You probably have an idea about a game. lets assume that you made it. It's not the best but it's a good one. Fun to play. Maybe it's going to hit the hearts of a few thousands if not millions. That's great actually. So what's the problem. Now you start to think about monetizing the game. Of course you would want to monetize your game. Lets talk about monetization first. The most usual way to sell your art/product is to pack it and sell it for a price. Or there's a new way of selling products. Selling products for free and putting unnecessary leaflets inside your product and forcing your customers to watch /remove those to consume your product. Yes I'm talking about ADs here. Suppose you bought a tooth paste, lets put ads in tooth paste. How smartly can we do it? Lets share some ideas.
- Put ads on the tube so that everyone has to watch the ad while they hold the tube.
- Lock the cap and force customers to watch an ad before they can open it.
- Put ad on the paste so customers can see the ad when they brush.
Okay instead of monetizing , Lets use a monetized Toothpaste. Mmm, Now you see how annoying it is. You would rather pay for a premium paste than that free with ads. At this point you were no longer selling services. Instead of thinking about quality, You planned about how to put ads in your product.
So what's wrong with our games. lets make a monetized Super Mario.
- Every time you get an 1UP you need to watch a 30 Sec Ad else it will not be credited.
- You need to unlock Powerups to be available in game. Which requires you seeing more ads everyday or purchase it via micro transaction.
- Mario Talks about new upcoming random games every 10 second.
- Watch ads to play as Bowsette.
It's not really fun to play anymore is it? What we are focusing on is implementing ads to increase our revenue instead of focusing on the story and game play. At some point developers started asking money for updates. They are calling it DLC. It's like a Burger but the Bun,Mayonese,Toppings.Meat are sold separately.
Before I'm a game developer. I'm a gamer. There has been tons of cases I stopped playing games because it's no longer a game. It's just grinding. Most android games now are like trying to pull you back to the game by giving you rewards. But to be honest one should play the game because he wants to not because of some reward. If your game needs rewards to retain players, It's a failure as a game. Ad monetization is what ruined our game industry. Now games are designed in a way so that player has to keep the phone on so that ANDROID can show more ads to earn and give the developer some too. Daily Rewards/ Daily Quests AH COME ON! Games were supposed to be played for fun. Can we just go back to the old model? Pay once and it's yours to keep. No more free games. Come up with demos. 1-3 hours free demo? or a part of the story demo. Take a closer look at the recent years of game development. Larger Companies are falling off. Getting Back-lashed. Where indie developers are sticking to the old ideas.Updates are being releases for free(Although they too call it DLC). I don't hold any grudge against android . But here are the facts. Android just isn't good for games in it's current state. Games Demand Physical controls not virtual buttons on the touch screen.
Remember old JAVA phones when we actually had physical keypad. And it was fun to play games on it too. Those were actually games that gamers would actually play. Endless games.. ahh how is that even a thing? Everything good comes to an end. You get my point?
Remember old JAVA phones when we actually had physical keypad. And it was fun to play games on it too. Those were actually games that gamers would actually play. Endless games.. ahh how is that even a thing? Everything good comes to an end. You get my point?
If you have any opinions on the matter do let me know in the comments section.
