Advertising in Mobile Games is Broken • Hacker News Board

Re: Advertising in Mobile Games is Broken

#41

Post by dlss » Wed, Aug 24, 2011, 6:03 PM UTC

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #40

dlss wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1121596044/how-piracy-works

He theorizes that pirates actually might promote the game. My Flurry numbers beg to differ. My "unlocked" version of the game was pirated on July 15. Almost 2000 new users ran it that day, and all but about 10 of them were pirated copies. So did I see my sales jump? I sold about 10 units that day, and 5 the next day. I don't think I've seen the numbers top 20 sales per day. If there are moral pirates out there, they…

So notch was talking about piracy and his own game (minecraft). He basically says publishers should approach piracy as part of a game's marketing plan -- kinda like the free version you talk about here.

As for piracy killing your game... bull shit. Every game eventually gets pirated. All the games above you on the charts have been pirated. Why didn't piracy kill them?

Re: Advertising in Mobile Games is Broken

#42

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Wed, Aug 24, 2011, 11:05 PM UTC

dlss wrote: post #41

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He theorizes that pirates actually might promote the game. My Flurry numbers beg to differ. My "unlocked" version of the game was pirated on July 15. Almost 2000 new users ran it that day, and all but about 10 of them were pirated copies. So did I see my sales jump? I sold about 10 units that day, and 5 the next day. I don't think I've seen the numbers top 20 sales per day. If there are moral pirates out there, they…

So notch was talking about piracy and his own game (minecraft). He basically says publishers should approach piracy as part of a game's marketing plan -- kinda like the free version you talk about here. As for piracy killing your game... bull shit. Every game eventually gets pirated. All the games above you on the charts have been pirated. Why didn't piracy kill them?

They didn't all have premium versions to pirate? Angry Birds didn't.

Some of the top games probably were noticed randomly by the right bloggers; a Russian blogger loved my game, and it's sitting in a nice comfortable position in the Russian Market ranking, for example. Angry Birds was probably featured in EVERY blog that deals with Android games.

Some of the top games also have annoying but effective viral marketing components; I've so far avoided stooping to those depths.

Some of them probably had better marketing plans. I'm a programmer, not a marketing expert.

And if someone inside Google decides randomly to feature a game, then it's set. My game WAS featured on AppsLib, a secondary market, and after it was no longer featured it stayed on top of the free apps ranking at #2 for weeks. As in, the #2 downloaded APP, not game.

Unless you know more than anyone else outside of Google about the actual algorithm Google uses to determine how apps rank, you have no clue as to what could have caused a game to fall -- but a huge fall happens the SAME DAY it was pirated.

It's not proof, but it's a very suggestive correlation. Just because it doesn't match your world view doesn't make it garbage. What's indisputable is that the piracy DIDN'T give me a boost in sales OR downloads, which completely invalidates the "piracy is just another kind of marketing" theory.

There's a lot of random luck involved in getting to the top organically, and the process is potentially fragile unless you've got a lot of cross-promotion you can apply from other apps. Or a lot of money to buy ads. I had neither.

Re: Advertising in Mobile Games is Broken

#43

Post by jbermudes » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 9:06 AM UTC

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #38

jbermudes wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is removing something that was given to you in a package stealing? If someone gave me a free magazine, but the magazine had ads, you're saying it'd be stealing to rip those pages out?

Magazines are paid for the number of ads they distribute. And the ads DID make it to you, so even if you go through them all and rip them out, you ARE being exposed to them, if only briefly. And the ads can't be all destroyed unilaterally by installing MagazineAdBlock. If you block ads, you have NO chance of seeing them, and therefore I have no chance of making the $0.03 that's typical from a single click. And worse,…

HTTP is an inherently request-based protocol. The HTML file that I request from the server has links to ads. A stock browser will request those ad links. Ad block tells the browser not to. So it's more like if someone asks you "hey, I have free ice cream bars, want one?" and after you receive it he then asks "It also comes with this ad flyer. Want it too?" and you say "no, thanks" or take it and throw it in the trash immediately. Is it rude? Sure. Is it stealing? If the legality of the transaction was dependent on me accepting the ad, then that should have been negotiated before you sent me HTTP 200. But that's not in the HTTP protocol. If you don't like the protocol or don't think it's fair, don't use it.