I’ve done microtransactions before, and from what I can tell, offering “convenience” items for sale (items that make gameplay easier) is like walking a tightrope: not only does the item have to be worth the price, it also has to be made just effective enough to make it worth buying, but not so effective that your players assume that you’re extorting them for the “proper” means to succeed.
Personally, if I ever try to do IAP again, it’ll be something like a side-story which expands on the universe of a story for which sequels would be impossible (Mecha Ace for example).
I agree; I like IAP that expands the story or the story’s universe, because I’m essentially buying a smaller game that’s tangential to the original game. It doesn’t interfere with the original in any way and people truly passionate about a certain game can walk away with a big smile on their faces.
Then again, the reason why IAPs exist is because it makes money. And it makes money because we the consumers pay for it. So it’d be unfair to blame the devs- they need to make money too.
Like ages ago in the hero game you could get a warning system through IAP, but it would’ve been better if it had an extra bit going off on a tangent. But that’s just my 2 cents.
There are right and wrong ways to sell additional content. My first rule for IAP, when I was working in gaming, was that they shouldn’t affect the game mechanics in a way that will give someone an advantage. If you sell premium content, it should be additional content that doesn’t change the difficulty of the main game; otherwise you’re maximizing your short-term profits at the expense of your fans. (For visual games, especially multiplayer ones, the motto is “sell them a shirt”. This applies to many things that are not shirts, and is related to the “put a hat on it” rule.)
In multiplayer games, especially combat games, people can buy things to give them an edge against other players - this quickly creates resentment and two classes of players. In time-management games a la Farmville, you can use special currency to speed up or skip actions - that only makes sense if your game is a chore that people would want to skip through.
For COG the only thing that makes sense is extra story content. I hate the “pay to remove ads” model - I can’t imagine the ad revenue is that significant, so I’d rather pay that extra cash for something like turning on music, or unlocking another character, or playing extra epilogues. This is why I almost always buy games that charge in advance rather than making me feel extorted. (Kinda dramatic, I know, but I’m making a point.) Is there a reason that COG hasn’t tried selling additional chapters or characters as IAP? You’d think people would snap up, e.g., epilogues about what your hero does after surviving the Heroes Rise trilogy.
The reason that worked was that you could succeed without it, and you could also buy it with regular in-game money. I have no idea how profitable that was, but it’s a good example of how to sell people conveniences without pissing off players who don’t want to buy it.
Urghhh. Epilogues… Really? Personally I would hate to have to pay money to find out an ending. And I JimD had a good idea with the IAP soldier career. Also I agree that the pay to remove ad thing sucks. Like really bad.
There was an extra character class you could buy? Awesome idea, what game was that? (I haven’t played a lot of the military games yet, not my usual cup of tea.)
re: epilogues - I didn’t mean you would pay for the ending or the recap afterward, it would be something additional like a “Where are they now?” special.
Oh, I do remember that. I didn’t buy it for the same reason I had reservations about the early warning system: it seemed like a way to make the game easier. I don’t like playing super-powerful characters; I like a challenge. If I could amp up the difficulty with an in-app purchase, that would be more attractive to me. Can you imagine trying to survive the zombie apocalypse as a child or someone in a wheelchair? It would take extra writing, but how interesting would that be?
p.s. - In-app purchase would be the perfect time for that. For example, that’s when you’ve already tried out all the romance paths if you like romance, so you wouldn’t miss out on them if you then played the “Grade School Student” career character.
Feel like I’m advertising his stuff so I better get paid! And in his new game ZE:SH you can choose challenges like having pets and children to kleptomania.
Back on topic for price, even though I hate this saying, I like quality more than quantity , and would pay more for a great, short game than a long, boring game. Especially if said boring game has IAP’s
I hope that in app purchase doesnt end like what choice of rebels was going to do .
For 2 Dolars you could improve character stats, so he doesnt have weakness. It seems it was canceled but still…
And in his new game ZE:SH you can choose challenges like having pets and children to kleptomania.