Is Premium Mobile Gaming Viable?
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Freemium costs more to make, and to run, but the returns are higher - if it works. The logic goes that the more you spend (generally on branding/marketing/external IP) the surer a bet it is. This does mean investments are huge (tens of millions to get started now) but returns are potentially massive.
Frankly, given the exposure Monument Valley received, such as being used by Apple and others in ads, the revenue is disappointing. Steam and the console indie markets are much safer.
Part of the problem here is that freemium has devalued the mobile games experience for the 90% of players that play but don't pay. They now largely won't pay.
It turns out, however, that putting an absolute time-lock on a game that is removed with a single IAP is far less lucrative than building in a recurring consumable purchasable IAP model that some players will buy over and over.
So developers were forced in to a marker without a viable shareware solution, where downward market tends still pushed the initial value to $0 (as was shareware) with little recourse except IAP, where an even better model was discovered.
So I not only disagree with this article, but I believe IAP isn't quite as evil as it's made out to be (except in a few rather blatantly manipulative examples).
Source: I own a successful casual mobile game development company and follow gamer market trends closely.
By far my favorite way to find and buy games is to have a free app with the first (x) levels and then a single IAP of $1-10 depending on the game to unlock the full package.
That way I get to see if I enjoy the game and if it runs well before hitting that "buy" button and I'd imagine this helps to get people to try out a title in a marketplace full of free options.
The only issue from a my standpoint is how so many games are designed to be seriously unplayable (or at least un-fun) unless I keep paying a dollar or two every day. Whether it's time limits (less annoying) or needing in-game currency to progress, so many games start to feel like the only thing holding you back isn't skill, practice, or puzzle-solving but the fact that you haven't spent $10, $20, or $50 on IAP.
I can only imagine that this has proven to be the more profitable setup since that model seems to have taken over the Apple and Google app stores and I doubt developers would be doing it if it wasn't for a reason.
Still sucks for somebody like me who has no problem paying $5-10 (I mean, come on...it's the equivalent of eating lunch at a restaurant instead of packing one at home) for a game as long as I can play a few levels first to see if it's something I'd be interested in. Instead I end up buying the few I can find like that and when I finish them, it's back to the pile of time-limited freemium titles I have installed and cycle through any time I want to kill more than 5 minutes screwing around on my phone.