In-App Purchase

General Discussions
#1

Hi,

I’m developing a train game. I programmed the main things. One level and the train movements. The train is on the rail and turning clockwise. Nothing special. Everything works good.

But now I’m thinking, what can I do with this train game?

I mean, should I now make 10 levels and in these levels there are coins?

What for items can I sell in this kind of game. What should the player collect in every level?
Or what must the player do to go to the next level? Add some Enemies?

This is very hard. Has someone tips or some website Links?

Thank You!

#2

I’d leave out in-app purchase(Mostly because I personally think it’s crap), I’d say it’s much better to just make everything in the game that you plan on releasing, and then charge that much more for the app.

But if you do insist on in-app purchase, then new trains and the like would probably be something worth putting in.

#3

IAP with a free game makes a lot more money than selling the game, at least on mobile. But if your game isn’t compelling, no one will buy anything. Make your game fun first, then make the purchases awesome so people want them.

#4

My rules of in-app (from various sources):

  • The purchase shouldn’t be something that make something impossible become possible. Example, pay something to process next stage of game.
  • The purchase shouldn’t be something that player can’t achieve in normal/free way
  • The purchase shouldn’t be something that abuse your game ecosystem, causing losing game’s fun/essential. Example, a special item that kill last boss in one hit.

Basically, the free and paying players should feel same fun.

#5

Yes. The most important thing is FUN.

The main problem by this game is, that the train is on a rail.

I can’t jump somewhere to collect stars or gems like in other games.

The train is on this rail.

#6

These are the difficulties of game design. :wink: You should be creative and think of something. Always remember: you are the designer, you can think of any impossible thing you want and try to implement it. :slight_smile:

#7

Well, you can enable the player to control the tracks, and making it a little fast paced could mean that switching tracks to the right track might be hard. :slight_smile:

#8

My two cents:

You shouldn’t start creating a game by thinking “how can I make money from this?” - you should start by thinking “what would I want to play?”. Make a game that you would love playing, then worry about monetizing it later - or don’t.

#9

Kevin has a point here.

But if you really want, you can sell something like train model (just for visual).

#10

Thanks to all. Very good answers.

#11

If you have an Android phone, check Subway Surfers. They sell only one thing, and that just doubles the gold coins you collect. And you actually have to look for it.

Another good example in my opinion is, Agent Dash. I think it’s both on Android and iOS. They have tasks to complete. When you complete these tasks, your score multiplier increases. Only one of the tasks involve buying characters. My multiplier is 49 right now, the task is to unlock all characters, and some characters are only available through in-app purchasing.

Recently, on Android, an app called File Expert did a thing. They had root explorer as a free feature. But then they turned into a pro feature. They still get some angry comments. So don’t change anything from free to pro or in-app purchase thing.

A really bad implementation of in-app purchase is Cartoon Wars. Because after one certain level, it was impossible to pass the level. This made people think they’ll have to buy another pile of gold to get purchases when they pass it and get stuck on a further level. It might be very hard to pass the level without purchasing, but it should not be impossible.

I’d say a competition feeling can draw people to buy coins or something like that.

But a while back, I read an article about in-app purchase, and people still want to pay $3 for the whole game/app instead of $2 for a feature or constantly paying $1 for gold.

I think you should seriously think making it a paid game. I thought in-app purchases are kind of tough to crack so they can make more money, but I have seen some “mods” that allow you to buy coins for free. So, both options are crackable. Look for the article I mentioned. I don’t remember anything about it but a “full version vs in-app purchase” search would bring some extra opinions on that.

#12

Thanks. :slight_smile:

Good examples and helpful tips.

#13

Hi, I said I read an article about in-app purchase and people not liking it very much.
I was looking for it but I could not find. So I am beginning to think that it did not exist or it was not a legit article. Because if it was a good one, it would still show up with a google search, especially considering the importance of the matter.
So, please disregard that sentence :slight_smile: It kind of makes sense to me because I don’t like in-app purchases, but since I could not find that article, I’m assuming it is not true.

#14

Hi. Ok.

I played Subway Surfers. They don’t only sell “Double Coins”. There are more things you can buy.

#15

Oh, yes. I know you did not mean it but I felt like a liar now :smiley:
But actually this just proves my point. They only sell coins and double coin (Please don’t find anything else :P)

Look at the characters. There is a character (Prince or something) worth about one million coins. Tons of stuff actually and only a little of them requires small amounts of coins. Most of them are expensive.
When you look at them, you see that they are expensive. But coins are not hard to earn through game play. This is the important part in my opinion. See, if you are patient, you enjoy the game and earn coins. But if not, then just go buy some coins.

Let me explain you the game a little bit more, so you can see why I think it is one of the best in-app purchase implementations in my opinion.
1- Coins are earned in so many ways. If you play a couple of times, you will see that you can collect boxes too, which reveal from game items to coins. And I just got 100000 coins from a box. So they seem like they only want you to buy coins if you are really impatient.
2- They have mission sets and after you complete, you get those boxes too.
3- They have some characters and surfboards which you can only unlock by playing the game (Collecting game items such as radios, UFOs, guitars). This implicitly tells a player that they don’t need to buy coins to enjoy the ‘special’ stuff.
4- This is a downside for them but I’ll say: The absurdly high priced characters do not have any exclusive features other than the image. For instance, I could play the game a lot more if I knew (Maybe it has, but they don’t mention it) that the one million coin character had some kind of special attribute, like converting an upgrade item to any upgrade item you want (Convert star to coin manget, so I can get more coin). I would play until I get to that character and see what it does.
But they have 2-3 skateboards which have different attributes.
5- There is always one or more short-term, middle-term and long-term goal to reach. Missions provide short and sometimes middle term goals. You complete them, you get stuff. Expensive characters and special characters provide the long-term goals. So, you never get bored.
For example, Temple Run had some objectives like getting 10000000 points in one run etc. If you can’t get to that objective, you get bored. And at least for me, it was a hard one. And there were no middle term objectives. Hence, I don’t have Temple Run on my phone now.
Actually, Subway Surfers has 20-30 missions which are randomly picked, but that keeps the game fresh.
6- Besides bringing always-fresh air to the game, actually those short-term objectives keep a player in the game. And your best bet to sell something (even your cheapest thing) to a player is to keep the player in the game.
If he plays it for 10 minutes per day, he will think about it for another 10 minutes later in the day. If he plays 2 hours, then thinking time is 2 hours. I think I don’t need to explain that if you think enough, anything can become an obsession :slight_smile:

And they have a regular update schedule now. They “tour the world” if you read the description. They were in Rio and just when my brother got bored of Rio, they went to Rome :smiley: :smiley:

I might try to give you some ideas as a friend of a game freak (I am just game ‘enthusiast’), if you could provide more information about the game.

#16

Wow! Thanks!

About the game. I only made one level and the train movements.

Before I write the whole game I wanted to inform me what I can do.

I played Subway Surfers. Is well done.

Now I will take a pencil and a sheet of paper and make a game concept. :slight_smile: