I've been banging on about the potential impact of micro-transactions for a while now on PocketGamer.biz.
To be honest, so few games have employed the feature, it's still difficult to tell what will work.
For example, Pangea's million-selling Enigmo did 'dozens of 99c downloads daily', according to CEO Brian Greenstone.
While Freeverse's million-selling Flick Fishing has done 'tens of thousands of 99c downloads', according to its president Ian Lynch Smith.
Obviously, these are very different games. The results have been very different too.
The release of Tapulous' Tap Tap Revenge 3 and the latest free update of Pocket God should provide us with a better grasp of the situation; not least in terms of the increased adoption of the required OS 3.0.
Certainly, as a new game, perfectly designed in terms of encouraging the use of the micro-transactions so people can download their favourite music, Tap Tap Revenge 3 has the potential to be the first game on the App Store to make vast sums of money from this method.
It offers 6-song band packs at $2.99 and 2-song packs at 99c, as well as letting people buy virtual items for their avatars.
On that basis, it should be the first game on the App Store to make more money from micro-transactions than from the original game purchase.
The game costs 99c, and there will be a free ad-supported version too.
Things are more complicated in the case of Pocket God, as micro-transaction are being added to an existing game. Of course, it's sold 1.2 million copies and its teenaged fanbase really loves the experience.
However around a quarter of them haven't yet upgraded to OS 3.0, and they are also likely to be the most attitudinally reticent to spend even 99c on content they consider should be free.
Still, Bolt Creative's decision is the correct one, and it seems that releasing a new virtual item only available via micro-transaction with every free update will generate meaningful amounts of cash in the medium term.
Clearly, everyone else will be looking to see how these experiments pan out, although developers who don't have the benefit of a million-selling game franchise to hang their micro-transactional hook on should be careful how they apply such knowledge to their own situation.
Feature
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
Top Stories
News
1 hour, 14 minutes ago
Supercell’s Squad Busters ranks No. 1 for App Store game downloads in all soft launch countries
News
9 hours, 16 minutes ago
Call of Duty Warzone: Mobile generated 'just' $6.92 million in its first month
News
10 hours, 46 minutes ago
Supercell’s Squad Busters soft launches today with over 100,000 Google Play downloads
Feature
8 hours, 36 minutes ago
The DMA Breakdown: What does the Digital Markets Act mean for your business?
Feature
11 hours, 16 minutes ago
King’s Trevor Burrows on the power of art: "We could see our numbers literally dropping"
Feature
Apr 22nd, 2024
Tjodolf Sommestad talks AI, tips for indie devs, and a day in the life of King's president
Events
App Promotion Summit London | Europe | Apr 25th |
Esports Future Summit | Middle East | Apr 27th |
Dubai GameExpo Summit 2024 | Middle East | May 1st |
The MENA Games Industry Awards 2024 | Middle East | May 2nd |
GameDev Atlantic 2024 | May 4th | |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
Popular Stories
News
Apr 17th, 2024
Monopoly GO! celebrates its first birthday and shares its behind-the-scenes story
Feature
Apr 15th, 2024
46 top mobile games in soft launch: CSR 3, Plants vs. Zombies 3, LEGO Hill Climb Adventures, Candy Crush Blast, and more
News
10 hours, 46 minutes ago