7. Mistake #3: Expecting recognition for restraint
I’m all in favor of supporting the developers of fun games with no ads, but
even after paying $3.99 they keep nickel-and-diming you Zynga-style…
I’ll give more stars if they add content and subtract greed.
11. Mistakes we generally didn’t make,
but you might:
• No consumables as a source of revenue
• Over-reliance on a single platform
• Excess emphasis on “aesthetic goods”
25 minute lectureDescription: "Developing a good game is hard. Developing a good f2p game is very hard. If you're working on your first f2p game, you're probably going to learn the hard way how difficult it can be to retain users effectively, how to monetize your game effectively, and how time-consuming it can be to support your game and to deal with the many distribution channels that you will ultimately depend on... among other challenges. Take advantage of this opportunity to learn from some of the lumps that Spry Fox has already taken and spare yourself a few headaches."
… which often, but not always, means “single player games”
To be fair, some people *have* recognized what we did in Triple Town. And many users cite the fairness of the monetization in RotMG as one of the reasons they play that game. So this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exercise restraint when designing your monetization; just don’t go overboard, and don’t expect your restraint to win you any awards. That doesn’t seem to be how these things work.
True on mobile (lack of momentum for Steambirds) and true on the Web (i.e. TT FB didn’t get as big a boost as we expected from x-promo with other Playdom titles.) It seems like you (“you” being most indies) need x-promo with many other devs to really have a hope that it will give you a major lift.
Summary: its all about ARPU, ARPU, ARPU. If that ain’t high enough, you can’t pay to acquire users. If you can’t pay to acquire users, you’re basically just counting on luck. Which certainly does work out for some devs… but not most.
