It seems that this system is very good and with good profit for the developer, hopefully James integrate the SDK into the Android Exporter. Tony greetings and to continue the success!
It seems that this system is very good and with good profit for the developer, hopefully James integrate the SDK into the Android Exporter. Tony greetings and to continue the success!
So what's to stop you from using this in a paid app?
in a paid app... Its like putting commercials on Movie DVD's during the film.
But nothing's keeping you from doing it? I thought maybe it was part of Chartboost's policies the way everyone was talking.
To be fair, it's more like putting trailers before your dvd, which they already do. And they're making them unskippable on some movies. And I'm paying a whole lot more for a dvd.
I wouldn't consider iAd in a paid game, but a single banner that pops up when starting the game could be viable. I already cross promote my own games from the menu screens.
Granted, if I test chartboost on my Lite versions, and they start raking in more money than the paid versions, I would consider dropping paid altogether. But I am thinking about a new pricing strategy:
Lite version - free with chartboost
99c version - Full game with chartboost
1.99 version - Full game, no ads
Also, I'm pretty sure I paid for pocket ninjas when it first came out =)
I feel offended when being forced to watch ads after paying for a product. I'd make a paid version and a free one with ads. It's hard enough to sell paid apps, the last thing you want are bad reviews due to ads in the paid version. In the Lite version the ads are accepted and may motivate to switch to the paid one.
If you want to squeeze the maximum of money out of an app, you can still use paid+IAP like in Star Wars Falcon Gunner. They did this with care: in the game you earn credits needed for upgrades, but also have the option to buy credits through IAP. DTownTony uses the same system in Pocket Ninjas (though the game is free now) and it seems to work fine.
Offended or not, couldn't give a damn when people are paying less than they would for a small fries at McDonalds for a full interactive video game. With our sales numbers in any other market we'd be living it up. Unfortunately it tends to lead to negative reviews. Banner ads in a paid game I wouldn't be very happy with but I think I'd let chartboost by. The fear is, would negative user reviews hurt sales, or would the few dollars a day from your loyal users balance that out? I know Hungry Beetle is going to get reimagined as a free app with ChartBoost and I'm replacing the iAds in Cow Boom with it as well but we all have to remember that Pocket Ninjas has done well because it's an excellent game. We can't all just go "Tony makes this much money from ChartBoost; if I put it in mine I will too!", because Pocket Ninjas was doing well even before it went free.
By the way, I am looking into making a ChartBoost extension in the new year.
To be honest, I wouldn't use Chartboost or iAds(or any advertising) in a paid app just because the risk/reward isn't worth it. Barring an app being a huge success right out of the gates you probably aren't going to get enough downloads for the ads to make much, if any money, but the bad reviews could hold your sales back. I've had a few complaints about ads being in Pocket Ninjas now, but my guess is that someone who complains about an ad in a free game, is probably not someone who was going to pay for it. When I first released Pocket Ninjas is was a paid app and ad free, I felt a little guilty adding ads later(after it was free for a while) because some people had initially paid for it (about 5% of my downloads were paid downloads) so I included a 1000 coin bonus ($0.99 iAP) when people installed the latest version as a bit of a kick back
I've been told this numerous times by people both on the indie and larger side of game/app development. If you plan on earning a living developing apps, or even just recouping what you put into the development of an app, planning how you are going to successfully monetize it takes as much effort as the actually development does.
when i released Jazz21 on IOS, my very first review said something like "Makes you buy the app, then has ads in the game". Needless to say, that was a false review, or a mistake by the reviewer. I never had any iads in the game (i didn't even have MMF2 Developer yet so i couldn't have). I felt like that screwed my sales royally, i know now it didn't really make much difference but still, i was pretty upset. I agree with the feeling that selling a game at any price + showing iAds or other ads is frowned on by most consumers.
This is a very controversial topic, since as it says Tony depends on too much if your live apps development or not. In my case it is not so, and I wish it were so in the future.
This is a very large and unforgiving market and I think that any solution to monetize the apps should be applied, in that I agree with the friend DistantJ.
I don't think adding Chartboost to a paid game will be effective unless you already have a *very* successful game which has 1000s of sales every week.
Simply because anything that makes money from Advertising needs *lots* of users to make real money. Tony's game is doing well with Chartboost because his game is free, is well made and has had a lot of coverage, and hence attracts a lot of users.
Please don't see Chartboost as a magic API that suddenly turns under-performing apps into hugely profitable ones, it's not. It's just an effective ad unit provider. If you add Chartboost to an under-performing paid app, you'll not only make hardly any money, but potentially turn off the users that do buy it. Even if you have a successful paid app, I don't think adding Chartboost is worth the risk of negative reviews.
If you want my advice, integrate Chartboost with your free apps/games, or perhaps consider turning a paid app into a free one supported by Chartboost and IAPs like Tony has done. You have a much better chance of building a large user-base that way, which is what you need to make money from advertising.
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