Falling Balls was free from the start and has made me a small fortune in ad revenue.
All the other paid apps have made me, all told, maybe $300 over the last year. When I consider that amount of money vs. the exposure of having thousands more people possibly using the app because they don’t have to pay 99 cents for it, I’ll go with the higher exposure. Furthermore, with Bug Out! I installed Pinch Media analytics. It was discouraging to see that close to half (48.9%) have the users had pirated versions. Therefore, I’ve removed all “lite” versions and made all my apps free. I have not added advertising where there was none originally. You get the original full version for free. Use it, enjoy it, tell others about it.
Going forward, I do not plan to create any more paid apps. I do plan to do more ad-based apps and experiment with in-app purchases. I think it’s also fair to make it so that any in-app purchase also automatically disables all future ads.
All this is not a written-in-stone promise. Who knows what may change in the future? But that’s the way I see things now.
grabbed the ones i hadn’t bought, thanks kp. is the $$$ in advertising revenue really that much better than that made from apps for straight purchase?
I thought that apple did not allow free apps to utilize in app purchases.
First off it’s a shame that so many people use apps without having paid for. I’ve found quite a few topics about it on different blogs. On the other side the insights gained from postings like this is: even the greatest app will not make you rich .. unless you find strong add-partners. Funny thing is that the thing most people hate (advertisement) seems to be the only way to finance development.
I think Keith was in a special position there with his advertising revenues being so high because he had a game in the top 100 list in high rank and then added the advertising afterwards. Dunno if it would work out that well if one has the advertising in the game right from the get go.
Next to that inapp ad solutions also have the problem that the more successful the system is regarding attracting developers using it, the less money the single app developer usually gets.
(People put out more and more apps and to undercut each other more and more make them free and inapp ad revenue based; well, at the same time the ad systems don´t get more ad money in same exponential ratio though so as end result the ecpm etc usually get lower and lower).
I agree though its a bummer how high the piracy rate is for iPhone stuff and yup, its generally good to think of other ways of monetizing, time will tell which work out well.
it’s possible porting falling balls from iphone to android?
it’s possible porting falling balls from iphone to android?