Do you ever wonder why so many games go free? Here’s some evidence that shows why paid games are going the way of the dodo, courtesy of Dudeski ($1.99) developer Benedict Fritz of Static Oceans. They just released Dudeski on Android as an ad-supported game, despite it being a paid game on iOS. Why? Because the game on iOS got 36 purchases from the period of September 1st to December 1st, despite still seeing a decent base of players playing it: over 91 players per day, and 2,144 per month, with 145 seconds per session. Fritz thinks that the users came from the free promotion that they ran for the game.

So, over time, it’s hypothetically easier to get users to latch on to a free game, than one that has an upfront cost. And even with advertising, it’s possible to make money off of those users. While Dudeski got lots of favorable coverage and an Apple feature that pushed it into the top paid games at launch, it quickly fell off and was a non-factor on the charts for months on end. So you wonder why so many games go free with ads? Because developers can find ways to get the users – it’s getting their money that’s the hard part. It’s just the reality of the market right now.