The iOS gamers have veered towards free to play games from paid or premium games within the past six months, says a research conducted by Flurry.
It says the players don’t mind making in-app purchases if they find something interesting in the game, and often they pay more than what they would have paid for a minimally priced average iOS game. Such games are also called freemium games since they are free in the beginning for a limited level and users have to pay for the higher levels or virtual goods within the game.
According to the Flurry study, the freemium model is increasing in popularity quickly, and it accounted for 65 per cent of all game sales. The study took 90,000 apps into account and used its own analytics to arrive at the conclusion.
It’s not at all surprising to see that free to play games are popular since the entry cost for the users becomes zero. But the survey also clarified that only a very small portion of users, six per cent, chose to pay for in App options — though they paid more money than those who bought paid games up front.
Jeferson Valadares from Flurry, said in a blog post, “We compared the revenue generated by pricing model, freemium vs premium, among the top 100 grossing games in January and June of this year. Premium simply means charging for the download (e.g. $0.99). Tracking over 90,000 apps with its analytics service, Flurry can measure the amount of revenue generated per ranked position in the App Store top grossing category. The chart below compares the proportion of revenue generated by each model.”
The mobile game players are more keen to give new games a chance if there is no cost to entry, at the same time there is no denying the fact there are premium games which have a good reputation, players know what kind of game they will be buying and are ready to pay up front for them as well.
Free games enhance their repertoire by constantly developing and adding new levels and characters to their games. This way, the free game creators have feel challenged to keep their games interesting all the time so they can introduce compelling spending opportunities within the game.