pay up (pt. 1)
Sifting through the vast accumulation of iOS games I might want to play, I come up again and again against a tremendous variety in pricing models. As a consumer of limited means, I want to make sure that my dollar is well spent: not only do I want adequate value for my money, I want to financially support those developers who have done something really worthwhile. So I tend to gather a lot of information before making a purchase. Sometimes this is easy: when I’m given the opportunity to sufficiently experience the game firsthand, I can make an informed decision. But given the spectrum of game experiences out there, this isn’t always necessarily the best way to present a given product, either. Some models I’ve been thinking about:
1. The straight buy. “This app costs x dollars, paid upfront for the entirety of the experience.” This is a traditional retail-rooted model that works well for games in which in-app purchases wouldn’t be appropriate. It also best serves those games that would rely on a continuous narrative arc to carry their experience, those that would lose something by being broken into smaller chapters. This is a hard sell, relying entirely on marketing and presentation. It works well for developers well-established enough to have developed a public expectation of quality from their products. Far more rare are the gems that make themselves known on this model (e.g. Sword & Sworcery) and though it seems the straightest path to honest money, it’s a tad daunting for an unproven indie like me.
2. Lite. A free “lite” version (better termed a demo, na?) with a separate purchasable full version. This is one of my preferred models (as a consumer), but the demo treads a very fine line: offer enough of the product that the consumer is intrigued, but not so much that they feel they’ve already had their fun. I appreciate the opportunity to actually have the game in my hands and, with some clever design, the developer could grant me an honest taste of what else is in store. The problem with this model lies in making a demo that’s simply too enjoyable. This can be a problem when your game is designed around a single mechanic, which can be more or less fully exhibited in a demo (see: Gasketball). I remember playing dozens of hours of the Gish demo with my brother before, years down the road, I finally bought the game out of respect for the product (and then played comparatively little of it). With a good sense of one’s product, I think this model can be a pretty workable one.
3. Tips. Offering your whole game for free and then asking players to show their appreciation is a bold move. There’s no question as to what’s behind the paywall because there simply isn’t one. The entire game is available for the consumer who can enjoy it as fully as they like for as long as they like. And you, as a developer, hope that they will feel positively enough about the experience to want to reward you for facilitating it. There’s a certain beauty to this model, but the pragmatist in me questions what the conversion rate might be. I like having things for free, certainly. I also like to recognize good work. But would the fact that I haven’t yet thrown the Spaceteam devs a dollar or two as I’d intended to do suggest something deeper about consumerist patterns? This model probably only works for games that players return to again and again. If they play through the game in a single sitting, close it, and never return to it, it’s likely never going to occur to them to tip the developer. But if you’ve got something with staying power (and aren’t too worried about income stability?), this is a highly intriguing model.
I’ve got more to say and several more models to disentangle, but it’s getting on in hours and I’m going to turn in for now (read: play iPhone games in bed for several hours until it’s well past any reasonable bedtime).
TO BE CONTINUED (in part 2).
bervquest 