One of the hardest decisions we have to make with our creations is how to get paid. It is sure that we love our creations and they are a part of us, but there should always be some sort of reimbursement for our effort.
Some of the most common patterns for monetization in games are paid, paid with trial, ad supported, in-app purchase, and in-game currency.
Games are usually sold at a fixed price. For big game studios, this is generally the only option, especially with disk-based delivery and some marketplaces.
The emphasis on a paid-only pattern means that you need a high-quality sales portfolio for your game and outstanding game-marketing assets (logos, screenshots, videos, and so on).
What is also just as important is the blurb about your game. It really has to stand out and draw the player in to make them part of their hard-earned cash.
Offering a trial with your game is a great way to entice the players in. Obviously, it gives them a taste of your game before they commit to pay for it.
You still need a good presence with your marketing and storefront, but the trial is also another great option to draw them in.
When going down the trial route, be sure to pick a single path and stick to it, either by limiting the game, offering so many levels, or even having a time-limited play. Just don't mix them!
Another factor in offering trials is that each platform you deploy to may have a different way of providing it, either directly from the marketplace or through marketplace APIs. It's best to design how your game will behave in a trial and link that to a flag or option. You can then control the game separately from the menu or check the game on startup.
Often, the ad-supported option is the route for a lot of free-to-play mobile titles. This is one option that can be difficult to get right. If there are too many ads, the player will just get annoyed and uninstall it. Alternatively, if there are few ads, you are not going to get much back from it.
A key thing to remember about ads is that it's all about presentation and numbers. You need thousands of ads presented through your titles to make any kind of money back from the ad providers. It will be better if the player also clicks on the ad, as this generates better revenue; however, you cannot bet that the player will do this.
Note
Warning
Do not attempt to fake or force the player to click on ads. It's a very bad experience and will most likely force the player to uninstall your game quickly. Also, the ad providers are clever enough to work out whether you are faking the clicks; if yes, they'll simply not pay for you.
I have seen cases where developers have layered ads on top of each other to maximize the ad's presentation or use the GUI controls in close proximity to the ads, tricking the player to click on them. These are very bad practices and should be avoided. At best, you won't get paid for your ads; at worst, it will significantly get you bad reviews and lower down your number of players.
A few actions that generally work are as follows:
- Displaying a non-UI blocking portion of the screen in the gameplay
- Just displaying the menu or non-game screens (for example, the inventory and the pause screen)
- Displaying ads only in the loading screens
- Pop-up ads that appear when an event occurs
- Ads on the purchase screens
You can mix and match the preceding patterns, but remember there is a fine line between background annoyances that the player can just ignore if they don't want to look and screens that are too intrusive and overbearing. Test with a selected audience and alter your implementation based on their feedback before you publish it.
The terms used by the ad providers aren't meant to befuddle you, but they do take some getting used to. Some of the terms and their meanings are described as follows:
- Fill rate: This term is the percentage rate at which the ads will be sent to your game. If the provider has run out of ads or has none for your ad settings (age, region, language, and so on), this can drop to zero, meaning no ads.
- Impressions: This term is a figure to denote the number of successfully shown ads in your game. Beware of the same ad shown several times; some ad providers count this as the same impression. Just check against your own experience.
- Click through rate (CTR): This term is the higher paid option with ads to denote that the players are actually clicking on the ads to look into them.
- eCPM: This term is basically a unit of measurement of how much you will be paid per click or impression. Usually, you just need to multiply this figure by the number of impressions to see how much you will get. Note that this figure will go up and down based on just about anything, including the weather.
- AdTypes: There are various ad types and sizes supported by each provider with different capabilities. Banners are the simplest. Being of a screen area size, they take up the entire screen while displaying the ad. Others such as interspatial are interactive and generally take up the entire screen. Check each provider to know what they support and which you want to use.
Another factor to keep in mind is publishers. They will all perform differently in different markets and languages. Generally, ad publishers focus on a few selected markets or only take advertisements in certain languages, and so on.
Some of the publishers are as follows:
- Microsoft PubCenter: This publisher is strong in the US but is weak elsewhere
- Smaato: This publisher is strong in central Europe and the US but poor in non-English countries
- Inneractive: This publisher provides a good mix of support and ads across the globe but suffers from low or poor fill rates in practice (something they are working on)
- Google AdMob: This publisher is strong across the globe, but you need millions of impressions to make any real money
There are many more publishers out there, such as InMobi, VServe, Leadbolt, and others, that have their strengths and weaknesses. You will be able to determine which publisher works best for you in which countries by personally testing them.
Tip
When using advertising, it is very important to add your own instrumentation to your title to track how the adverts are doing. Don't just use the ad publisher's figures from their respective dashboards. This way, you can manage yourself with what works best for you and alter your plans accordingly. Don't just publish and let go; manage effectively to improve your returns.
While implementing ads, there is no rule that says you have to use only one provider. Always hedge your bets with the ad providers and implement as many as you are comfortable with, structure your ad presentation in a framework so that you always show the best-performing adverts first, and use another ad network if the current one isn't delivering.
If this seems a bit much to do by yourself, there are several frameworks out there that will do this for you. The ad-rotating solutions are fully featured to work with a number of ad providers and ensure that you always display ads.
Tip
One such framework is a solution named AdRotator, which is open source and works with most platforms. You can check it out at http://getadrotator.com. There are others on the Unity asset store as well; just be sure to check what platforms they support (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and so on). So, you might have to use a few different ones for all the platforms you deploy to. For example, Vserv.mobi (www.vserve.com) can also display ads from other providers and not just its own.
A common feature being implemented in most of the games these days is in-app purchases. This feature is simply your paid shopfront within the game to unlock levels, purchase rare items, or remove unwanted features such as ads.
In some cases, in-app purchases have been used to implement the trial functionality; publishing the title as free, and then offering an in-game unlock option. On consoles such as Ouya, this is a standard practice.
In-app purchases on most of the platforms come in the following two forms:
- Durable/nonconsumable: This platform provides the items that the player can purchase and have a real-world item they can own. These are generally single-use items, and you can verify with the marketplace of the platform to check whether the player has purchased them or not. It is advised that you also manage the information locally to ensure that you don't slow the game down on startup while checking. You can also keep this information on a backend service, just in case the user resets their device or transfers to a new one; this is not mandatory however.
This platform can only be purchased once
- Consumable: Effectively, consumables are in-game currency, items that are meant to be recharged and replenished over time.
The big difference between consumables and durables is that consumables are not tracked on the server (other than in the payment history, but the payment history is not available in apps/games)
These can be purchased many times over
Besides the store/marketplace for each platform, there are some online services that will create payment systems for you, saving you from recreating everything for each platform you support. One such service is called Lotaris (http://www.lotaris.com/), which offers many different ways for players to purchase items and apps. You still, however, have to publish your app to each platforms' store.
Note
Warning
If you are using in-app purchases, beware that the big brother is watching. Employing unethical or illegal practices when implementing these systems could bring about a whole heap of trouble.
For more information, check out the article at http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2014/05-14#.Uy6fBvl_tUW.
Read this now if you plan to or are already using in-app purchases.
Virtual currency, as a practice in games, has been rising steadily. The basic premise being that the game is generally free to play and uses some kind of in-game currency, which the players can earn in the game. This currency usually takes two forms; the basic coin, which can be earned in-game, and the premium coin, which can only be bought with cash (or for completing rare and special events).
The idea is simple; play through the game slowly and normally. However, if you want to advance quicker or get ultra-rare items, you need to buy and spend the premium coin for those items. In some cases, you can also convert the premium coin to the basic coin to get the in-game currency quicker.
Although this makes a steady profit in single player or offline games, it really comes into its own with the multiplayer option online. It seems there is a growing market for people to advance quicker than others or just to beat their friends quicker.
Practicing coin systems is generally harder than just practicing in-app purchases but makes for an easier-to-manage ecosystem.
Also, see the warning about in-app purchases, as this applies heavily to in-game currency/bitcoin systems as well, if not more.