Android Motenization

So, any tips on this matter ?
I saw some options like admob or airpush, but I would like to hear some tips about, also if anyone could share information like pay per cycle, earnings etc it would be nice to hear !

Follow these simple steps for “Android Monetization”:

  1. You don’t.
  2. You do something else.

Well, sorry to be a bit dramatic, but unless you have a super awesome-super cool idea it’s quite difficult to enter the market and make some money: the market is simply too much crowded. My 2 cents, your mileage may vary and of course I wish you all the best.

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The most (average) money with andoid is if you ditch games, and develop business software for it.
Kinda like the best way to earn money is a job not the lottery.

Anyway a few forum users had merged android games with some add system a while back, should probably be findable via the forum search.

Mind to explain a bit more why ?
I mean, what wrong with the little money they pay for you for installation, exposition etc ?
I think this is an important topic to discuss because with out money, jm3 will allways have only amateur games, I mean, jm3 is very nice engine, but there is no much professional games at it, and never will have if it dont pay even the time you spent building the games.

 few forum users had merged android games with some add system a while back

This is exactly what this topic is talking about.
I guess we all are business software developers here, and we build games at our free time, but if you cant get an small money from this time you spent, you will get tired after a few days doing this, I think this is the reason we dont see nice games here.

No. I think most of us develop games because we like it and not to earn money. And this is also why you don’t see many “nice” games because we like the coding aspect and not the art generation. However, I have to agree that it is always nice to earn a little bit of money with doing what you like.
I think this thread is what @Empire_Phoenix meant: Integrating AdMod intertitials - #9 by skidrunner

Android and iOS app market is a very discouraging one. it is flooded with apps and games and knockoffs of both that making your game reaching the spotlight without putting money on marketing is a shot in the dark.

Many of us are making games on our free times and some of us really want to commercialize them. In my case I have to minimize the risks by using as little money as possible but producing the best work I can deliver. An advice I should give it to not get a loan for game making unless you have proven yourself out there.

You have four options if you really want to succeed.

  • Make a seriously addicting game, distribute it for free and use ad libraries (admib, adbuddiz, etc) to bring in revenue. This is hard to achieve and for a good while your revenue may not reach the three digits unless that game goes really viral.

  • Make a really good game and sell it for scraps. Many smartphone users are not that willing to pay $4.99 or more but $1.99 or less are a safer bet. You should not use ads. You have to either make this game viral or evergreen (it will still sell over time).

  • Use micro transactions. Again you can use many libraries to help you achieve this, but you have to design a game to either use the micro-transactions to give the player advantage or to add customization with no impact besides visuals. But this requires a good study and many companies have this down to a science.

The problem is that the users simply ignores you, unless you’re Rovio or Gamevil. As I said above, the market is simply too much crowded to grab the attention.

And after reading this my day is ruined.

Sorry man. I hate micro-transactions though, but if developer wants to use them, well… I will just voice my opinion on the subject.

I prefer making a good game that is either very addicting to make it free or a game people will actually pay for. It is a challenge, but hard work is needed

Thanks friend, that was very useful, discouraging but useful.
I wander if this is going to change someday and when/how, since the mobiles capabilities are growing everyday, but not the games qualities.

I am sharing my experience with my very first game as well as when I worked as a freelancer for other indie game devs when I used Unity.

Unity has many games on mobile but probably more than 90% aren’t what I consider successful enough to make game making a living.

I suggest what a former client and now friend suggested me long ago: “If you want success, be prepared to fail a lot”

Sorry for sounding discouraging, but I do not want anyone to give up when things don’t go as planned. Instead I want people to know how things are and be more prepared. if you want to eventually have game making as a living (I try to).

I think theres a general misconception here. Sure you can make money with one game but realistically if somebody makes money with a game (or a piece of music or a novel for that matter) that person most probably did LOTS of other games, songs or written text before. Its not like “stars” fall down from the heavens - its about consistently doing what you do and getting better at it and picking up those gems among all the stuff you made.

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Well, I think this is not the point, we are assuming people willing to invest and willing to get money from games have some experience with that. The point is to point out the possible ways to make money on android… It seens it dosent wort the time even if you are the best game developer in the world. That is the point of this thread.

Yeah, I think this thread got WAY off topic.

Seemed to start as “what tech should I use to monetize my game?” and ended up as “you won’t make much money”.

Well, surely you will make NO money if you haven’t found a way to monetize through ads or something else. My understanding is that free to play with ads is actually the only consistent way to make money on mobile these days. Anecdotally, I certainly play lots and lots of games with ads in them.

I had made some initial calculations :

Using airpush, it pays something like 0.04 dollars per USA player installation, plus some half of it for exposure ( it will depend of the type of the game, but is an medium ). So its something like 0.06 dollars per player.
Lets suppose your free game is used by 1000 players on that country ( i didnt check for other countries ), it will make only 1600 dolars max for each 1000 different players that use your game.
I know there is some games here that reached 10000 players in USA after some months, its not bad, but its not much.

Using admob, it seens it pays per day on each active player , at least is what this guy is saying :

So for 3333 active players it gives you 20 dolars per day, something like 600 dolars per month, it could be 1800 per month if you game reaches 10000 players, what is not bad at all, actually very good, you can even live doing that…

My suggestions is not to not stick with one ad library. I think AdMob is a good start(I use it) but there are others that can give you better revenue but in essence they work very similarly.

Make different games using different ad libraries and compare the revenue each one gives and them pick the one that favored you the most. Or if you prefer, change ad libraries for the same game for periods of time, like a moth or two and compare the revenue results.

Now, this is something I am curious, can I use multiple libs in the same game, do anyone here do that ?

Well thats my point. Saying “you won’t make much money there statistically” doesn’t make much sense.