be some differences. The upside is that you can probably use the same team to do patches but you are still doubling effort. Not just in terms of coding, but also testing. For smaller development shops that is a lot of effort and all that effort equals money they have to pay someone to code, test, release, etc. I don't think people realize how much effort goes into some of these games. Even a minor release can take a big effort to get it out the door.
Well you see, sometimes developers have absolutely no respect for their customers, and they want to share that lack of respect with the world. Think of it as a public service announcement: they're telling all of us that they don't deserve our money, and that we should spend it on more reputable developers. It's a form of charity!
Because why limiting yourself to 3 dollars max per user when you can hunt some 'whales' to get 100's?
Quoting CrazedJava because there seem to be plenty of people in this thread completely ignoring it completely.
Look at how much King has made from Candy Crush. That's why f2p is so popular, despite how much most TA members hate it. I hate it but understand why they do it.
I don't hate free-to-play. It has it's place. If you're a developer, you want to get your game out to as many people as possible, and what could be better for that than giving your game away for free? The problem is when you take money from people under false pretenses. If you take money in exchange for providing a game without timers and ads, then after the buzz dies down, instert timers and ads into the game that you collected money from... you're screwing over the very people who supported you the most. It's immoral. That's my opinion. If you do this sort of bait and switch garbage to your biggest supporters, I consider you to be a bad person.