The PlayHaven Network - Your Experience & Advice

osucowboy18

Hi everyone,

I have been seriously debating on whether or not to put PlayHaven into one of our new apps, and then making the app free instead of charging a dollar for it. GameSalad has made several claims stating that a lot of developers are making upwards of $1,000 a month per app with PlayHaven, and I was wondering just how many developers that is.

So, please post your experience with PlayHaven's network below. Please include topics such as the name of your app, its price, where ads are placed and how often they are shown, and (if you so choose) how much revenue you have generated from each PlayHaven-enabled app! With the New Releases page gone from the new App Store, making our apps free might be one of the few ways remaining to still get a large number of downloads from the start. But would adding PlayHaven be the right way to monetize these free apps now?

Also, one of the main hurdles keeping myself (and many others I'm assuming) from publishing an app with PlayHaven is the fact that we don't have a solid reporting system yet, so we are forced to wait several months before we know if our PlayHaven app was a success. @SaladStraightShooter, could you possibly shed some light as to where we are with the PlayHAven reporting system?

- Alex

LiquidGameworks

I have had moderate success with Playhaven (I think), but I have very little specific info. I've received some income from March, and I've heard I'm getting income from April (but maybe it includes May?), but the payments are not regular, and all you get is a "Gamesalad has deposited XXX dollars into your account". I wouldn't call this any sort of reporting system. I have no idea if the money I'm getting from GS has any correlation to the downloads of my app, and I'm not even certain of what income is for what month. I've talked a little to SSS about it, and not to put words in his mouth, but it didn't sound like GS was anywhere close to giving us a decent reporting system.

A couple notes. Playhaven has already built an incredible analytics/reporting system for its services. I think one possible solution, if GS is working directly with Playhaven, is for GS to acquire a Developer ID number for everyone utilizing Playhaven (we can even fill out our own forms to acquire it), so that we can log into Playhaven ourselves and look at our own reports. This should be relatively straight forward, since Playhaven can already track which app is producing what income. However, I feel the glitch here is that GS is scraping money off the top of Playhaven ads for free users, and are not inclined to share any details of such agreement. Well, I don't really care what your agreement is with Playhaven, and its not as if free users need access to that info anyways. If Pro users are getting the full Playhaven payout (as was suggested), then it shouldn't be any trouble to give us our own access to Playhaven reporting.

Tip #1: Let Pro Users acquire their own Playhaven account, and utilize whatever developer ID GameSalad is already using to track app activity to allow Pro Users to see and use Playhaven's already established reporting system. This way, GameSalad doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, and users are happier. This happiness occurs even if payments are still delayed, because its the only way we can gauge the value of the service.

Tip #2: If GS users can see ACTUAL results from Playhaven, more users will be inclined to use it. Right now, Playhaven isn't much of a selling point for a pro account, because there's no info. Give us access to Playhaven's awesome reporting, and I'm sure you'll see more Pro subscriptions.

Tip #3: Please, PLEASE don't introduce more monetary partners with the same convoluted reporting issues. I really do want more options when it comes to monetary partners, but whats the use if I can't tell if they work?

We really appreciate that you've given us a car GS, but please provide the speedometer, fuel gauge, mirrors, and the windows necessary to drive it effectively.

Thanks

famekrafts

I was thinking the same, there are thousands of apps being created everyday, are people actually making money through games? Apple has doomed developers by following the $1 model and now free model. Its like gambling, put all your hard work, launch your game and trust your fate to get lucky, if you are it will get 100,000 downloads, if not, all your hard work gets nothing.

How many people do manage to sell the games for even 0.99 cents now days?

so the only option is to get the free model and use advertising options.

now I find that even that is not trustworthy, people are making money but there is no report system from playheaven through GS?

What about iAds? that has reporting system?

How exactly game designers here are making money or its just a gamble that one of your games will get lucky and give you few thousand dollars?

Jaskip

So there is no way to receive data from Play Haven besides a monthly deposit?

I launched an app a few days ago and find it disheartening that i can't see ANYTHING indicating if Play Haven is even working.

LiquidGameworks

@Jaskip Download your app, and see if it activates. If it does, you're all good. Except you won't know anything about your sales for another 90 days minimum.

lycettebros

I'd say that Playhaven's success - or lack of, within GS has been established in the eyes of most unless some people are keeping quiet about their profits?

These arguments and requests have been repeated multiple times and I am feeling even self conscious writing this again. No one in their right mind signs up to a service that allows no feedback or stats.

However if someone has made a $1000 in a month tell me now and I will sign up!

pinkio75

Hi,
I use PlayHaven for about 4 months now i have confirmed my earnings for the months of June and July, and they are good, for me PH is more profitable than iAd.

lycettebros

Do you mind to say how much @pinkio75?
If you prefer PM them to me and I will happily share my iAds results as a reciprocation of info?

pinkio75

@LycetteBros
I sent you a PM.
Bye

osucowboy18

Thanks for the feedback guys! @pinkio75, glad to hear you are making some money from PlayHaven. If you don't mind, could you PM me your results?

@LiquidGameworks: I completely agree! If GameSalad would just set up a good reporting system, I would happily use PlayHaven. If PlayHaven already has one set up, I don't see why it should be a big deal for GameSalad to either pull data from their system, or give pro users access to their reports from PlayHaven's side. Maybe @SaladStraightShooter could provide some insight on this?

- Alex

LiquidGameworks

@Pinkio75 You can confirmed you've received payment/info from June/July? I'm still waiting for April/May!

pinkio75

@LiquidGameworks
No i don't receive it, but in October 2012 i will receive payement for June 2012.
in November 2012 i will receive payement for July 2012 etc

LiquidGameworks

@pinkio75 If you haven't received it, how can you confirm that its profitable? Unless of course you're talking about your experience with Playhaven outside of GameSalad.

pinkio75

I have not yet received the money but I have the reports for june and july.
Now I'm waiting for the payment in October for June they could arrive after 90 days.

lycettebros

I am impressed by the figures of @pinkio75 I have to say! Time to seriously consider Playhaven.

LiquidGameworks

@pinkio75 and just to confirm... your June & July earnings reports were from GameSalad produced games?

lycettebros

I really am impressed with the GS community with a gentlemen like @pinkio75, sharing his experience to the benefit of others. He has done more to convince me of the benefits of Playhaven than anything else!

HammerSolutions

"Tip #1: Let Pro Users acquire their own Playhaven account, and utilize whatever developer ID GameSalad is already using to track app activity to allow Pro Users to see and use Playhaven's already established reporting system. This way, GameSalad doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, and users are happier. This happiness occurs even if payments are still delayed, because its the only way we can gauge the value of the service. "

Then GS wouldn't be able to skim their 20-30%...

After 4 games with integrated playhaven and NO reports for months (still haven't received June's "report") I'm dumping GS.

DigiChain

Hi, hope you guys don't mind me dragging out this old thread - but a good few months have passed now so hopefully people have a better idea of Playhaven performance.

I'm about to release a new game - and am thinking of trying Playhaven.
Are you guys happy with Playhaven results? And if so is anyone willing to share any results - or PM me any average figures?

Wingmanapps

Yeah - me too. Going in totally blind here. uploading universal build this weekend with playhaven. Have no clue what to expect in terms success rate? hopefully better then iads

pinkio75

@Digi-chain
I've had 2 good payments with playhaven, i using it on 30 games,
but the last 2 payments are less than iAd,
and there is no any way to view the official reports of playhaven...
I'm very frustrated by this system

DigiChain

Thanks @pinkio75.
It's a shame to hear your payments have dropped. It's very difficult to know what to do without any real data - and a shows big flaws in the way GS have implemented it...

RUPAS

@Digi-chain
I've had 2 good payments with playhaven, i using it on 30 games,
but the last 2 payments are less than iAd,
and there is no any way to view the official reports of playhaven...
I'm very frustrated by this system

I have the same problem, it's a shame not to see their reports, until they change the system certainly did not think to use PlayHaven. Do not understand why they decided not to use the access log in PlayHaven, would not be very difficult to provide an access ID pro users. So you can access the control panel PlayHaven.

on the other hand, has an option PlayHaven "maining list" would be very interesting to be able to access it, to pick our own network of customers, and so we can report new releases ....

Peter_Olafson

I received a report early in January and then in the end of January which I believe was GS playing catch up. So can we expect future reports on a regular basis at the beginning of the month or the end of the month? I ask because it's the middle of the month and I've seen nothing.

pinkio75

unfortunately every month this thread is repeats,
I hope that GS resolve this issue very soon...

Supersonic9120

I'll give you guys an update of revenue I have made from Playhaven. Here I compare the Impressions for iAd from the apps utilizing Playhaven and then the revenue from Playhaven. Since there is no reporting system as of yet, this is what I have been looking at as a comparison.



May - July - 1601 Impressions $26.17 Revenue from Playhaven
August - 478 Impressions $10.33 Revenue from Playhaven
September - 54,784 Impressions $325.49 Revenue from Playhaven
October - 32,345 Impressions $7.07 Revenue from Playhaven

These all looked about right until October which is suspect. So I will say definitely worth implementing partially. You don't want a User to get annoyed with your ads though. Problems include lack of consistency, lack of reporting, three month delay in getting Reports.

pinkio75

playhaven is a great way to make money every month, but without a dashboard is really frustrating ...
I don't understand why GS does not give us a direct access to playhaven dashboard...
I can't know what my game is more profitable than others; how many impressions it made as
so i think that this method is not professional.

RUPAS

@pinkio75 just what I always say, it is not professional method.

DigiChain

Well, based on what you guys are saying it still sounds as though its a worthwhile option as a way to earn money on free apps (even if GS haven't really implemented it that well!).

It sounds like a leap of faith - but we don't have many more options.

@pinkio75 - in your experience how do think iAd compares to Playhaven overall?

pinkio75

@Digi-chain
beginning ph was really good and more profitable than iAd, now for me has fallen! and is less than iAd.
For my experience certainly iAd is better than ph and it's more complete,
with iAd i have a dashboard where I can see all my earnings and which game
are more profitable.
so overall, iAd is superior than PH
PH perhaps it would be better if we could have direct access to daily reports,
I've said too many times.
Anyway PH it's a good alternative.

DigiChain

Thanks pinkio, thats a great help.
Based on this I think I'll explore the iAd option then.

Cheers