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<\/figure>\nAt every step in the process mobile marketers are able to utilize various tools and tactics that will lead the user to the next stage. The aim is to ultimately reach a lifetime value that\u2019s higher than acquisition cost.<\/p>\n
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Dark times for paid games An amazing venue for GDS Prague where was held a panel discussion about the future of paid games.<\/i><\/p>\n It\u2019s no secret to anyone in the industry that Google rarely supports paid games by featuring them. Even on the App Store, where Apple supports lots of paid games, only 21% of all titles have a price tag. Of these 89% are priced at $3 or less, which is quite shocking to me. <\/p>\n The first paid game in the top grossing charts (to be accurate, it\u2019s a paymium title combining upfront payment and in-app purchases) is NBA 2K17 by the publisher 2K. It is at number 182 in the charts.<\/p>\n That means that the top 181 highest revenue App Store games are all freemium!<\/p>\n Decide your path early on<\/b><\/p>\n As a business, it\u2019s vital to think about the business model you want to follow as soon as possible in the development cycle. <\/p>\n Choosing between paid, free with ads or freemium defines not only the product, but by a large portion, your marketing strategy and your options for generating revenues. <\/p>\n Jan Ilavsky, Apple Design Award winner with the game Chameleon Run, recommends paid games to individuals, small teams and people who: \u201cbasically don\u2019t care about money\u201d. As a fulltime indie developer he makes enough of a living with paid games. <\/p>\n If you have a small to mid-sized company paid games become much more tricky. <\/p>\n London based studio Ustwo, the team behind a mega hit Monument Valley, invested $1.4 million into the development of the game. It took the team 55 weeks to finish the original game and other 29 weeks for the DLC Forgotten Shores with 8 core team members. With massive support from Apple, Google and Amazon revenues get close to $6 million, which is over 4x of the costs. <\/p>\n
<\/b>Earlier this year I hosted a panel discussion at Game Developers Session 2016 where we covered the possibilities for the promotion and monetization of paid games. Compared to freemium models, it\u2019s actually fairly difficult to attract a large audience to paid games, especially on Android. <\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/66.media.tumblr.com\/b3697ed3fb01e77944161d5fd9224e2f\/tumblr_inline_oh7ay5qwqL1roeoc7_540.jpg\")
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