Pricing models
Freemium
Advertising
Discoverability
Paid or Free
You must decide whether the game is paid or released for free. Once the app has been released for free, it cannot be changed to paid. A paid app, however, may be switched to free at a later time. Releasing the app as paid is a straightforward way of getting paid for your efforts; build the app, release the app, and ask money for it.
You can also release your game for free, but how can you build an income stream if you’re giving it away? Some developers have taken the “free with ads” route, and while many are still doing this, you might want to consider other forms of income stream because of sheer competition. The prevailing thought is there are a lot of mobile apps advertising and not a lot of money behind the ads, so money is spread thinly. The basic idea is you offer the game for free and you display adverts to generate income. The key measurement to watch for here is CTR, which is short for click-through rate. CTR is the number of ads that were tapped divided by the number of ads displayed (impressions) expressed as a percentage. If you displayed 100 adverts and the user tapped twice, the CTR is 2%; the more people playing your game, the more adverts you display and the more chances for a higher CTR; that’s the basic idea.
Ads aren’t all created equal; some have higher potential than others. A banner ad, let’s say, for example, has a CTR of 0.02%; if your game displays 100,000 impressions, you get 200 clicks; at $0.05 per click, that’s $10. If your app is getting 100,000 impressions per month, you might want to think first before giving up that day job. Just doing this math, you can figure out how much impressions a game needs to get to a $1000 revenue.
Fortunately, adverts aren’t the only way to make money with free games. A decade or so ago, the freemium pricing model got into mainstream consciousness. Freemium is a portmanteau of the words “free” and “premium.” It’s a pricing strategy where you can release a game for free and derive income somewhere else, like in-app purchases, virtual currencies, and so on.
Freemium
- 1.
The extra content isn’t defined in the game itself, it’s defined somewhere in Google Play, which means you need to spend time in administering Google Play. When the items are defined, your game can then query Google Play to get a list of items available for purchase.
- 2.
When new game content has been bought (and downloaded), the game needs to change its behavior. The changes in game behavior depending on the content available need to factor into the overall structure of the game; this adds to the programming complexity.
By the way, going for the freemium model isn’t mutually exclusive with adverts, neither is it mutually exclusive with paid apps. There are shady developers who might release a paid app with adverts and then offer an in-app purchase to remove the ads. It’s not difficult to see how this can backfire. When the users start leaving comments and tell other users of the unsavory maneuver, it’s game over.
In-app Purchase
Managed items —These are items that can only be purchased once. They are attached to the buyer and not the device. Google Play keeps track of these purchases, which allows the user to query these items at a later time for restoration; also, if the buyer tries to purchase an item that they have already purchased, Google Play will respond that “the item has already been purchased.” Examples of managed items are levels, characters, or abilities.
Unmanaged items—These are items that get used up by the user, like coins, virtual currencies (VC), or anything that needs to be “refilled.” Unmanaged items aren’t tracked by Google Play; the user cannot “restore” these purchases at a later time. If you wish to track unmanaged items, you need to write code for that in your game. Like managed items, these items are also attached to the Google account and not the device.
Another monetization option related to IAPs is “subscriptions.” Google Play allows you to set up subscriptions that bill at regular intervals. A subscription is seen by your app as simply “on” or “off.” When it’s “on,” the user is allowed continuous access to content or services for a fee. The player can enjoy whatever your game has to offer while they are subscribed.
Virtual Currency
Virtual currency is in-game money. They’re called by many names; in some games, they’re called gold, coins, rubies, credits, and so on. VCs are points or numbers that your game stores for the player; and it allows the player to do or buy things while in the game. With VCs, the player can buy hints, upgraded weaponry, more health, and so on.
VCs can (usually) be acquired either by earning them while playing the game or by simply buying them (from Google Play, as unmanaged items) in exchange for real money.
Advertising
AdMob (https://admob.google.com)
Verizon Media (https://bit.ly/verizonmedia)
MoPub (www.mopub.com/)
These services have their own APIs which are generally easy to use. Visit their websites for the technical documentation.
It’s easy to get excited when implementing ads, and you might overdo it. Just remember that the goal for displaying ads is to make money. There’s a sweet spot between displaying ads and irritating your users; the law of diminishing returns clearly applies here. Users can get annoyed if there’s too much interruption brought about by ads; when that happens, the user base could shrink—your revenues will follow.
Getting your Game Discovered
There are thousands of games available already (approx. 300,000 in Google Play, at the time of writing) with many more on the way. This is red ocean territory; it’s a very crowded place; but there is no shortage of success stories. So, how do you get your games noticed? How do you make people aware that your game is out in Google Play and that it’s awesome? Well, you can always spend a lot of money on advertisements, or you can try the things outlined in this section.
Social Network
Facebook and Twitter are heavy hitters in social media. I’m assuming you’ve already used these platforms by now. There are many tactics in using social media to get your game some mindshare. You could always do what a lot of people are already doing, like building a Facebook page and “boosting” the page (you have to pay for that). Together with that, you can tell your friends to like that page. That may get you a couple of downloads, but that’s it—unless you have millions of friends or followers. I’m assuming you don’t have that many, so let’s keep looking.
A few of the great things about these two social networking sites from a marketing perspective are that nearly everyone uses them, they are free to use, and they are friendly to more creative solutions. Here are some examples of how you can exploit these websites to market your game: Give 50 free VC credits to users who “like” your game on Facebook. Give 50 free VC credits to users who mention your game in a tweet.
Hold a high-score contest once a month where the prize is a new Android device, and only allow people to register if they’ve liked you on Facebook. In the last example, you’d have to actually purchase a device to give away as a prize, of course, but as far as incentivizing “likes” goes, such a strategy can work really well. It’s easy to create incentives to get people to share your game with each other, and these networks are the perfect platform for that kind of information sharing.
Both Facebook and Twitter provide Android SDKs that you can download and use to integrate the networks with your game. The API integration docs are generally easy to follow, so make sure to try them out.
Discovery Services
There are companies such as AppBrain (https://appbrain.com) whose sole purpose is to help you get your game discovered. Other companies, such as Tapjoy (www.tapjoy.com) and Flurry (www.flurry.com), also have discovery services. Most of these services provide ways to put your game “in network” so that it will be promoted by other games. You can pay for installs and control a campaign to get your game into the hands of numerous people.
Different companies offer different methods of discovery, but, in short, if you’re looking to get your game discovered and you have a budget to work with, you may want to look into one or more of these services. When you combine such a service with a good social networking strategy, you might just get the snowball rolling and create a buzz about your game.
Blogs and Web Media
Another strategy for getting your game discovered is to put together pilots for stories, create videos for demos, and send all of this to blogs that review new Android apps and games. The editors of these sites are bombarded with requests to review apps and games, so do as much work for them as possible by giving them all the information they need up front.
Game Design
- Optional modifiers that affect gameplay
Boost
Upgrades
Cheats
- Optional content that does not affect gameplay
Skins
Characters
- Additional content
New levels
New cinematics
New parts
Unlockable parts of levels
- Virtual currency that
Can be acquired by simply playing the game
Can be purchased using real money
Can be used to purchase upgrades in the game
Can be used to purchase additional content
Make a piece of content that can only be unlocked by entering a referral code received from another player.
Give additional content or VC for tweeting about the game or sharing or liking it on Facebook.
Award players with VC for all referrals they make to other players.
Integrate with Facebook or other social media to post achievements and new high scores.
Create another part of the game that is played as a Facebook app but ties into the mobile game in some way.
Key Takeaways
There are plenty of ways to monetize your game; you can straight up just sell it for a few dollars a pop; that’s it and that’s all. You can release it for free and offer in-app purchases within the game. You can also release the game for free and get revenue by displaying adverts; or you can use a combination of all three.
Use social networking creatively when promoting your game; there are far more cost-effective ways than simply throwing money on adverts.
A monetizable game is more complex and hence more difficult to develop; but make sure that monetizing the game isn’t an afterthought. You need to include monetization strategies during the planning stage of game development and design.