Ok, so what's the potential revenue from iAds? do I make the jump to Pro?

StormyStudio

Rightee O then...

iAds available for Pro's, fair enough.

Now is it worth the jump for me personally?

Does anyone know the sort of payments earned from iAds,

I've got my game 'Quake Builder Lite', which gets a solid 550 downloads a day....

If it had iAds what could I expect to get? I could make my lite version have iAds, then if they complete the game add a link to the paid version of Quake Builder. Which would be advert free.

Will also do an update at the same time making it iOS4 friendly, retina display graphics, and also update other bits of the game. Maybe change the birds for something less cheeky...also fix how multi-touch blocks are used. Maybe add more levels too... so its not just an update with adverts but giving people more game too.

What do you reckon? do it and pay for Pro or skip it...

hrsmedia

Would be interesting to know how many downloads a day you need to get your app approved for iAds...

StormyStudio

hrsmedia said:
Would be interesting to know how many downloads a day you need to get your app approved for iAds...

Does the iAds have to be approved then,?

beefy_clyro

I would love the pro but at $1999 i just simply can not justify it! I really would but for that sort of money i would want the full package, something not so buggy, a decent editor, game centre, i mean everything. How Gendai can justify $1999 with such low features and buggy software is beyond me and i would love to know how many people have actually purchased pro (and i say purchased, not the original lot who got the free upgrade).

Im not bashing GameSalad because i love it and what they are doing is brilliant but there are rival products that offer a full tool set and i can only imagine this is the future and there will be many more coming out with drag and drop, if they dont get their pricing model correct i fear they could loose out.

jonmulcahy

You need to have a great application in order to make any revenue from iAds. You need something that people will want to keep playing, making a game that people download, open once and delete is going to get your next to nothing.

StormyStudio

mulcahy said:
You need to have a great application in order to make any revenue from iAds. You need something that people will want to keep playing, making a game that people download, open once and delete is going to get your next to nothing.

fair enough... so probably won't do it just yet..

Photics

Let's figure it out mathematically, as I'm struggling with this question right now.

$1999 for 12 months is basically $167 per month.

Could I make more than $167 per month with iAd games. I think so. I saw almost that much with an Android game that I created. The advertisements weren't nearly as impressive as iAds and I think my iTunes games could be more popular.

However, there is an issue of fill rate. It would be awful to spend $1999, only to have Apple display blank ads. That's what's happening with Photics: Revisions "lite" on iTunes. Even though the test ads displayed for me, real ads are not being displayed.

Benefits...
+ You could add hyperlinks to promote other games
+ You could build your brand with custom load screens
+ Free games will likely see more downloads than paid games

Negatives...
- Poor Fill rate
- expensive loss if the project fails
- iAds is a novelty now, click rates could fall dramatically

StormyStudio

tricky tricky tricky....

Rob2

You need to find out how many of your apps are still installed...update with a mini compo... little lottery or something just to get some feedback...it is certainly tricky

azimpact

[quote]I would love the pro but at $1999 i just simply can not justify it! I really would but for that sort of money i would want the full package, something not so buggy, a decent editor, game centre, i mean everything. [/quote]

I would agree that this program is no way near ready to be charging 2k a year for. It's to buggy and is lacking in many areas the biggest being documentation.

There are numerous other more well polished development tools out there for a lot less that actually are out of beta and have the proper documentation.

StormyStudio

azimpact said:
[quote]I would love the pro but at $1999 i just simply can not justify it! I really would but for that sort of money i would want the full package, something not so buggy, a decent editor, game centre, i mean everything. [/quote]

I would agree that this program is no way near ready to be charging 2k a year for. It's to buggy and is lacking in many areas the biggest being documentation.

There are numerous other more well polished development tools out there for a lot less that actually are out of beta and have the proper documentation.

I've heard people say this before, but then why are we all using GameSalad?

I thought all the other competition were either trickier to use i.e. need some coding knowledge, or were also expensive from the start without the software being free to use, and then only $99 for the standard membership.

BeyondtheTech

I still think the $1999 price tag is high, but even if it's calculated to be *only* $167 a month, they currently do not accept monthly payments, and I just don't have a credit card or another form of income to toss G's into the wind. There really must be something a struggling developer can do and equally a budding game development kit company can do to come to a compromise.

StormyStudio

So what's the consensus, is it worth doing for an app that gets 500 downloads a day? Is there a way to know if apple will actually put ads on it?

scitunes

TSB posted a long time ago about the big jump in sales that he got with automatic links from a lite version to the full version. I got the impression that with a game that is downloaded around 500-1000 times a day you would make the $1999 back pretty quick (assuming the full version of the game offered enough content to make people want to pay for it).

ORBZ

the price should be $500 for GameSalad no difference between pro and regular. Just one price, one product. But early adopters (i.e. us) should get a 50% off rate while still in beta since we have to deal with all the bugs!!! (corrupting your scene on save is a major f'ing bug!) That's my opinion. When you look at something like Unity, which is free. GameSalad's price for pro is insane.

JamesZeppelin

An opinion from someone who paid prior to iads.

I feel 2k is pricey but I ponied up.
Having been in the computer industry for a while though a pricey software investment is nothing new.

It has been worth it so Far

After initial releases my games like many others went down to nearly nothing.

I tried lite. Even with sustained downloads of the free no one would upgrade since they would have to close the app and then search the app store.

Once I upgraded I started seeing my apps with kites startbto get 10 or so sales a day.

Now with a couple games having lites I see those averages remaining.

I don't have anything raking I. A thousand a day but the URL forwarding has allowed me to make a fair daily average and has more than paid for the 2k and my initial investment of a Mac mini.

I also realized most of my early apps sucked. I don't plan to aid them up even though the icons drew many sales.

For the sake of self I have deleted the majority of my crap

I do plan to iad up doodle monster though as it's an "ok" game with over 500k in downloads.

Time will tell if iads justifies pro but URL forwarding has

Eastbound

ORBZ said:
the price should be $500 for GameSalad no difference between pro and regular. Just one price, one product. But early adopters (i.e. us) should get a 50% off rate while still in beta since we have to deal with all the bugs!!! (corrupting your scene on save is a major f'ing bug!) That's my opinion. When you look at something like Unity, which is free. GameSalad's price for pro is insane.

Word.

JamesZeppelin

ORBZ said:
the price should be $500 for GameSalad no difference between pro and regular. Just one price, one product. But early adopters (i.e. us) should get a 50% off rate while still in beta since we have to deal with all the bugs!!! (corrupting your scene on save is a major f'ing bug!) That's my opinion. When you look at something like Unity, which is free. GameSalad's price for pro is insane.

To get unity pro for iPhone it is over 2k as you need two purchases. Or one purchase of 500 for basic iPhone.

Add android is another 1.2k

Gs is hardly unity but it's simplicity is great.

I have and use unity. It is not easy. I have spent days animating ONE character alone.
Teams sound months on a simple sidescroller.

StormyStudio

Ok, so maybe I will do all the work for an os4 update then see how rich I'm feeling at the time. Would love to be able to do some URL forwarding onto the paid versions page in the app store.

This thread was never meant to be a 'pro is too expensive' thing, the price is what it is. Just want to know if people think i could get some profit from going pro and utilising iAds. Damn it's annoying typing iAds on an iPhone, oh no wait easier second time.

Photics

stormystudio said:
Just want to know if people think i could get some profit from going pro

Here's an idea... maybe wait about 1-2 weeks. People just got 0.8.8 yesterday. Then, after 1-2 weeks have past, see if anyone is bragging about iAds money in GameSalad... or if they're complaining about the ads not showing.

I seriously thought about taking the plunge today. I designed a game specifically for the purpose of iAds. But after seeing what happened with my Xcode app, I think it would be reckless to spend $1999. I simply do not know if I will see enough money with iAds.

The other features of Pro are starting to look impressive... by themselves, the features aren't so great. But together, they might make some serious revenue.

JamesZeppelin

stormystudio said:
Damn it's annoying typing iAds on an iPhone, oh no wait easier second time.

Aids. Lol

On a serious note though completely aside from aids, your games are good enough in my opinion it makes sense. I would think you would make your money back within a month or two. Easily. Then it's downhillnfrom there.

Lite version opinion are somewhat skewed. Many make a lite of a crappy game and say lites don't work. Well maybe the lite was just not compelling.
I have tried plenty lites and upgraded. Angry birds was one of them. I couldn't stop.

Be creative. If quake builder lite loses momentum delete it and release quake builder free two weeks later.

After 5 levels auto send them right to the app store. They won't be to irritated. They played to level 5 so they already like the game. They just need some "encouragement" to part with that .99.

Pro opens some doors it's up to the user to put them to use.

In my opinion yes it's too pricey but like I said in my previous post. It's worth it if you use it right.

Most of the whining (not all, mostly just sparking of the teens that are use to torrenting 2k adobe software) just don't have much experience running a business and just don't see the value in the marketing potential

Again not even talking about aids. Lol

StormyStudio

Cheers Zeppelin.

Some very insightful writing. Really want and probably will take the plunge soon...

Will tinker with Quake Builder, improve it to the point that I actually like it again (got bored of it after 4 months work)...

Then will re-look at how iAds are doing, and maybe take the plunge purely for URL forwarding.

Also are you suggesting that teens don't see the marketing potential in Aids, and not just Aids but full blown HIV...