Do you pay for Mobile Games and Apps - do you hate ads - do you hate iAPs?

[trjp]

One of the most divisive issues when you develop mobile games/apps is the issue of "how to get paid for it".

For a long time, people seemed to think the solution was to offer a 'free' (possibly ad-supported) version and a paid upgrade which removed the ads/added content accordingly.

That certainly worked for me - but technical issues (esp on Android) make that harder than you'd think to achieve and, in the end, I actually resorted to simply "living on the ads" - e.g. my games are free but there's no way to disable the ads, ever.

My logic was that people who are desperate to freeload, will always find a way to freeload and the one experiment I did with a 'free' and 'paid' app resulted in 8000 installs of the free one and ZERO purchases of the paid one (that's quite a division!).

Thing is, of course, there are many adblocking solutions out there - hell, some of the most popular Android ROMs have adblocking built-in! (an act akin to shipping pirated software IMO) - so it's not like it's hard to avoid them if you don't want to see them.

Of recent, tho, I've noticed (especially on iOS) that the 'free with ads' thing is strongly in decline - developers now seem to prefer a 'teasing' free demo which has iAPs to unlock the rest of the game. Whether this is due to the endless dilution of ad revenues, people's hostility to ads or another reason I've no idea but...

Where do you stand on the issue of ads in games?

Do they really bother you to the extent you'd not play a game where they appear?

Would you really pay money to remove them (I suspect many people say they will but few actually do - esp when there are 'free' alternatives?)

Have you ever sought-out mobile adblocking software yourself?

[RobF]

Don't have an Android capable device so can't possibly comment on that but on iOS, I've got *so* much choice, so many games I can explore elsewhere at a relatively minimal cost that I simply don't need or want to inflict ads on myself.

I know I'm not exactly a "normal" user, I'm in the iOS6 falls over on previous purchases bracket when it comes to amount of apps owned (ie - fuckton) but I've only ever paid to remove ads once and that was in AppShopper. Any inclusion of ads or game changing IAP (moving to free from something I've paid for), I just delete the apps and never touch them again *and* make a mental note never to trust the company/person who did that ever again.

Aside from finding advertising offensive at the best of times, I've got a tiny device! Screen space is at a premium here no matter what rotation I'm using so I don't want any of that ingame space handed over to adverts. I have 3 or 4 games with copious IAP left on the device (Rocket Cat/Paul's stuff, Frutorious and the HalfBrick stuffs) and just don't download anything "free" when I've got more games already on that device that use more traditional "player friendly" methods, I'll never really have to worry my bones over them.

[Maknol]

I have an android with a steadily growing games library.

The ideal game, for me, fullfills the following criteria:

a) has a demo or a free version that I can test before buying.
b) does not have in-app purchases
c) has a paid version where I can get rid of the ads and/or get additional content
d) is reasonably priced

Of course, some of these allow for exceptions. I'll buy a game without testing if it has good gameplay videos on youtube and/or a nice review from a site where I feel the person actually played the game. And I can live with a free, ad-supported app as long as the ads are never intrusive to the experience. But I'd rather have the option to pay directly to the developer and never see ads again.

[trjp]

I have an android with a steadily growing games library.

The ideal game, for me, fullfills the following criteria:

a) has a demo or a free version that I can test before buying.
b) does not have in-app purchases
c) has a paid version where I can get rid of the ads and/or get additional content
d) is reasonably priced

Of course, some of these allow for exceptions. I'll buy a game without testing if it has good gameplay videos on youtube and/or a nice review from a site where I feel the person actually played the game. And I can live with a free, ad-supported app as long as the ads are never intrusive to the experience. But I'd rather have the option to pay directly to the developer and never see ads again.

One of the things about doing that on Android is that you either

a - have a separate 'free' and 'paid' App but they cannot share data (e.g. your scores/achievements/unlocks will be lost when you move from free to paid)(*)
b - have an in-App unlock for the 'paid' features (and you can keep any scores/achievements you got in the free version)

The snag with the in-app route is that you need a separate in-app system for Google Play/Amazon/everyone else - Amazon will reject apps with ANY trace of 'Google Play' in them and so you have to keep 2 separate lots of code and it's a tonne of work/testing you could do without.

Also - in-apps have this knack of getting reset/lost/disconnected/unverified and that tends to lead to angry customers and nasty reviews - so overall I prefer the 'completely separate app' approach BUT people don't want to lose their scores etc. etc. - it's a pain in the ass...