I can’t speak for everyone here but the reason why I disliked the IAP in your game is it felt like content was being withheld from the outset. I would rather pay more and have it in the game anyway.
Sure, makes sense. Is that mainly a matter of timing, do you think? I.e. if you knew JimD had written a Devlin segment at the same time as the rest of Zombie Exodus, or Zachary Sergi another villain storyline, would you feel that was a bit of a ripoff because they were withholding content “from the outset”?
Or is there something about “extra mission” that’s different in kind from your options 3 & 4 above?
Asked another way: was my main mistake announcing at testing stage that I had a tax collector mission in mind – whereas if I’d rolled out an extra bandit mission or two next year in between the release of Game 1 and Game 2, it wouldn’t have felt (to you at least) like a ripoff?
This isn’t really a hypothetical question, though it’s not quite as cynical as it sounds. I’d finished Ch 2 when I realised that Telones would play a role in future games, and thought about whether it was worth my time to go back and introduce the Telones in the Whendward bits, knowing that would substantially delay my completion of the game - and that the game could work just fine without that bit. I justified going back in part by thinking it might work as an IAP.
But it didn’t have to be “content introduced at the outset” – heck, it still only about 75% exists, after weeks of working on it. So maybe in future I should save any ‘good idea’ additions like that for a post-release package, if it would make a difference in people feeling ripped off…
Yes, I could say its a matter of timing but also what actually the “extra mission” contains. From how it read when I played it, the mission was basically an additional path through the game. But if it opened up additional paths down the line in either the first game or future games then I’d probably see it differently.
But may I ask why you don’t just charge more and have it in the game? Or is it because of the time taken to write it would delay the release of the game?
Ok thank you.
@Havenstone @Nocturnal_Stillness
For me it’s a matter of delivering finished, all-encompassing products.
The Elder Scroll expansion packs are probably the best example I can think of, namely Blood Moon, Tribunal and the Shivering Isles.
I’d rather pay for the full game, get everything as it should be and then pay another sizeable chunk for another semi-related but standalone(ish) chunk of content.
Simply put, I don’t like throwing money at ‘half-assed’ DLCs like new missions, characters or weapons. I’d much rather the Developer(s) finish the game, push it out and THEN develop some big and meaningful add-on and charge any amount they want for it (within bounds of reason).
I’m all for new filler, e.g. missions and characters etc. But I’d much rather see them come WITH a big chunk of “proper content” in the form of whole new storylines/expansion packs etc.
Does that make sense? 
@JasonStevanHill Are IAP a substantial source of revenue for Choice of Games? Are they worth including?
@CJW, thanks, definitely makes sense. As do @Nocturnal_Stillness’ points… and everyone’s, really. And at the end of the day, the customer is right.
@NS, we’ll see how long Rebels 1 is when I get to the end of it. But my guess is that given its length and complexity, it’s going to end up pushing the top of the CoG price range… more Slammed than Space Pirates. If I’m wrong, then yes, your solution of “charging more” up front definitely applies; if I’m right, that would take us into exciting new pricing territory. More likely, I’ll just accept that I’m writing extra for audience goodwill – something that’s worth a lot at any time, and certainly when you have a series in mind. 
@Ramidel, “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.” The problem (which I know we’ve all hashed over at length on the COG Business Model thread) is that these really aren’t $3 games. I mean, maybe that’s what they’re worth to you, and fair enough; and there’s obviously a good share of the market that can’t afford more than $3. But trying to judge as a player, not just a writer, I think they’re a steal. Sabres of Infinity is a damn good novel, but you’ll pay significantly less for it than you would for even a cheap paperback.
What holds down the price is, fundamentally, ease of piracy. As Jason said in another thread, “Honestly, that’s part of the reason our games are priced so low. We think they should really be closer to the price of a book (like, $8-$10), but the higher the price, the more likely it will be pirated.”
IAPs are one potential way to ease around the problem… but only if they don’t sacrifice too much reader goodwill and attract nasty reviews.
I would surprised if someone would bother pirating CoG games, it’s such a niche genre. Of the percentage of people that play IF games, how many are either hackers or regularly pirate content? I know jail breaking and the like looks common online, but I don’t how prevalent it really is.
Anyway, I have a question: since it’s established CoG don’t want to increase the price, would you rather have a smaller game, that fits the 1$ tag, or the same game with varies IAP content that may bring the total investment to, say, 4$?
I mean for a single dollar, surely you’re not expecting much? So any additional content is literally getting what you are paying for - an amount of content you experience depends on what you pay.
@FairyGodfeather Can you give me an example of what you mean?
a) Additional chapters (Choice of Romance, Zombie Exodus)
b) ad turn-off (older games)
c) unlock (most) of the game (Showdown on iOS, Reckless on Android)
d) in-game perks (WarningSys in Hero Project)
e) the “Jewish” pak I was describing for Vampire
@Havenstone it’s also that we’re competing in a marketplace were most games are freemium, or otherwise priced in the $1-$3. We’re not (currently) competing against ebooks. People that like to read novels aren’t usually picking up our games; it’s people that like games and are willing to give a piece of interactive fiction a shot.
Sure – I guess that’s the biggest constraint.
So how do we market more to novel-readers?
Not the first one, since that’s more paying for sequels. I know the ads aren’t an issue anymore. I guess it’s the in game perks I’m asking about. Those for Choice of Zombies and Heroes Rise and did Choice of Romance have them too?
I like novels. I like your games. I’d absolutely love if the Amazon actually fixed things so I could play the games on my Kindle, but that doesn’t seem likely.
On iOS, 13% of Hero Project’s revenue has come from IAP. 9.4% of Zombies’ iOS revenue is from IAP (which only has one IAP, and was post-release).
The problem with Romance is that the bonus-IAP can’t be easily distinguished from the content-IAP, so there’s no valuable measure there.
But, if there’s a 10% boost to revenue due to IAP, I’d say that’s something to continue to feed. Not to focus on (eg we’re not switching to a freemium model, where you have to buy IAP to advance), but to feed.
I think the rest of COG would agree that our games will be complete in and of themselves. Though, I will admit, I have been encouraging (outside) authors to think about IAP as they’re writing/developing their games. The Hero Project’s IAP is the first fruit of that effort.
Those figures are interesting. If my brain was working I’d try and work out how many people who purchase the original game then go on to purchase the IAP.
I did actually like how Heroes Rise did it, providing a walkthrough and making the game easier.
@jasonstevanhill I don’t know about Android, but on iOS don’t updates to games push them closer to the top of the charts, similar to if they were newly released? If so, what if you took content that might be normally included in an IAP and include it as part of a free update? Just a thought I had.
Oops. I meant to say thanks Jason. It’s definitely something to think of.
@jasonstevanhill “We’re not (currently) competing against ebooks. People that like to read novels aren’t usually picking up our games; it’s people that like games and are willing to give a piece of interactive fiction a shot.”
Assuming this isn’t actually deliberate policy, is it a problem with how these products are portrayed / perceived, being presented / seen more as “text games” rather than “interactive novels”? Indeed (and to keep the thread on-topic), isn’t such as the encouragement of IAPs simply reinforcing this perception, since that is very much something related to games, not ebooks, further distancing ourselves from the latter.
To put it another way, if you call your product a “family car”, is it really little wonder that buyers of sports cars dismiss it out of hand? Moreover, once you’ve branded it a “family car”, won’t you have serious trouble ever selling it at a sporty price even if it actually offers superior performance and far more miles to the gallon…?
In short, is it a branding & marketing issue? Moreover, is it too late to reevaluate / rebrand / change tack?
I actually read these gamebooks far more often than conventional novels I’ve always been fascinated about the concept (I used to read the old Choose Your Own Adventure books), and then when Choice of the Dragon came out in 2009, it blew my mind.
@jasonstevanhill
I agree with @Vendetta . Of course I know little about marketing, but in my opinion, it’s a better description of these CS projects to be called “interactive novels” as opposed to “games”. For example, if I told someone Choice of the Dragon was a book, they’d go and read it and say “Oh, this is a book, but it’s also kind of a game” but if I told them it was a game, they’d go and read it and say “I was expecting a video game…this is just a bunch of text”. Basically, I think it’d be best to appeal more to people who enjoy novella, because these gamebooks are essentially the same thing, with just an added twist and concept.
@fantom No, updates don’t inherently push games up on iOS. They used to do that a few years ago, but the result was that people were pushing pointless updates, so Apple changed their policy.
My main objections are still that as a desktop/Chrome user I can’t buy IAP’s in the first place and even if I could buying any game in chunks of around $1-2 invokes the bank’s transaction fee, also around $1 every single time, due to that fact alone I’d rather pay $8 up front for a really good/long game than give more money than absolutely neccessary to the banksters.
Also greyed out options with IAP links in a game do come across almost as annoying as Dragon Age’s day 1 DLC, with the added insult that, again as Chrome player, I couldn’t even get it even if it is something that really appeals to me in effect adding the annoyance of platform exclusive content on top of it.