I do notice the recent CoG free titles has this in the description, stating it’s a demo up to whatever point, then a fee will apply to continue.
Oh, that’s good. I still wouldn’t recommend it, though. xD
@Samuel_H_Young As a hosted game author, if you don’t mind me asking:
Have you tried both techniques ?
Your conclusion is that pay up front is a better method ?
Do you actually earn more revenue from going demo IAP to pay up front ?
Because I’m not a hosted Game Author yet, my experience are limited, but from what I believe, it’s that a free demo with IAP will gain much more exposure to a larger volume of audiences, by that in itself, the ad on the bottom will have generated more royalty than say a pay upfront $2.99 title. It’s just my personal view, which I totally would stand corrected if that is not the case because I haven’t hosted an actual game title yet.
That would probably be a better question for CoG themselves, since they have access to all of the numbers.
I haven’t tried both, but @JimD had Zombie Exodus published for free, with the subsequent volumes available as IAP’s, and he said he would prefer to have his titles as pay-to-play in the future.
I’d say having a demo inside the app might make you more money up front, but it could hurt you in the end because it definitely takes a toll on your ratings. And revenue from ads is almost non-existent, btw.
But yeah, CoG would probably be able to give more informed answers.
From what I see right now, most of the pay up front titles have no rating at all, because as we all know, only a small percent of players will rate the game, and if there isn’t enough players to even have tried the game (due to up front pay turn off), then there won’t even be a rating. If you look at the other mega hit titles (not Choice Games, but games in general, Clash of Clans, Dead Trigger 2 etc), they’ve all been setup free with IAP.
Zombie Exodus on the other hand, with it’s IAP for chapter 3 to 5 has a full 5 star review (if you choose all version ratings, not current version coz it was just released). But if it came from the creator JimD that he said he would rather have pay to play, then who can argue with that. lol
I’m not sure what you mean by “no ratings” because every title on every platform has at least a few ratings xD and plus, the number of ratings doesn’t necessarily correlate with the number of downloads…but I don’t know. I’d say you can’t really compare an indie interactive novel company with huge video game companies.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear, I meant the review rating in the app store.
The thing about games like Clash of Clans and others is that that entire game type is designed around IAP’s, where as CoG games resides in a niche market between books and games. Games like Clash of Clans also has a huge marketing budget, where CoG games are primarily word of mouth and people stumbling upon them.
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Yes, they cannot be directly compared, but what I was trying to say is, people tend to be more comfortable with IAP since that is the general trend now a days across the board. I for example, have been supporting IAP from PC free games like World of Tanks and Warframe, to a number of app games and ofcourse choicegames, With a good title, I feel like the creator deserves my money for the entertainment I’ve enjoyed as a result of their hardwork. and that’s why I embrace IAP.
Anyway, I’m going to bed, good night =)
IAPs always tend to be the main reason for bad ratings. I know @JimD has had over 1000 1-star ratings and I’d guess at least 90% would be from people who felt cheated that they kept being charged. I’ve had poor reviews for Unnatural from people who thought the game was free and we’re annoyed they had to pay to continue.
The only advantage of a free demo then pay for rest of the game is it gets downloaded more (well on Google anyway - case in point most of the HGs that you pay outright seem to reach 1000-5000 downloads in Google, whereas Unnatural has passed the 10000 downloads mark.) Whether those who did went on to pay I don’t know a figure.
Have CoG ever worked out an average % of how many people download the game go on to buy it??
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I’d agree for games but not fiction. Though I’ve gotten less hate reviews recently for IAPs for new parts of ZE, it seems people feel the app is incomplete as opposed to paying for extra content. In the recent games CoG has published that are free demos+IAP, the same types of negative reviews show up.
When I buy a game off iTunes (for example, Plague), I get a game with the possibility of adding features for a few dollars. I don’t see that as different than ZE charging after part 2, but a fair minority of players think I’m holding back the real game until I make them pay.
Have any of you established hosted game authors experimented of having a free title with higher download mark and releasing another similar style title to have a pay up front for revenue comparison? Using Nocturnal’s example, if a paid title get an average of 1000-5000 downloads and a free title gets 10,000 downloads, that’s at least a double to ten times higher downloaded rate for advert exposure. The double mark probably would still generate less revenue than the up front pay, but a great title with ten times more exposure should generating more revenue than going up front pay right ?
Yes, I’d assume that the in-app demo titles make more sales because of that, but I’d also assume they’d begin to taper off eventually because of all the bad reviews. (which really have nothing to do with the quality of the story itself, but instead that people just are angry that the entire thing wasn’t free.)
And it’s funny because all the people you’ve asked if they’ve experimented with different ways of publishing (pay-to-play and in-app demos) have only published one title so far. xD
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I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure CoG is no longer doing free to play apps because their relationship with the advertisers broke down. With both the games I’ve published I had no say in the price, CoG set that based on the length of the game. So even if I’d wanted it to be a free app I don’t think that was an option.
I don’t want to derail the conversation too much, but where are @JimD’s bad reviews? The App Store is full of good ratings for Zombie Exodus.
And overall, it seems that new Hosted Games are struggling this summer and fall as least with reviews/ratings, although I have no way of knowing how sales are doing. @Lucid and @MultipleChoice seem to have good ratings though.
Yeah, they aren’t doing anymore totally free games, but many of the recent official titles have had free demos.
Zombie Exodus is just so good that even all those “ARGGHHHH YOU TRICKED ME! 1/5” reviews can’t pull it down too much! 
And they’re mainly on Android, anyways. And I’d say Divided We Fall has been doing pretty well, too.
1-star
Good story line but. . This has a great story line but the developer charges for every chapter and they seem to be getting more expensive. Once you pay for the next chapter it still wants money to remove ads. Greedy developer!
3-stars
Love game. I love this game but IT IS MISLEADING!!! GOT to part III and purchased for $1.99. Now, Can’t go
forward without paying another $.99. What exactly did I pay the $1.99 for? NOT HAPPY!!! NOT COOL!!! IF not for this, 5 stars,.but feeling severely ripped off, lucky to get 3 stars. Emailed game site, will wait to see. I hope they fix this so I can play. Paying to move forward & not getting to make that move is fraud. So not cool!
1-star
Avoid! Terrible devs! Zero respect for customers
Avoid! First chapter not free! Terrible customer service. Awful developers! Even if you buy chapters you will still have ads! Devs have zero respect or care for customers! First part is not free, it is ad supported. There is a difference. Purchasing additional chapters will not remove ads, you must purchase the “free” chapters to remove them.
That is not “free” and paid for games should not have adverts! I shouldn’t have to pay extra to get no ads when I’ve bought all chapters. Something very wrong in that, as a loyal customer I ask you reconsider this. Edit: contacted dev whose rudeness and lack of any concept of customer service has made me reconsider buying any more games
here are three I found in the play store. (I hope you don’t mind me showing these @JimD
“First part is not free. It’s ad supported. There is a difference.” Er…what? You aren’t paying for the ads, so that makes it free.
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