Mobile game monetization is one of the most crucial aspect to consider when you are developing or creating a mobile game. Developing and maintaining a game involves a lot of money, time and effort, hence it is important to figure out how to monetize this game. Monetization is essential not only to cover the development costs but to earn profits too.

Mobile Game Monetization is principally the process to generate revenue out of the mobile games. Till recently the idea of mobile game monetization was restricted to either a free app with mobile advertisements or a paid app. However, the market is changing radically and new avenues to earn revenues have opened up.

Most of the developers have their focus on developing their idea into a game, they tend to ignore the monetization aspect of it until the end. As a developer you need to plan your mobile revenue generation model at the very beginning when you are planning the development of your game.

Mobile Game Monetization Models

Once the game is ready to be launched, the most important decisions needs to be taken. Whether to make it a free or paid game. Paid apps can help you generate short-term revenue however free apps will attract more users and will help you earn more income over a longer period of time through in-game ads and purchases.

Currently only three paid games feature in the top 200 on the app store. However, that shouldn’t determine the monetization model for your game. If your game is good enough then people won’t shy away from paying for it.

Micro transactions is the best and most common strategy for generating high volumes of income. Players often buy in-app upgrades for improving their game character or for unlocking some hidden treasure or gifts for them or for buying virtual currency required for the game.

Most of the developers offer regularly circulated content free, whereby making the users purchase the new content through the offered in-app purchase options. But you need to keep in mind while exploiting this strategy is to maintain a positive user-experience at the same time.

Freemium games are free games which can be downloaded to play. However, they offer paid in-app purchases which can unlock some restricted features or let you gain sort of advantage in the game. The freemium model is the most commonly used and almost 70-80% of iOS revenue is covered by in-app purchases alone.

Another method is offering subscriptions, a fixed amount of money has to be paid on a regular basis (weekly, monthly, or annually) for bonus features, privileges or to use an ad-free app.

Ad networks help in connecting your game to huge databases of advertisers, assisting the advertisers to reach their ideal target audience. This will help you earn money by bringing the two together. There are a number of ad networks available for mobile games and apps.

Mobile Ad mediation is a technology which is used for sending advertising requests to a number of ad networks, ensuring that mobile publishers are able to fill their ad slots by finding the best available network. Ad mediation helps publishers in managing, optimizing and increasing profitability of their inventory.

There are a number of ad types which you can use for displaying on your game like Direct Ads, Banner Ads, Interactive Audio Video Ads, Reward Ads or Event-based Ads. 

Which Model Is The Best? There is no one right answer for this, as it all depends on your game and number of other factors. Statistics show that in-app purchases earn the maximum revenue in mobile games and apps, but if your game doesn’t support in-app purchases, don’t push it.

Most of the mobile games mix and match different strategies according to the nature of their game and targeted audience.

At Alphagravel we believe independent mobile developers should be entitled to earning the highest revenues from their mobile apps. Our predictive analytic platform provides true price transparency, by programmatically allocating mobile inventory to the highest bidders in real time and at all times. The alphagravel SDK serves as a gateway to multiple advertising networks, ad exchanges and ever growing new media sources.