2019-08-20 - Ask
“How do you think a mobile dev should approach selling their game?”
Hi,
well this question depends on a multitude of things. Are you a new dev or an established one? In which category do you want to sell your game? Is your game easily sellable in parts or is it one coherent experience which you need to sell as a whole package?
What i normally suggest to new devs is to look at similar games, especially ones that are know/successful in their category. Study their model and analyze what they are doing and how it would fit with your game.
Each model, Premium, Free with iAp or Free with Ads has it’s up and down sides. From what i’ve learned so far is that people are very picky when it comes to buying mobile games, if the upfront price does not match with their expectation of the game.
This is why a free game mostly is better to get players to try your game, but way harder to actually make money from once they are playing.
It’s no secret that big f2p companies employ full teams of data analysts and monetization experts to optimize their games in order to get players to pay after downloading them. Not in a sense of spending big cash but spending any cash at all. It‘s extraordinary hard, especially in a mature market like mobile to run a successful f2p business.
Another good point is to be sure to know which age group you think your game is targeting.
Each model has it‘s own set of players. Premium players are mostly 25-30+ with a stable income, most free players are way younger than 20, or in fact way older than 40, since they never went through the whole „buying a game upfront“ thing that was happening in the 90′ and 00′. They straight up started with mobile and for them mobile games means free games.
I think for a new dev it’s a good idea to test the waters with a bunch of smaller free games (monetized or not). There is no downside of establishing a small catalogue of games that you can refer to as your style of games. Once you have a few games out you can try to think more seriously about making money with games. But unless you have a lot of experience, special insider knowledge or be incredibly lucky, making money with (mobile) games is very hard.