I despise 1&2. Pay to win is an absolute pox on gaming. It ruined Syrth for me when they brought it in. (And I’d previously been happy to pay for extra questlines).
I’m fine with 3&4 as long as the extra content is enough to justify the price.
@Nocturnal_Stillness It’s interesting. From the best that we can tell, the iOS demo with Showdown was either revenue-neutral or a little bit of a loss compared to what we would have expected. There was no noticeable effect on reviews or support emails.
By the Android demo was different. It provoked a number of nasty reviews and support emails, but the actual number of purchases was higher than we would have expected.
Right now, it looks like we’re going to do the same demo/IAP-to-unlock-full-game on Android for Deathless and I think your game as well. It’s the same trial version that’s on the website. Obviously, we’re hoping that we can see an increase in Android sales through this mechanism.
I always feel like it’s cheating to get a stat bump, so I never take that type. Fremium is a good example of this. Anything where you can purchase gems/gold etc for powerups seems like it’s for the lazy or untalented. 
If it feel like they disabled the game to make a DLC or IAP, I REALLY hate it. I liked that Mona Lisa example. Yes, if it’s done ahead of time… put it in the game and make me pay for it up front!
Now, DLC can be done great. When you get an extra 10 or 20 hours of content with new quests, characters, spells, whatever. It’s more like a new game, but in the same setting.
But, for Choice games, which are about 2-hours a play through, I can’t visualize ever being happy with an IAP. You aren’t going to get 10 hours. I think that I’d need at least an hour of play to feel that it was worth it, and I don’t think it’s fair to the author to write a project of half the size of the original for a limited number of readers. I think they’d be better off making a new release, and if it’s half the size, charge half the amount. And, make sure that it is completely separate, so not a continuation of a cliffhanger. A new story with beginning, middle and end.
Just my thoughts.
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@Nocurnal_Stillness what is Unnatural’s price going to be?
I’d like it in the same vein as the last two but I wouldn’t rule the first out yet. I would pay for an all new character backgrounds in games where it actually does change plot a little. Like in ZE with the scientist option. Something like that would give me a good reason to play a game again.
What about unlocking stuff early? Like in my game that I’m working on, there’s several careers that you can choose from, each giving a very different experience of the game. I was thinking of making one or two of them unselectable in the beginning and would require you to complete the game with a certain outcome. But for those that are impatient, they could pay to unlock them. Or would that be too much?
I’ve long considered adding a “Jewish” IAP for Vampire. You’d buy it in part one, but it would open plotlines throughout the game (new sire, new background, new religious tradition, kabbalah, maybe a new heresy or something…).
I didn’t realize how extensive the Jewish community was in the Caribbean when I was originally developing New Orleans, so its absence is something that irks me.
But I need to get further along in the volumes before I go back and do that.
^This
@fantom I’m not sure that would be easily workable in a ChoiceScript game, since the data is reset to default when a player starts again (i.e. that boolean you set to ‘true’ to unlock the new content will be back to ‘false’ the instant they click ‘play again’). The only way it would work is if, at the end of that game, the player has the option to immediately start a new character and you reset / handle everything ‘manually’, with the exception of that one critical variable. However, as an IAP not actually purchasable until you reach the end, it may be possible?
@Nocturnal_Stillness I feel that for most people it probably comes down to simple value-for-money. Whatever shape or form the IAP takes, whatever the purpose it serves, most people will be asking themselves Is this something which should’ve been included in the original release? Am I being ripped off here? Sometimes it’s the actual money, but more often than not I would say it’s just the principal of the thing: nobody likes to feel ripped-off, even just pennies short-changed at the corner store. If the original game content was worth the price you paid, and the IAP content / purpose is worth the price you pay for that, then I think the whole question of whether it’s a good / bad thing becomes, for many, a non-issue.
All that said, the main problem with these things when asking “is it worth the price?” is that transaction costs may for some people (e.g. desktop players) sometimes cost more than the IAP itself. Until systems are in place to negate that, it will always be a sore point for many.
As many on this thread know, I was toying with the idea of an IAP in Choice of Rebels - basically an extra-lengthy mission for the MC, a particularly complex bandit raid. It would be the equivalent of having another offshore platform mission in Zombie Exodus as a separate IAP.
It was interesting to see how many people saw this not as new, extra content potentially worth paying fifty cents for, but as a rip off, something they should get as part of the main game.
@NS, you haven’t even got “extra mission” as an option (#4, extra storyline, seems to be a bit grander scale). Is that really so far beyond the pale?
$3
I was giving examples I was expecting people to suggest other ideas for what they consider worth an IAP. I wasn’t trying to say those were the only choices.
Sorry, I didn’t mean that just as a question to you, though I made it sound that way. I’m just surprised that there’s such a strong consensus against it.
@Havenstone: One thing about IAPs is that they tend to come across as rudely as the day-one DLC in Dragon Age, where there were NPCs with quest markers that could not be removed and functioned as ads for their respective DLC.
As Vendetta noted, we don’t mind expansion packs, but we react harshly to what we see as money-grubbing, and we also generally don’t want to buy our games piece by piece. Also, in my case, I don’t want to set a precedent that a CoG can expect to cost $3 plus a couple of extra hidden costs. When I buy the $3 game, I expect a complete $3 game that doesn’t have (for example) the archetypal bandit-rebel mission locked away as an IAP.
What if the game was released as completely as the author can, and people who buy it vote on what they want in an expansion?
50 cents really doesn’t seem worth it to me. The amount of trouble I have to go to in order to find my credit card, type in the information, hope the bank doesn’t slap on a £1 charge, knowing that you’ll get 9cents/5pence at the end of it just doesn’t seem worthwhile. And for $1 I can purchase The Paradox Factor, which is a complete game. Or I can go to the second hand bookshop and buy a whole book there.
But I’m a dinosaur who doesn’t have a mobile device which I can use to make spur of the moment purchases. I’d rather have that 50cents tacked onto the price at the start. No hidden charges, just the best game you could possibly give me.
But using money to save time does appeal. That’s what I’ve generally used money for in the past. Actually, I’ll pay my couple of dollars to support the developers of flash games which I love, and be happy that as a thank you I get some bonuses which allow me to save time playing the game.
If there was an IAP which would allow me to ignore choice of game stats, and focus solely on the story. Or which would let me bypass tricky things, so instead of focusing on getting my stats perfect for a specific ending/route I could just sit back and enjoy the story, then I may consider buying an IAP. (Assuming I could, which I can’t currently.) But that’s the only thing that would really be worth it for me.
Generally when I buy CS games through the chrome store, I’m already getting ripped off, because I have to buy a prepaid visa card that charges an activation fee, because they won’t let you use paypal. But that’s google’s fault. If I used this card to buy a game, I’d want to know what the price for the whole game was (all paths), so maybe I could afford a couple games with the same card. And I’d be disappointed if there was a route I couldn’t take without paying for it. If they even allow IAPs in chrome. I might feel ripped off too if it offered a different outcome, perhaps less so if it was just an extra mission.
As to the cheaty type things/stat boosts/walkthroughs I’d prefer those to be IAPs instead of being included in the game price, because I have no desire for them. Besides if I’m stuck in a game or want to get all the points/options, I just look at the code…
@Fantom I see that as a different case. The expansion isn’t there on day 1. It’s coming out after, and it’s adding to the experience of the players who’ve purchased the game. It’s a reward, even if they have to pay a dollar for it. I’d expect it to add significantly to the gameplay.
If Choice of Romance had included a more elaborate ending with Mendosa, branched from the first game, I’d be all over that. But that’s bonus content, on a free game, added long after the game’s been released. It wasn’t the plan from the beginning. Or if Choice of Romance were to add in a fourth lover in the first game, or the option to deliberately not marry. Or hey, even, add some more de Vega content.
But if the game was newly released and it had planned for me to spend extra to get all of these things I’d be a bit resentful. I already gave you your money. Give me an honest price at the start don’t keep asking me for more and more cash.
The thing is, this forum users might not be the avarge CoG customer. I think most of us here already trust the CoG label, and so we will be willing to pay, say, three dollars for a game we know is very big, and perhaps come from an author we already like.
But I’m sure some people were exposed to CoG by searching ‘zombie’ in the App Store, for example. So they see this game in a relatively unfamilir format, they can’t be sure if it’s any good, up what the heck, it’s only a dollar, right? The App Store has pretty low norm for prices, and I know I would hesitate to blindly buy something for more than 2 dollars.
So upping the price might not be a viable option, unless CoG gets much bigger.
Now, I asked some of my gamers friend of their opinion about IAP, and they mostly gave the same reply: it depends on the original investment, and the IAP frequency in the game.
If you paid sixty dollars for a game, you’re going to be pissed if ten minutes in, they ask for more. But if you paid a dollar, and the IAP is one dollar or less, and they don’t show up every minute, adding a bit to your investment feels like a good deal. Assuming, of course, the content is not merely an afterthought.
I doubt any author her intend to hide their best content. Maybe they wrote something that makes the game much easier, or an extended segment they wanted to write but feels like a side quest. I feel, considering the low price the games go for, asking for a bit more for a bonus of sort is quite reasonable. I mean, the flimsiest enovella sells for around seven dollars, I would like my ‘extra’ work, added over the original scope of the game, to be worth paying for too.
I think that that IAPs to turn off ads are fine, because free games hardly generate revenue as it is. Aside from that, I think eextra content should just be implimented into the game initially, with a bumped up price.