Ask HN: Monetizing Mobile Web Games
As an old and crusty web developer, I've always been keen on the low friction taking a concept to fruition - beside the dev work, of course.
So I made a word puzzle game that runs in a web browser (Vue3-based). It runs well both on desktop and mobile browsers. I want to monetize it using the typical 'freemium' model - play a limited version for free, make a one-time payment for the full game. Bam.
Figured I'd publish it to app stores since they have a lot of monetized apps. Packaged the game up with Capacitor, built it as an app. Technically all good - game runs exactly the same on Android / iOS as it does in mobile browser. Sweet.
But actually dealing with the app store red tape has been huge PITA. Google somewhat less so. Apple - omg. Everything from the Xcode side to the App Store Connect side has been a slog of obtuse processes.
All of this friction to jump into the walled garden. Just so I can try and get a few bucks from people who want to play my game - which works exactly the same in a browser. I'd prefer not to use app stores at all!
Is there any viable way to implement the freemium model in a web-based "app"? This is not a SaaS - I'm not integrating Stripe, creating user accounts, etc - just a drive-by "hey I'll pay $5 for this" type of purchase.