Free versus Paid

[Keith]

I thought it would be good to get opinions from everyone about going paid versus ad-supported in the iTunes App Store. I am just diving into producing apps and have some thoughts I would like to share and would love opinions and experiences as well.

For all of my apps am opting to use the ad-generated model (iAd) capability of MMF2 Developer for a few reasons:

1. It gets apps into the hands of more people which is my core hope.
2. It allows me to use different licensing for some assets (graphics, music, and audio) because for many licenses a free app is no longer a commercial product despite the ad integration. I recommend you work closely with your sources of media to be 100% clear on terms. The cost benefit can be substantial: a graphic under non-commercial can be used for a few dollars while the extended type licenses can run 80-100 dollars.
3. Apps that are paid tend to receive a lot of negative user and competitor feedback which can hinder adoption. If someone does not like a free app there is really not much to be said.
4. Create a niche app that requires little investment of time/money. I minimize the risk of my time/money investment to 20 man hours per app. This way I do not go deep down a path to make a game and discover on the other side it was a complete waste of time and money. If I spent 6 months creating a wonderful tower defense app and it failed, I can never get that time or money back.
5. In the end I think free markets itself. The iTunes App Store is clogged with competition and paid titles that never see the light of day despite being extremely good. I am not a sales and marketing guru and I have no desire to chase down reviews from websites in order to spur sales. I have another app I created in the iTunes App Store for a company that received glowing reviews from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal (print and web) and it resulted in a minor spike in sales, but nothing lasting.
6. More apps create more possibilities: Angry Birds is a 1 in 10,000,000 phenomena and was the 30th title created by Rovio. I am not going to create Angry Birds, but if I can create a niche app that appeals to a few thousand people in 20 hours x 52 weeks then I may just start to see the iAd revenue build up. If one of the apps really takes off I can then expand it and use the MMF2 Developer in-app sales feature to open the door to greater revenue.

[xhedgehogx]

Or you can do what a lot of developers recently started to do is release the app for free, keep things in a somewhat "trial mode" (ex. can be used 3 times to it's full potential), make them pay for unlimited use.

I would do something like that, but being very limited to MMF2 Standard right now makes a bit hard :P.

You do have a lot of great points though. Ad supported can get you some good revenue too.

[DaveC]

making a game in 20 hours...??? hmmmmmm

[JimJam]

Another option is the whole "Free to play, pay for more" approach. I've seen this done with many games/apps recently too. The idea is that you can get the whole game for free, with the option of purchasing more content within the game (more levels, more weapons, more characters, etc).

This way you can leave the game open to expand ONLY IF it gets a good response as a free game from the start. If the game gets bad reviews as a free version, then just let it be and move on.

Example, make a fun little fighting game with 2 characters. If the free (ad supported) version hits off well, include 2 more characters and sell it at 99 cents. If that works out well, add two more characters and some levels. Now sell for 2 dollars. Call it "Fighting Game 2 Alpha Turbo HD Arcade Editon EX 3D" (This method seems to work great for Street Fighter's market)

Continue until you find a "cap-off" point at which the users are not willing to continue paying more for slightly altered content. Then move on to a new title. Again, Street Fighter has been doing this for years and its still ongoing.

Its interesting to note that Street Fighter itself also started as a simple arcade game with one 2 characters and 1 level.

I guess you just have to find a way to reach "cult" status; at that point your games will sell themselves. With Street Fighter the iconic HADOUKEN is all you have to mention to stir up a commotion in gaming society.

As for Angry Birds, I don't know what they have. I think the art style or the characters attitude may be its icon.

[Keith]

@Dave One reason why I don't need to invest much time with MMF 2 is that I have been working with multimedia tools like Authorware, Toolbook, Macromedia Director, Flash, etc. and audio/image tools like Photoshop for nearly 20 years. I find that MMF 2 is a lot like these tools so it is somewhat intuitive for me to use and I can get reasonable results quickly.

I am also not trying to create deep experiences in my apps. I want to keep things simple as I am targeting people who want an app to play for a minute or two during their day. For example: if I made a baseball game it would focus on one aspect of baseball such as pitching or hitting home runs. I am not going to create a full baseball experience. I want to create something that is single-dimensional and can fill the space on a short commute or while someone stands in line at the market.

I would love to create a very deep game, but I am not ready for such an endeavor nor do I have the experience yet. I am only 3 apps in at this point and I still have lots to learn about the process.

[Jeff]

Keith its amazing you can get apps out with such little man hours required.

I do hope part of that is that Multimedia Fusion is an easy platform to develop with. Certainly it helps that it also sounds like you have a wealth of various experience with a wide variety of creative tools.

Please keep me informed on some of your other games you currently have under production (I was spying on your website).

The iOS exporter has been one of the best things to ever happen to MMF2 --- It really added a lot of excitement and got a lot of great developers to become more active in the community.

Every day I wake up just wondering what app will be on the app store today

[Keith]

All of it is that MMF 2 Developer is a great platform to develop with. It has freed me from focusing on coding and allowed me to channel that energy into being creative. I am still green to the tool, but each app I produce gives me new experiences to utilize down the road. I just wish I had gotten involved with MMF 2 a lot sooner. There are so many fantastic features I have yet to leverage.

I will be sure to update you as more apps go live.

[Steven]

Keith,

What sort of install numbers have you had for your free apps? An idea on the average ecpm? I know it will fluctuate a lot depending on which countries your app becomes popular in!

Thanks,

Steve