Whether or not rococoman was overly harsh is besides the point. I can only speak for my own anecdotal experience - but presumably it is worthwhile to people trying to make money off of a game to hear that experience. After all, whether our experiences or complaints are justified is utterly irrelevant. All that matters, from the perspective of making the game profitable, is how we experience it, as any fix has to address that experience. I created an account to add to this discussion, since I've long enjoyed Rocketcat and Madgarden games. Like many others here, I bought an IAP simply to support the game - the doubler. I'm not sure how big of your audience people like me are, but presumably the IAP options should also be attractive on their own merits. As a new player, I find that (a) I acquire punchos too fast for 40,000 punchos to be worth it, given that (b) the acquisition of abilities is paced by the quest system. Indeed, I thought tying the quest system to acquiring new upgrades was a good idea - it essentially produced an on-the-fly tutorial system. But it meant that I had little incentive to buy anything right away. By the time I did start thinking about buying anything, I had most of the abilities, and earning punchos for them was not a significant challenge. At that point, I could spend my punchos in a few different ways: (a) Re-rolling hats for special powers (b) Buying super expensive upgrades (e.g., 45 hats, and then 200,000 upgrades). I have no problem with these systems personally, since I am not invested in trying to get a high-score. I do really like playing the game though - and would like to get some upgrades. The trouble is that buying punchos does not do a huge amount for me here. If I buy 120,000, I'm still approximately 120,000 short of buying even one 200,000 ability (given that I also have to buy the hats), which is a ton of playing, or another $5. If I spend those punchos re-rolling hats, then I risk spending real money for no gain. I could buy the puncho-doubler, which would put me around 500-700 punchos per round (more if I go for punchos, e.g., treasures). That still will take me upwards of 100 rounds just to re-roll a hat. That's nice, but not a huge incentive, since playing 100 rounds will take me awhile anyway. In the end, I feel like I end up falling through the IAP cracks. I don't end up having a good reason to buy them when I start, and buy the time I'm hooked, I don't feel I'm getting value. While I did buy the doubler, that has a lot more to do with my support for the Hook Champ series and for Mage Gauntlet than anything. I don't mean this as a critique of your game, or your IAP model in general. I don't know nearly enough about what makes money on the App Store to make a general critique, and I don't know what IAPs are selling. I do know my own experience though, and I figure that if you want to figure out how best to make money off of the game, it is worthwhile to know how some of us regular players experience that IAP system.
Hi, i have a question. Last week I bought puncho doubler, but it's still available to purchase. Does it mean that I'll get quad money in case of buying doubler s for the econd time?
Razumikhin set a much better tone that I ought to have used myself. As someone who DOES run after the high score, the barrier to getting a second power struck me as being not only too high, but directly tied to taking monetary chances. It's a minor detail in the grand scheme of the game, and to be honest, given the variation in my score from game to game, I don't know that it will help a whole lot. However, as someone who likes to really dissect these games, it was a major turnoff when I saw how one might go about getting a second equipped primary power.
Nope. Only works once. They explained why it stays there even after purchase but I forgot the reason.
Yeah, we're adding a 100% way to get a power, and streamlining the reroll process. No more upgrades, it's just pay coins to get a 25% chance of a skill, or pay gems for a 100% chance. That way, you at least always get something.
Thank you sir! That, combined with trademark hat is brilliant, taking care of all the hat concerns in one swoop. Thank you again.
So you're going with the two-currency system after all. I can't say I'm a fan of those, but I can't blame you for going that route. I hope it works and starts generating some revenue for you guys!
It just occurred to me: It's been about a month since the game came out. That month had about 600,000 downloads. Now, the devs said that the game broke the five-figure mark about a week ago, so let us assume approx. $10,000 was earned in that month. If we simplify the IAP like so: 10% bought the donation of $0.99, 25% bought the doubler at $2.99, and 65% bought the lowest beneficial IAP: $1.99. I know this is an oversimplification, but bear with me. 0.99(0.1x)+2.99(0.25x)+1.99(0.65x)=10,000 Thus, we solve for x: x= approx. 4,673 IAP purchases. Let us assume that 10% of the customers bought 2 IAPs and 90% bought 1 IAP, to make another relationship: 0.1x+2(0.9x)=4,673 Thus, we solve for x: x= approx. 2,460 people buying IAPs. 2,460/600,000= approx. 0.41% of the total download base buying IAPs. That's a percentage; divide by 100 to get the actual decimal number for calculations. Let us assume that the game, now that it has gone premium, will earn 0.99 per new install, and that new installs will decrease by an order of magnitude of 80% of that first month's install base due to how popular and visible it is on the App Store; that's about 120,000 new installs, which could result in a revenue of $118,000 at an approximate maximum. That equates to about 492 new IAP-purchasing customers using the above percentage, which could result in a total of 2,952 total IAP-purchasing customers. That 492 would lead to approx. 935 new IAP purchases, which could bring the total IAP purchases to 5,608, which will lead to a revenue increase of $2,001, approximately, with a total revenue of $12,001 due to IAPs. The reason I am adding the old IAP numbers to the new IAP numbers is because, on average, if a customer purchases one IAP, then they are likely to purchase more IAPs at a later date. That is an assumption I am working with here. Of course, this also assumes that the IAP spending habits of a customer are constant over time, I.e. the same percentage of people purchase IAPs every month, the number of IAPs purchased per customer is the same per month, and the monetary level of those IAPs is also the same per month. In any case, that's an approximate increase of over ten times the revenue the devs made via freemium. That's a lot. 0.o Yes, this analysis makes a ton of assumptions, but I figured it would paint a clearer picture of what this move from freemium to premium + IAPs could mean for Madgarden and Rocketcat. Tear it apart and analyze it as much as you wish. Sincerely, Mr. Album
It's worth well more than that. I wish the devs could go back and retroactively charge for those million downloads. They deserve it.
Can somebody explain to me what a re-roll is? I can't seem to find the option anywhere within the app.
When you level up a gnome by doing quests; you are awarded an Ultra Hat. The ultra hat is different from the standard hats in the sense that it can come with a powerup or just look fancier (it can flash, radiate, smoke, glow, have spikes, etc). Re-rolling a hat means that if you don't like the ultra hat Gnomey awarded you, you can take your chances by swapping it for another one. For 50,000 punchos per re-roll. The ability to re-roll needs to be purchased beforehand in the Upgrades menu.
Nope. It's not planned anymore, anyway. We're doing one big update for December. Lots of stuff planned for it. But not pets. More news on it later, in case we have to cut more stuff out.
I understand his comment could have come off as insulting (though he did preface it by saying it was constructive criticism because he cares about the game), but it's true, right? You guys haven't been making enough money on it, which means the monetization strategy is not optimized. But we're not here to chastise you guys for this problem - we want to help you and see you succeed because we know you're both such great developers! Which leads to your second comment - changing how you're doing things will be good! The free-to-play side of the industry is not as simple as people think. In fact, it's less obvious than the typical retail/subscription models. With those, all you need is a good game, lots of marketing money, and timing. But that's not enough with F2P - instead of acquisition, you need to focus more on retention and the percentage of paying users. Those are not easy to figure out, especially the second one. You can shell out as much marketing money as you want on a F2P game, but if your retention and monetization strategies are not solid, that money won't matter.
It is really sad that a game this great is not making any money. How come ppl are willing to pay for farming sims and crap like that (always one of those in the top grossing section) but not for this? I bought tons of IAP just to support the devs. I have logged over 12 hours on Punch Quest, thats about as much time as it would take me to play through an average console title so I spent as much money on this as I would on a console title. It was worth it for me and it felt like doing the right thing.
