...basically people, it is best to buy the type of games you want to see more of. Do you want to see more games with an entry price, lots of iap's (needed or not) and a constantly required internet connection? A game that you have to visit forums to find out how hard it's gonna shaft you (if at all) before you invest your time & money in? Then buy this and other games like it. Do you want more free p2w trash that always has a hand in your wallet? Download free games then. Do you want premium games that get expansions and are supported for the life of a normal premium game? Buy them then. It might take a while for developers to trust that we will buy, but in the end it will be so worth it. Putting money into anything but premium games is sabotaging the future of mobile gaming 100 per cent. Money talks and developers look to see where the money is being spent and develope accordingly. It is as simple as that. I apologise if this post is off topic but I'm passionate about mobile gaming and the solution is so easy yet we're losing the battle & it's so frustrating.
Exactly ! On my iphone i've got (just checked) 750 games installed ! Granted i 'could' save some money (what a dollar or two ?) and buy a game 6 months later when i've got time to play it instead of on launch but i want the dev to get more money. If a games $3 its actually £3 so essentially here in the UK we pay nearly double what americans do - frustrating but the games are STILL so cheap Out of a 3 dollar game apple gets 30% dont they so the dev gets $2.10 - not much. I want ios to be full of great premium games, if you want tons of freemium or not the best games then keep staying away from launch prices and wait for sales (to save a dollar or two !). I mean most peoples phones must be expensive yet when it comes to games some people are so cheap. Games in the 80's were about £7.95 each (so about 13 dollars) and for a kid on low pocket money it was difficult to save up and buy lots. Now years later games are so cheap but yous till get cheap people waiting for price drops or begging for promo codes non stop which are embarassing. If you want quality premium games then help devs out, the games arent even that expensive ! If a dev doesnt make tons on 'game x' he'll concentrate more on Switch or Steam games and we'll be left with freemium and 2000 versions of Flappy Bird
For better and for worse, it seems like we've surpassed that point a few years ago.... free to play is going to be dominant because it's simply what works in the market. Unfortunately, there just really isn't a culture of paying for things on iOS. When iPhones cost $400 to $1150, you'll still get those who want to save more money if they can. Quite frankly, the market is saturated. There are too many options within iOS gaming, let alone outside it (streaming, social media, console games, board games, PC games, etc.). And as one TA member posted, your typical mobile gamer has more games to last them a lifetime. Me, I could probably go a cool, few years with my Wii, iOS, Android, and PC/Steam backlog. I can't say I blame some of the devs for going to Steam. The main draw of games being a fraction of the price vs. console/computer equivalents is also it's drawback... devs need to charge $10 to $30, but they can't do that on iOS. They can do it on Steam and digital shops of console systems, so they flock there. And TBH, if I had to spend several hundreds of dollars on games, I'd pick up a Switch and pick up Super Mario Odyssey, and Zelda: BotW. Those 2 games are $120 USD, but are such an incredible value that many could still say the same even if they paid $240 for them. I suppose it helps I'm also a Nintendo fan.
Weird thing is though that free to play rarely stays free. Enough people only make one small iAP like a bag of diamonds, coins, gems or whatnot which maybe helps for a few hours but often already cost more than a good premium game itself. Not to mention the top grossing freemium stuff: I played FIFA mobile for a while and couldnt believe how many people pumped 100s or even 1000s of dollars per week into the game. Then it was reset and people started anew. All the top grossing free to play games like Clash of Clans etc make fortunes so I always found it a joke that lots of people wouldnt touch a 10 Dollar premium game on the one hand but are willing to spend 10 or more times that for games as long as theyre initially free to download. As business model its genius of course, doesnt mean I can comprehend the thinking process of those kind of gamers.
Ha ha totally agree. Its crazy when you hear these stories that a premium game comes out and people say 'TWO DOLLARS TO PLAY THIS ON MY IPHONE X ! I'll wait for a price drop' and then a day later they're spending $10 on some IAP on some freemium nightmare. Funny I must admit i got addicted to Madden and spent a lot on IAP's on that (I know i know its bad as i hate IAP's!). I hadnt played the mobile version before and was stunned when i discovered when its a 'new season' it resets as you say ! Stunned ! Deleted that app (which was good as i spent too much time on it) but yeah a great idea by the devs to get people hooked and spending money and then resetting it every year again !! As i keep saying games were expensive in the 80's and 90's, i'm happy as anything to pay for premium games on ios all these years later as theres some great games. People buy a $1000 iphone x but wont spend 3 dollars on a premium game (some people not all)
What would help are sorting options and filters in Apple's app store. CHrist, it's only been a decade, instead they remove stuff like the wishlist and make the store worse. Thankfully there are sites like appapp.io and appshopper but having proper filters would most certainly help PREMIUM developers sell their games because of people like me, who ONLY buy premium games and stay the feck away from F2P dumpster fires.
I understand why you feel that the App Store is worse, but it should be made clear that not everyone shares that opinion. In fact, I think the store is now a lot better. Under iOS11, I now have a reason to visit the store every day (not just on Thursdays). The new content-based curation is great, bringing attention to both new and older titles — many of which are paid. And as a marketing person, I can tell you that this is a much better system than the old info dump of “new games” section. As for the wishlist, in my view it encouraged the same kind of race to the bottom that we all bemoan. I created this thread by moving a not-on-topic comment from the Rogue Hearts thread. If I had filtered out any game that has IAPs, I would have missed out on one of my favorite of recent weeks. On the one hand, I agree with the headline — you do get what you pay for. However, I don’t think that has anything to do with free-to-play or freemium: simply put, if you pay for premium games, they will make more of them. Premium games will always be a niche market; that means that, to keep it going, we should stop looking for excuses not to buy games and just take a chance on something you find interesting. At worse, you’ll be our a few bucks. Compare that to the console market, where, if you hate a title you buy onlind, you could easily waste $20+.
Lol, oh man I was stupid in completely the same way but with FIFA (Alas a buddy got me to try it). I got totally addicted to the game and shelled out embarrassingly much (at least compared to the price of normal premium games). It was absolute madness as I usually don‘t even touch f2p. And I also grinded like a maniac, traded like a lunatic on the transfer market and earned tons of coins that way. Due to this I had a better team than a lot of people spending much more real money at the end and then suddenly boom, EA says the game will get a reset. All progress gone, all my time and hard earned spent money even more wasted than before - Same as you I was stunned and angry as hell. Deleted the game soon after the reset announcement and never touched it again. Asked Apple for a refund as I felt pretty scammed but of course you accept an endless textwall of Terms of Service when starting the game and somewhere in there EA says they can reset everything. Still not sure if that’s legal everywhere, but for sure it isn’t ethical. The hardest thing for me to understand though was, that the reset didn’t seem to slow most other players down, they even bought more to have a tiny starting advantage in the next season ... Only to have it taken away from them the next year again. (If you were in a league you got some coins whenever somebody made an in App purchase. In my league consisting of 25 players people often bought premium currency for over 5000 Dollars a day !!!) I don’t get it. One time I was under the spell of an F2P game, I know how easy it is to get lured in. But that gives me even more reasons to appreciate an honest premium game. 99% of the players I met in FIFA never touched a pay once premium game and rather continue with this overpriced madness I shortly fell victim to myself. And seeing your post, EA really does a good job with this. I‘m not proud for wasting so much money (at least for my standards) on a stupid cashgrab game that even regularily deletes everybodys progress but at least I know I‘ll never touch F2P again, especially from EA - And will forever be grateful for honest games with honest prices. Not to forget, nearly every premium game is cheaper on iOS than on PC or console. Even ports of new games.
Ha ha you sound the same as me. Thats the only freemium game i got 'addicted to'. I used to go to sites where you bought Madden coins . e.g a million coins for £20 or something and i did that a few times a month ! Ridiculous looking back I was a late one to Madden so wanted to 'catch up' but didnt have a clue things were reset the next season ! Sold my players and used the coins to 'give' to fellow players in my league as i was quitting But yeah exactly the same as you really. EA must make SO much money, all the daily games i was playing (and at night !) but still you hardly got enough money to compete with the 'big' players so i then used those websites where they buy players from you for lots of coins. Again crazy looking back ! But like you i deleted the game soon after when i realised it gets reset ! Oh well lesson learnt, any other freemium game i've never done that on but being a big NFL fan i went OTT. I can laugh about it now but at the time i was totally addicted. Was ignoring so many of my other great games i've got installed. I strictly keep to premium games now !! As you say i appreciate those much more now, i always talk about my phone being my 'swiss army knife' as i can do so much (Watch tons of stuff via Plex, play tons of games, play emulators (thanks to builds.io) and so many more things). I normally buy premium games on release to help the dev and like you say the games are SOOO cheap. Just got so many classics on my phone, its a dream
Haha, same here. Came late and was jealous of players others got from events I missed (St Patricks, Easter, Team of the Year etc) - Guess that gave me even more incentive to spend €€€ to catch up EA is a lot of things but stupid for sure isn‘t one of them. Poor being another ... They really perfected draining people‘s wallets. Anyway, same as you that especially makes me grateful for developers going the straight route of pay once, play as much and as long as you like. I always preferred premium big time, as I despise paywalls, timers, energy and all that other artificial cr@p to get you to open your wallet and pay horrendous prices. FIFA apparently was the exception to prove the rule At least I‘m getting the feeling that the extreme freemium time is over. Plants vs Zombies 2 will never be considered the classic the first part was for example. The F2P mechanics completely ruined the second iteration. And even though there are bigger companies that - maybe with some small exceptions every now and then - completely abandoned the premium model (Gameloft, EA etc) lately we‘re certainly blessed with a lot of original mobile games or great ports for minimal prices. Just the last months out of my head, INSIDE, GRID, FFXV PE, Ticket to Earth, FRAMED 2 etc etc etc And absolutely can’t wait for Hero Emblems 2 It‘s just an observation and freemium is certainly here to stay but looking at all those high end premium releases we’ve got during the last 12 months it looks like as if the worst freemium days are over. If I recall correctly there was a time not too long ago when nearly every game tried to jump on the f2p bandwagon but especially on dedicated gaming sites like TA there‘s a good amount of players that are willing to pay good bucks to own a full game. Even when there‘s always a minority crying about 10 dollar games being too much I feel like the tide is shifting toward premium again - At least a bit. I think a lot of gamers had similar experiences like us and aren‘t interested in getting robbed with ruthless freemium tactics anymore
Do you have any reason to believe that the people who wait for the price drop are the same ones who spend money on IAPs? Speaking personally, I tend to wait for price drops, but I still buy a fair number of premium games at those reduced prices - along with a few premium games here and there. I never once even considered buying an IAP in a freemium game though.
Granted i dont. I've seen some posters here who wait for price drops and have also mentioned about buying IAP's but yeah to be honest i dont have concrete proof. But i do find it strange many people must buy these expensive phones (not just gifts) yet wont buy 'game x' as its $5.99 etc, yeah peoples position are different but as a kid who grew up in the 80's when games were much more expensive i just find it strange how cheap people are all these years later when games are actually so much cheaper ! The only IAP i'll buy are ones to get rid of ad's etc. In the 'old days' you often got one level in a game and then if you liked it you would pay to unlock the rest - always liked that. Seen some where its not a 'freemium' game but there is something to get rid of ad's (or sometimes unlock the rest of the game) which is great as you tend to be able to try the game out before you buy. On Android dont you get a 4 hour window or something to get your money back ? Think it would be great with iOS, theres been a few (not many) games where i've regretted buying it due to bad controls or something (that spider game a few months ago looked great but hated the controls). I just want iOS games to be huge, find with Steam/Switch competing now we 'may' lose out on some premier games. If it means paying a few pounds more at launch to help new games i'm happy to do that. I'm dreading the day we're stuck with flappy bird game galore
I've had a unique moment to try out both models side-by-side... Castlestorm: Free To Siege, as its name suggests is free to play. I paid $5 to unlock the XP doubler, get weekly bonuses of gold and gems, and remove ads (except those you voluntarily watch to get more gems). Fun romp, and the daily online levels were a unique experience, but.. it's clear they're just hooking you in. The online daily levels require constant internet access (so you get kicked off if you lose signal while in the middle of a game), and max rewards occur only if you win all 3 legs within the 24-hour period. Oh, and you need to wait 6 hours for the next leg, or pay gems to remove that "time meter". Just Castlestorm for PC/Steam costs $15 (includes both expansions). That's just the regular price! I'm sure I could've gotten it for $5 to $10 if a Steam sale/promo came around. No gems, no grinding, no ads, large 22" monitor, and keyboard + mouse made it totally worth paying $10 more for! Again, it's a shame that it's hard to get away charging $15 for a game on iOS. There are people who've spent as much money on apps as they have on their phones. I'm guessing all the free/cheap stuff they can get STILL adds up!
Well, not everyone pined for the $1150 iPhone X. Some folks are gaming on Ip4 to Iph6. Those are older models, and can be purchased very affordably. Plus, if nothing else, I suspect folks have gotten into the mindset that you can't really get hardware for free, but games can be. I've waited for discounts on freemium, but still purchase IAP. The money saved is more towards IAP! If a freemium is really good, I won't mind sinking in up to $40 for it. That's how much a good game would typically cost anyways. Up to $5 for so-so games, and anything in between would be just that. Ditto with tipping.. I tend to do more of a percentage after discounts are applied
