The problem with ads is you need eyes on those ads, and the ads invariably detract from gameplay, and even performance.

I don't mind this.. I feel if you make a good game it will either catch on or it doesn't. The market is so saturated, so it requires you to be real, and make a real game that you believe in. (at least that's what I think)

Then a lot of people say iap is the way to go, but it's an even worse sh*t show to get working.

yeah that seems like a nightmare, but I don't have the content creation skills to keep that going on my own. but I like the idea.

What I will probably do in the future is release to the portals with adequate protection, and if it does well there consider doing a free version on mobile. If it does well there, try to do either value added iap, or ads for bonuses.

what portals and what protection do you speak of?

If it does well there, try to do either value added iap, or ads for bonuses.

you should instead make ads as a punishment for your players! haha "You Lost! now good luck watching this AD!". Or even better make a game about watching ads and how it sucks.

Good afternoon.

I like to spend time drawing and creating, if there is any profit, it will be welcome but it is not my focus, I like to see my children playing and having fun with my creations, even if they are not so professional.

I like C2 but I also go through some difficulties and I hope to persevere and overcome the obstacles that surround me.

I believe that all creators of heart should be persistent as well.

that's sort of my take on it as well. I doubt I'd ever become a full time app-developer... but I guess my point is, using C2 I don't really think it's possible. The time spent getting it to work is crazy. The trial and error process you are required to do is quite large.

Hey op I feel your pain!!! Ive come to commiserate and join in your rant! Reading your post was like reading a list of my own experiences.

thank you! btw love your game Chuckles..(my son plays it all the time - although he's always rage quitting -haha)

One thing Ive learned is you have to be meticulous with note-taking. Exactly for that situation you described where you manage to export a working apk / ipa. Then next time round you get a failure of some kind and you can't remember how you succeeded previously because there are so many bloody variables involved that its impossible to remember everything.

^^^this^^^

I think charging a flat fee for your app is a reasonable idea, and easier obviously because u dont have to stuff around with ads and iAPs, but I think it can only work if you can figure out how to direct traffic to it.

There's something about a f2p game though and what it's become with kids. There's a certain expectation nowadays - mobile games should be free (not all) and ads are how you play for free. Any kid will take that deal.

I also like the idea of this "throw away" game or rather short iteration of gameplay. The idea of a game you didn't pay for because it's free and you play it while waiting at the doctor's office or in the washroom. There's definitely something there even if ads have to pay for it. I guess I find it challenging to make a good game with that limitation. Of course it's a major challenge to get it working in the first place - like Sisyphus.

For me trying to make money off my games took ALL the fun out of it. I ended up forgetting why I started making games in the first place (for my own creative enjoyment). It got to the point that I just walked away from making games all together.

yup this is definitely a thing. hopefully it won't come to this for me. I still make games (just maybe not mobile games). I'm way too invested in gamedev to ditch it completely. I've been running game jams and teaching game design for a few years now.

but I definitely see how mobile gamedev is it's own thing you have to be really entrenched in it to make money. Like I said, it was merely exploratory and seeing what the whole process is like (not a good one for me! or C2?).

Glad to hear you are back at it with a positive outlook!

UPDATE:

With the urging of good people in these forums I've given the whole process a second (actually 4th) chance. And as of right now I actually have everything *working.

* = C2(CocoonAds plugin)>ExportCordova>UploadCocoonIO>AndroidCanvas+

keys to making this work:

-Sign up to Google AdMob (at least this is what I did)

-Add your app name and generate an 'Ad Unit' then copy the 'keycode' to the clipboard

-download CocoonIO plugin for C2

-add CocoonAds object to your C2 project (add the AdUnit 'keycode' to the properties)

-use Canvas+ as it made my game run WAY faster/smoother

-in order to use Canvas+ 'minify script' on export must be UNCHECKED (this prevents black screen)

-C2 LoaderStyle to 'Nothing'

-make 100% sure you always delete the config.xml file when exporting C2>Cordova before zipping & uploading to CocoonIO

-when zipping your C2 project use Winrar AddTo>ZIP (normal windows compression fails)

-In CocoonIO select Canvas+ for engine

-In CocoonIO remove 'whitelist' plugin

-In CocoonIO add 'Native Admob Cocoon'

-In CocoonIO under Settings>Android I set Multidex to 'Yes' (no idea if this did anything, but it's currently working)

-In Google AdMob, make sure your payment is setup properly *or else ads won't show up

-To test that your ads are not setup up properly use Google Test Ads https://developers.google.com/admob/android/test-ads *if that works, then it means your AdMob account needs attention as you probably haven't filled out everything they need.

-------------------------------

I've just about had it...

I've taken the summer to delve into app development thinking I could create some small games, throw some ads on them and see what kind of money that could generate.

Wow, what a headache! I started with XDK in the spring, but then that was discontinued so I had to jump to CocoonIO. Making a mobile app is pretty straight forward although with tons and tons of hoops you must go through to get it physically on a device (nevermind iOS, only talking Android here). There's a lot of trial and error; do I use Canvas+? do I use Webview or Webview+? Do I set Multidex to 'Yes'? etc...But once setup, you can pretty much count on it working.

Ad Monetization

I read here on the forum Appodeal was the way to go. So I did all the paperwork, account setups, downloaded, lots and lots of preamble, plugins etc. After a few days got it to work and a Banner Ad showed up. I felt like I achieved something. I was having an issue with the same banner ad showing up - it was not refreshing despite auto-cache and setting up Segments etc...(a whole other week trouble-shooting that to no end). Emailing people at Appodeal was no help, they didn't seem to understand what I was saying - a definite disconnect there. But the Reward Videos were working and all was okay.

The First Sign of Trouble

Then I went on vacation and when I came back I started making changes. The workflow of putting a change into C2 to then seeing it on the device is very micro heavy - lot's to do. So I must have forgot some step. Needless to say, I did something and it would not compile. How I got it to work in the first place was beyond me.

Reading on Construct forums and CocoonIO forums; everyone had their own way to fix a compile error. Some say, "oh you set Multidex to 'Yes'. Other's say oh you have the wrong plugin from appodeal, you need one with a 'path-fix' parameter...one person even suggested you just keep compiling it and eventually it will work...ugh. There is simply no place where all the 'correct' information is centrally located. And probably the reason why is because there are so many variables: cocoonio, admob, appodeal, cordova, canvas, webview, android, ios and the list goes on. Somehow I stumbled on the same plugins that I had originally used (I would assume). But after a week of trial and error of an incredibly painful workflow somehow I managed to get it working again.

Trouble Again

This past Monday morning, I added some changes to the game and recompiled for testing. And out of nowhere I get a compilation error. I was very confused. After that first mishap, I made sure to screen grab every lib, every setting to make sure I had the correct information. After checking everything and recompiling at least 20 times. I thought maybe it was something in my code. So I took a previous version of my capx from the previous week (actually had the apk of that one working fine) and recompiled that....COMPILER ERROR. This time it was definitely NOT my fault, I didn't change anything. Something just stopped working. And that was my last straw with Appodeal.

Other Ad plugins

So then I figured why not try just regular AdMob? it looks like it's built into C2. Nope, totally outdated doc, cranberry libs don't work anymore... okay, okay, take that out. What about CocoonIO's Ad plugin. Cool! let's try that out..seemed simple enough, setup AdUnits in Admob etc...compile, good and..... BLACK SCREEN. Change literally every option. Still get the black screen. Once I take out the 'Native Ad' libs, it works fine (with no ads of course). Searched high and low for some central doc.. it's all outdated. For some people it works, for others it doesn't. It's just a giant mess.

Then it occurred to me that there was no way I could release something with this kind of dependency. Look at what happened to XDK, nevermind 3rd party plugins ceasing to work for no apparent reason. I know there are people on here making money from their apps. It just seems like an incredible PITA.

I know people are waiting on C3 to take over the reigns... but it's the 3rd party Ad-stuff that is so finicky to get working. I don't know what else to do, other than give up and make my mobile game not f2p and charge a flat fee.

I know there are serious app-developers out there, and this is how they pay the bills. I guess I was looking at this whole thing as low-risk f2p option. Just to see how something performs (financially). I only spent a few months on the game, it's nothing earth-shattering. But it's a really fun little game to play while you are waiting for something..I play it all the time, I would never make a game I didn't like.

end of rant.

yup the Ad stuff sucks... I've had nothing but problems. Especially Appodeal. I've gotten everything to work... then all of a sudden, it stops working and I get compilation errors - just to make sure it wasn't me, I load an old version that I KNOW worked, and get the same comp errors. This has happened twice in the past two months, this latest time, I'm like: forget it. You can't work like that..

It's all this 3rd party stuff... I wish there was an easy supported way to do it.

yeah you have to code it manually...

I'm sure Rex has a plugin for it though..

We did make a native engine in Construct Classic, and it still occasionally dropped frames.

Everyone thinks that making a native engine will magically fix everything. It's not the case.

well one thing is clear, you made Construct nice enough to use that people want to use it everywhere..(like Unity) which is a really good thing. Not saying you would want to do that, just merely looking at the positive. From a business perspective, this is kind of "gold". You've found something people REALLY love.

It's too bad you couldn't leverage this high level functionality and use it on a more robust engine - I think is what the OP is suggesting.

Years ago I used to work at a company where we did everything on an IBM mainframe. All the code was written in Fortran (yuck). Our databases were so huge Fortran wasn't cutting it. So they hired a man named Frank to make a ton of assembly code that could be called from Fortran. He created a massive library of functions in assembly to make everything run crazy fast. Soon everyone's Fortran code became a wall of 'CALL's and then it affectionately became known as Franktran. So all the programmers that loved Fortran got to keep using it (for better or worse?).

Regardless, people need to budget their game's resource demands appropriately - I'm sure a good portion of people wanting the "more robust engine" just need to learn to scope their project better. However, there are those that want to make larger games and don't want to export with wrappers.

With advanced profiling tools provided by a third party, the APK of my game on avarage only used about 60 % CPU and 50 % GPU. It's able to hold a stable 55-60 FPS if nothing interrupts on my S7.

would like to know what you use here..I'm having crippling mobile performance, that comes out of nowhere and goes away completely after a few minutes.

cool game, I played the web version.

The only thing that sticks out to me I would say is you have really big graphic files with lots of frames of animation as well as big static background images. I know that's not the answer you want to hear.. since that is a design issue.

do you know what your memory footprint is? I assume once loaded the performance is okay right?

I assume CocoonIO? what cocoon plugins are you using? and what web engine?

hi, got appodeal working, but the banner ad stays on the same ad, does anyone know how it works?

I emailed them and they replied, but it doesn't make sense:

Support:

...it is same for rewarded video ad type. In other words: disable autocache -> initialize sdk -> cache -> show -> cache -> show -> ...

...you need to call 'cache' action not long before next impression to show another creative

...For banners, it's better to use automatic caching. If you want to change the interval for updating banners, you can do this using segments.

I tried creating a test Segment but it didn't seem to do anything. Has anyone created a segment before and could help? Thanks!