Comment by themartorana | Hacker News Reader

Comment by themartorana | Hacker News Reader

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I think we're skipping the non-exploitative companies that rely on this model. Like mine.

We tried selling a game - it doesn't work. We have a free (ad-supported) and paid version of our game, and we make 95% of our money on ads.

Adding removing ads as an iAP to the free version, instead of having multiple versions of the game on the store, saw that go from 5% to 15% or so.

It's RARE to have any true success in the mobile game market. It's even RARER to have that come from a game that has an up-front cost.

iAP is the new shareware. Anyone that bitches about iAP has to get their head around this. The market dictates how people are willing to spend money, and it's via iAP, not up-front costs.

We love making games. We love our job, and our company, and we want to keep doing it. But there's a hard truth that ad-supported free games have very, very low ARPU - for us, in the $0.20 range. We're lucky to have millions of downloads and hundreds of thousands of daily active users, but very few game studios are.

Someone that buys the ad-free iAP is worth 5x our average ARPU. So selling people customizations or whatever else iAP is the only way to raise ARPU to anything sustainable. Gamers don't (and never will) spend $60 on a mobile game again, and we have employees to pay and families to support. Yes, it can get exploitative, but if you have a better idea of how small game companies should survive - real ideas, not trolling - we'd love to hear them, because we would implement them immediately.

Edit: grammar.

The problem is not IAP on itself. The problem is when the apps mislead about what you get for your payment or when so called "free" apps are unusable without payment.

In a way, non-exploitative apps (with or without IAPs) are probably victims in current situation. I guess I'm not alone who simply do not trust anything with "offers in-app payments" label and avoids it as much as possible. There is no way for me to distinguish between "real game company" and exploitative company.

The problem of small game companies is that customers have no way to distinguish between good and crap game before buying and most of what is found in app store is of very little quality. I do not know how the company can solve it without better app discovery features from app stores themselves.

Yes, but at least the apps are free to investigate. Far less risk / hassle than paying, downloading, installing, running, uninstalling, and requesting a refund.

As a fellow developer at a software company, I totally get where you are coming from, and can see the challenge this presents. It could absolutely require a change of direction for your company.

As a consumer, I really don't like being asked to buy things in a Free game. I'm more than willing to shell out for a quality game upfront, and do so without hesitation.

The "free" games upselling me at every turn has honestly made me a bit burnt out with the Play store. If your app/game is of high quality, let me try it for a few minutes and I'll buy it if I like it, no problem. No need to badger me about "optional" extras.

People like me may or may not be a large chunk of the Android-using population, but I figured I'd share.

>I'm more than willing to shell out for a quality game upfront, and do so without hesitation.

clearly you are in the tiny minority

>Free game

no such thing. people need to make money, they don't just have time to make great games and give them away. I understand not wanting to "pay to win" but IAP isn't at fault here. Also, these games are very obvious. if you don't want to do it, just don't play those games.

>If your app/game is of high quality, let me try it for a few minutes and I'll buy it if I like it, no problem.

wait wait wait. you JUST said you were willing to shell out for a quality game upfront. After downloading it free and playing it is not in fact upfront.

This whole comment is pretty silly and trollbaity, so I'll only bother addressing what I think was your primary snark.

> wait wait wait. you JUST said you were willing to shell out for a quality game upfront. After downloading it free and playing it is not in fact upfront.

Sure it is:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/2844909?hl=en

If I don't ask for a refund after the first 15 minutes, it's a done deal. Most app authors would probably prefer that I get a refund instead of buying their app and leaving a negative rating.

Psychologically it is not the same. One action requires you to get out a credit card and then later do more work to get a refund. One of theM is actually free. Not to mention that this only covers 1 of the 2 major platforms. No free demo refund on iOS. What would you propose for iOS games?

> One action requires you to get out a credit card and then later do more work to get a refund

No, it doesn't. Hit Buy, open the app. Don't like it? Open Play store, hit Refund within 15 minutes of purchase. Done.

> No free demo refund on iOS. What would you propose for iOS games?

I don't propose anything for Apple/iOS. I have an Android. This article is about the Google Play store.

Right, this will have short term negative impact on your revenue but in the long run it may encourage more users to download the paid version because AAA iAP apps no longer set the "free" standard for pricing.

I have no problem with iAP and I have no problem with shareware.

However, at least when I get shareware, I know they are going to pull the rug out from under me 1/4th the way through. As a result, I usually don't play shareware because I know I will be unsatisfied, I know I wont enjoy the experience.

Now shareware is "free" and I can't find any actual free games, actual free applications. I can't find anything that isn't trying to use or manipulate me.

The set of applications that were made because someone wanted to solve a problem and share the solution are obscured by wolves in sheep's clothing. I can't trust anything on the app store. The signal has being completely drowned out by the noise.

I hate, truly truly hate, the current condition of the android market. My phone is only good for making calls and playing the Simon Tanthem puzzle collection. I don't understand how you could defend it. I don't understand how anyone could defend it. It's so openly hostile.

The iAP fad is a direct result of game studios becoming sharecroppers in Apple and Google's fields and of the rules they have set. If Apple and Google changed the rules, due to government regulation or something else, then studios' business models would adapt. If iAP were not an option at all, there would still be a demand for quality games and studios would converge on some new business model that satisfied that demand.

I like the free/paid model, but what you have doesn't strike me as "shareware", but rather "adware". How well does a completely free (no IAP, no ads) trial with a paid full version do in reality? That's more in line with the shareware model in desktop software and I remember it being a very successful strategy in console (and PC) games when I was younger.

Semantics. Basically, the ability to sell shareware doesn't exist anymore, so this is the new model of try, and if you like, maybe pay a bit. Unlike shareware, however, you can actually keep playing for free. So is the model better? Not sure, but after years of app stores, I still can't offer a trial, and I can't issue refunds, so this is my reality.

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