Making the game free on app store, play store etc. has huge benefits - also economically.
There're 2 viable business plans for making the apps free - and they both have much larger potential for increased income, compared to if you charged xx dollars per app download.
First; make an estimate.
- How many would download your app if it cost 10 US dollars?
- How many would download your app if it cost 1 US dollars?
- How many would download your app if it was free?
Of course, these numbers can be skewed a lot by proper marketing, viral trending, sheer luck and other mechanics - but still. I guess we can all agree that the free app/game would be downloaded much more. The question is; how much?
The estimates I've seen, has en operating factor of x10000 in difference between the cheapest cost for an app/game, and for the app/game being free.
So if your app/game would be downloaded 20 times at the cost of 1 USD, we're talking 200,000 downloads if it had been free.
TYPE 1: Advertising
- Put in commercials.
- If your app is popular and people actually keep using/playing it, you will generate a lot of views.
- Your will gain a steady income, even from having made your work available for free.
TYPE 2: In-app purchases
- This can be tied with advertising; an in-app purchase can be for the commercials to go away.
- Several things, such as power-ups, new levels etc. can be made in-app purchases, and thus provide you (the developer) with more reason to update with high quality content.
Just make sure you don't make your free game a "pay to win", as this is £$! annoying, and people (especially gamers) are becoming increasingly more sensitive to this business model.