I wanted to talk with you guys about your thoughts on one the biggest themes going on in the AppStore - Freemium. Since you all are some of the most hardcore experts on iPhone gaming, I wanted to get your ideas and opinions and paid vs free to play and how it affects gaming. I'd love to hear players preference on what style they play (premium vs freemium) and hear some reasons why. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on what could be improved upon in both fields.
Looks like freemium isn't so popular, I too prefer paid but see freemium as a potential method for game devs to easily upgrade people to full versions of apps with in app purchases. Windows Phone 7 builds this into the OS, so all trial games/apps ARE full version and are just unlocked via the store. Which is a good idea if you ask me, one app to release with a simple switch to make it full version. I can see the pros/cons of both, but would love to also know why people favor paid over freemium. Perhaps the definition of freemium means is a little bit of a grey area?
Personally I prefer Paid to Freemium, as with paid you know you're (generally) getting the whole game, and the focus is on the actual game, and not only on game mechanics that are built towards IAP (consumables, not one time $1 purchases) I like the Lite model over both, as then you know what kind of game you're getting, and if you enjoy it, you can buy the full game.
Relax, bruthaman. I'm an iPhone developer and wanted to speak with TouchArcade and what they'd like to see in a free to play game that can be done well, so there is real purpose behind this.
Keep in mind you're polling the absolute vocal minority here, so please don't judge any long-term development decisions off this. Your bread and butter of the freemium world are the millions of people out there who haven't even heard about TouchArcade and don't feel personally offended when they buy smurfberries.
Yep, check out the top 50 grossing games any day of the year, and you'll see that 75% are freemium titles. Not only are members here on TA a minority of the customer base for the AppStore, the people who buy paid apps are a minority on this platform. Nearly all of my friends have an iPhone or iPod, but none of them have heard of anything besides WWF, Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Fruit Ninja, and Cut the Rope as far as paid apps are concerned, literally.
Hah! Very true, Hodapp. I was actually hoping to get some player feedback about what would make free2play better for them... Personally, I rather enjoy Team Fortress 2 and League of Legends, among other F2P games, and those are more of my style. Of course, there is a lot of fun to be had in the traditional freemium gaming, such as Tiny Tower, which is also pretty fun.
I don't mind freemium so much as long as I get some fun out of the game. For me, having a few good freemium games means I can pop out my iPod anywhere, any time and enjoy some good ol' free entertainment. Most people that don't like it can't stand the fact that they usually gotta wait or pay to progress. I have enough full games to play if I'm bored that the wait doesn't bother me that much, honestly. You also have to consider the fact that - Some TA members are absolute pirates who for them, freemium is a case of 'f2p vs Free' And in that sense, they will likely absolutely despise that 'freemium crap' Also, a good thing in f2p games is having an option to download other free games for in-app bonuses/rewards/currency. Check out Star Legends for a good example of how that is done well. Although SL isn't pay to play, you can still get a good idea of how to keep customers happy while still willing to throw some money. Theres my 2 pennies at least.
I really believe F2P is the future, despite what the vocal minority says of course. I agree though, there needs to be some new mechanics and improvements on the current F2P model. I've tried polling developers here for suggestions and ideas for how to improve on the current model to no avail as well. We have some pretty clever ideas we are working on for the sequel to RoboHero and with a certain popular F2P publisher. Alls I can say is that it hasn't been done before on the app store to date. Latest charts show that consumables are what makes the most money, and large packs of consumables are the most profitable. However, I'm not a big fan of consumables and have never purchased a single smurf berry in my life. I did spend a pretty penny on Pocket Legends though back in the day to unlock new level sets and to get some cool gear for my character. I'm also personally not a big fan of the two currencies sort of mechanic in games. Yes, it allows one to make exclusive items that only paying players can buy, but it also increases the frustration of non paying players and creates a sense of the developer pushing the players to spend money instead of the players choosing to spend on their own accord.
I completely agree. Star Legends is essentially a reskinned Pocket Legends, and it is probably one of the best examples of a F2P done right on the app store for core gamers. Even though they have 2 currencies, it doesn't feel forced. They do a great job of making you want to spend money through social pressure (I want the weapon that he has!) and through level caps (Buy this level pack if you want to increase your characters levels and keep up with your friends) and even through gifting (My friend would LOVE this, I'll buy it for him). I'm surprised more don't follow in this particular model.
+ 1 Love the positive reinforcement! We have have a few members of the team devoted to playing that game and spending a good bit of money on new heroes (Me being one of them!)
I remember talking to my programmer about how we should sell our first game. I was assuming we would go with the old model of a Lite version and a full version. However, from a consumer perspective it makes more sense to have a freemium game. Especially for a young company like us. The whole mentality of try before you buy makes it safe. In our case we have new levels as IAP. If you liked playing and want a new puzzle, you can buy a new puzzle. And for us as a developer it makes more sense than offering a game at a set price because it was designed to be added to.
Utter +1 Almost nobody will say they like freemium when asked, but according to various sources it can be a valid (and good) way to make money - the minority of people that love it in your game will make up for those that steer clear. It's the same with ad supported games. q: "Do you want to pay less tax?" a: "Obviously" Clearly the question above is loaded to hell, but if the next question is then "so what do you want to give up?" it starts getting clearer. And just like freemium, the positive answers will vary a lot. People that are happy to pay money to buy corn in a farm game won't automatically want to pay for extra bullets in a shoot em up. You need to judge your market and tweak your game *very* carefully to pull this off. The likes of Zynga do this very well but they've been perfecting their model for years. If you end up just looking greedy you won't make anything.
Phew, thankfully I saw what I was hoping to see coming into this thread, namely people pointing out the disconnect between the predictable vocal outrage on TA on this subject, and results in the real world. Doesn't matter how many people here knee-jerk whenever they see IAP, it has been demonstrated that games that include them can prove to be profitable, specifically because people do want the IAP offered, or they wouldn't pay for it. Personally, I'm not a fan of IAP consumables in games, but optional one-off permanent purchases are more acceptable in my eyes (Jetpack Joyride's "Counterfeit Machine", for example). In terms of "lite" versions of games with IAP unlocks, and full versions that offer the whole thing from the outset, I prefer picking up the latter if possible, just to avoid potential issues with unlocking the content in the future.
So are we going to all move to a situation like the old days of arcade machines. $1 for 3 rounds of the game. . I know I would go broke so fast lol.
That's a brilliant point. I wish more developers that attempt the "traditional" freemium games would realize this. From experience, the best games (as in, games that I spent money on) set out to make a great game and THEN add in IAP, instead of going the other way around. I'm not averse to IAPs before I know what they are, but poor implementation makes me cringe. Ironically, I feel the best IAPs are in games that don't need them. If I like a game, if it's fun and there's no 'ceiling' to hit, I will gladly send a few bucks the developer's way and have done so in the past.
I think you're onto something there, and as for the charts. The top grossing games are all freemium IAP types. I think this also addresses another issue of the app store in terms of low/free game prices. It allows the developer to earn not by initial sale, but by sale of content if the game is good enough for people to like it and want that content. As an added benefit I think that by the use of IAP it makes things that much harder for pirates to pirate the game. I think we will be seeing a lot more freemium games in the future...