Pro edition: Worth it?
DreamLab
Member Posts: 2,127
For those who have the pro edition of Gamesalad, is it worth it? For the price. Please leave a comment and why it would be worth it if so.
Comments
It's very hard to get noticed. How do you beat all of the 99¢ apps? You make a free one! With roughly a penny for every two impressions, it's like building your own penny arcade. The tricky part is to encourage repeat plays.
Also, there's the marketing factor. If you have a lite version of your app. You can encourage more upgrades to the regular version with the OpenURL behavior.
For those two behaviors, it's not terribly difficult to get back the $499. You'd need to make about $1.37 in iAds revenue or lite upgrades per day. That's not terribly difficult to do, if your apps are good enough.
Think about the alternative. With a 99¢ app, you make the one sale and that's it. (GameSalad doesn't have in-app purchases yet, but I suspect that would be a Professional feature if it's added.) But with iAds, a player can keep making money for you as long as they're loading / clicking advertisements.
I think Open URL in Professional is like investing $499 in marketing. The best way to promote your games is to do it from the iTunes store. Use free apps like a trojan horse, encouraging players to buy paid apps.
I can't see the full price $499 pro version selling that well unless they offer a little bit more. (Splash screen maybe, lol)
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does iAds really do the trick ? i mean i dont think there is that much percentage of connected devices
assuming iads needs internet
and is there a demo about the usage of iads in game salad
just to have prospective on how to integrate it
I do treat it like a game though - where the scoring is in real dollars. App development is also entertainment for me. Instead of playing Farmville, wondering how a virtual garden is turning out, I'm growing apps.
I have just completed my 1st year on the appstore and i have certainly approached it like a game, i have released in different genres, apps as well as games to test the market and gauge the response. I am still in testing, about to see how iAds works out for me, i have learned a lot in the year, no where near enough but 1 thing i realised straight away ... there are virtually no guarantees. Thats what makes it great though, little indies such as ourselves can compete side by side with the big devs and can achieve success!
1) Jungle Bug - This was a pretty sharp looking game, but it didn't really find that much success on the iTunes App Store. So what? The game was resold to another developer. You can't do that with a lottery ticket.
2) Mini Cannon - This app got nailed by the "Release Date" error. But also, this was an experiment for GameSalad. It seems to have failed. However, that gives them knowledge. It lets them decide. Do they really want to be in the marketing business? Wouldn't it be more profitable for them to focus on building better software or a better website?
Also, isn't Mini Cannon like Angry Birds? I think that's a tough sell - especially during Christmas time. Players could just pick up Angry Birds Seasons or Cut the Rope for 99¢... or play Fragger for free on miniclip.com. I don't think Independent Game Developers are going to win by attacking well-known games head-on. Instead, the gaming experiences should be unique.
But so what if Mini Cannon doesn't do great right away... that game could easily be repackaged. Street Fighter wasn't as popular as Street Fighter II. You can take a failed game, improve on it, then relaunch - like Mini Cannon Deluxe. And again, the game could simply be resold to another developer or relaunched with iAds.
There are also other platforms. There's the web, Android, Mac and PC. There are plenty of markets to find success.
Gambling doesn't work that way. The more you invest, the more likely you'll lose. With App development, I think it's the opposite. The more you work at it, the better you can get. If you're building better games, the more likely they are to sell.
1 question though
what ads layout options do i have ? and does it stay there at screen or disapear after x sec ?
The iAd behavior will match your scene, showing an iAd that's 320x50 or 480x32. You get to choose if it's on the top or the bottom of the screen.
so is about 15 seconds exposure enough ?
and can i include one at each level lets say
this can get really money generating tool
?(? right name gamesalad studios )
Except if you are willing to pay 500 bucks fore a non working/senseless iAd function and a rather redundant linking function.
Are there any other features?
I am not really concerned about the splash screen. Nobody sees it in iTunes. Every commercial game has several splash screens or logos before the game.