Non-pro paid apps on the app store

Armelline

Regular readers of this forum may know my... disgruntlement after discovering that apps generated with a non-Pro membership serve adds, effectively stopping me from charging for the apps on the app store, and thus denying me the chance to earn the money to buy a Pro membership. A chronic illness has me broke physically and financially, so it's impractical for me to buy Pro at this time.

I was told by members of the forum that if I submitted a game to Apple that included ads I would have it rejected if I tried to charge for it.

Turns out, this isn't the case. As an experiment I submitted one of my completed games to the App store at the tier 1 price and awaited the response. Today Apple approved the game. I've not actually put it on the app store as I personally don't support charging for games and then serving ads, but the bottom line is the ads served by Gamesalad on non-pro games are not going to get your game rejected out of hand.

Thought that would be something worth sharing.

Edit: Added an errant t!

tatiang

I'm not sure why someone told you that Apple would reject a paid app with ads. I would think that such an app (and this is specific to banner ads, not ads in general) would suffer from low purchase volume and disgruntled reviews but you can choose to make such an app if you wish.

We all have situations that make paying for things in life a challenge. I'm not making light of your specific situation. I like the idea of making an app to generate enough funds to buy a pro license but if that's not possible for someone then they need to consider other means for funding that license.

Armelline

I'm not sure why someone told you that Apple would reject a paid app with ads.

Yeah, that's why I thought I would test it. It didn't make that much sense to me. And I think you are completely right about unhappy customers - that's why I'm not actually putting the game up for sale.

I like the idea of making an app to generate enough funds to buy a pro license but if that's not possible for someone then they need to consider other means for funding that license.

Yup, that's why I'm just quietly slogging away making apps while waiting for my finances to be stable enough to buy the Pro licence. Three completed games, one nearly finished and my biggest one finished in the fundamentals and just awaiting levels. It's hard going from a very well paying job to being too ill to work, but after two years my health is allowing me to hunt for jobs again. Gamesalad certainly helped me keep my mind occupied in the interim though!

tatiang

Nice to hear that GameSalad was a bit of a saving grace. Best of luck with your app development. Perhaps you can sell one of your games to someone in the meantime?

Armelline

Nice to hear that GameSalad was a bit of a saving grace. Best of luck with your app development. Perhaps you can sell one of your games to someone in the meantime?

Not my babies

In all seriousness, I probably would, but I'd want more money than anyone is likely to want to pay :P

pHghost

@Armelline

How about taking one of your games and converting it to work on the Kindle?

The Amazon promotion is still on till the 27th. You can submit a paid version (with no ads!) to the Amazon Store as part of the promotion. If you get accepted (not many reasons not to, if the game works as should), you will receive a free month of GameSalad PRO! Then you can go and publish the game (and others, if ready) to the Apple App Store within the month of membership, this time without the ads! Hopefully, the game will then make you enough money to get a full-year PRO membership.

A truly holiday season with GameSalad!

Hope you get better.

Armelline

@Armelline

How about taking one of your games and converting it to work on the Kindle?

I was under the impression that you can't publish to Kindle without a Pro account? Will have to check on that!

pHghost

@Armelline

Probably not normally, but during the promotion publishing to the Amazon store works as if you had a PRO account (you can disable the start-up ads etc.) -- which is a great opportunity, since you can get the free months of full-fledged PRO membership through it as well!

Armelline

@pHghost Awesome advice! Might be just what I need! Hopefully I'll still have time! Thanks a ton!