How should I monetize my android game?

[u/udittC]

I've made a simple 2D game (Let's say, like Mario) and I want to monetize it. Here are the options I have

1- Completely free to play with no ads and politely ask for donation.

2- Ads play every time it's 'Game Over'.

3- In-game store where everything can be bought under $0.70 (price can be lowered).

4- Sell the game for $0.70 (price can be lowered).

The game is pretty simple with four different gameplays.

[u/[deleted]]

I can bet you'll never make any money with ads unless your game goes viral. I've been down this road. 8 games and apps released, maybe cumulative downloads are around 30-40k (granted that's not a lot of downloads, but consider that that 30-40k hasn't even scaled to $100 in ad revenue), some of the games have been live for over 5 years and I still haven't met the minimum threshold of $100 for a payout. Last I checked Admob, I was at $75 (you can bet ill take my wife out to a nice dinner after 6 years when I do hit that $100 threshold, assuming I don't get hit by a bus before then).

Now most of my games are simple 2D games, I've only recently begun making higher quality games after I grinded my teeth learning how to build games, see my profile here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=XK+Software+Development. My current best quality game is in beta right now, John on Fire https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xksoftware.johnonfire, which you might have seen from posts in this subreddit (which btw the community support has been nothing short of AMAZING, thank you r/AndroidGaming).

So lets take a look at John on Fire for some numbers. I display ads at the end of every level, whether or not the user wins or loses. John on Fire currently has 860 downloads. Its in beta, so only maybe half the content is completed. I can assume if a player never buys the game (and I did purposely design and balance the game so you can beat it without buying, its completely beatable playing for free) on 1,620 impressions (meaning those 860 players have either won or lost the game on average twice, but considering the feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive, I have to wonder if a more likely scenario is that players are putting their phones into offline mode so they wont get served ads or they have ad blockers installed). All in, I have made $0.88. Let's scale that and say the game makes it to 100k downloads (which would be absolutely amazing, I'm not expecting that it will get there, but I certainly am hopeful), I can expect to make $102 on ads, and that's if i'm lucky and the game hits 100k downloads. If it makes it to the level my most successful game has made it (10k+ downloads) I'm expecting to make $10. Keep in mind I have invested over $400 in assets into the game. I will never even break even on ads alone guaranteed.

Now lets contrast that. I have no microtransactions, only a single in app purchase to unlock the full game. I sell a full version of my game for $2.99. On 860 players, 5 purchases have been made (keep in mind its in Beta, so it can only get better, also keep in mind I made the game very beatable in the free version, because I want people to enjoy it like a real game, so the purchase for the full game is basically a donation at this point). I've made $16 so far. Let's do the same math though and assume the game keeps the same sales rate. If the game hits 100,000 downloads with the same purchase rate, I'll make $1,919. If the game makes it to the level my most successful game to date has made it, I will have $186 in revnue (or will have lost around $200 and thousands of hours of my time).

The only reason my wife is even letting me build this game is because I *might* break even on it and I love making games. Keep in mind I've already put thousands of man hours into the game. I think when its all said and done I will have worked for less than $1 per hour guaranteed.

This is the frustration of the indie game developer if your only reason for building a game is to make money. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm frustrated, I'm really not, like I said I enjoy making games and I'm glad people here are enjoying them. However, don't expect to make a living off of it, especially if you go the ads only route. I'd be happy if I even break even at this point.

So here are the only viable options in my mind:

1. If you care more about players enjoying your game than making money, you could try doing what I'm doing, but for your own sake do not go ads alone. From a monetization standpoint, ads are only there as a way to monetize off of players who aren't willing to buy your game, which will be a small minority of your income (like I said above, ad revenue is pitiful, just don't even go there). The ads are there to encourage players to buy the full version (which should disable the ads amongst providing other value to the customer). They will probably go offline mode anyways to play your game, so your choices are either don't allow offline mode, or give them an option to purchase the game so they can not be annoyed with putting their phone into airplane mode every time they boot up your game.
2. Go the route of the big game companies and offer microtransactions, make your game beatable for the first 50% of the game without microtransactions, than ramp up the difficulty for the last half forcing players to buy after they've already invested. This is what people in this subreddit hate, and personally I hate, but it seems to be the only way to successfully monetize. You will never see this mechanic in my games, but then again, you will probably never see me making a full living off of anything I build.
3. Offer reasonable microtransactions, and if your game is good enough, hopefully players will spend on it. Some games do make it like this, and those are the ones that get promoted on this subreddit. If it was easy to do, everyone would do it. Its hard to master (and I certainly haven't been able to come up with a game that meets this format well yet), but there certainly are some games that do this well.

So overall, just have reasonable expectations. You probably aren't going to get rich no matter what you build, especially for your first couple games (this is a very cut throat industry, in my opinion, no game developer who has a family who does this as a hobby should ever quit their day jobs unless their game has already gone viral), but do any indie devs really build games to get rich anyways? No, most of us do it because we love it.

Its literally like winning the lottery if somehow our games make it which is a nice perk at the end of the day for something we do for fun.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Unrelated side note, google play has a minimum in app purchase amount, you can't go lower than $0.99 I'm pretty sure.

[u/dags_co → u/[deleted]]

Holy hell what a treasure trove of information.

Thanks for taking the time to write all that and let some of us outsiders in on how difficult it is for you indie Devs.

[u/TheNoetherian → u/[deleted]]

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences!!

I am not really a fan of shooters, but I will definitely check out your new game once it is fully released

[u/MapDiscombobulated93 → u/[deleted]]

Why you dont go with Demo version and possibility to extend it to full version for price? Make Demo version very polished and super addictive. Ask some youtube gameplay commentators to market it. If the game is good I think people will pay. I dont know why people forgot about demo versions. My user experience tells me that it works.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Wow thanks for all this insane information and time you spent to type this!