About In-App Purchases and Upgrades

[Cory Trese]

If have seen the latest Templar Assault RPG update you may have noticed that Templar Assault RPG Elite now supports a Google permission called 'BILLING' which exists to support In-App Purchases.

I wanted to take a minute to talk about why that has been added, what it means for Trese Brothers and what it means for you, a player of our games.

For this to be an open and honest discussion, there is a clear need for full disclosure on the part of Andrew and I: we are adding IAP because Trese Brothers needs to generate revenue.

Very recently, Andrew and I became a full-time employees of Trese Brothers. The sales of AOP, ST, CK and TA pay our medical bills and buy our dog food. Important stuff for us.

I believe Andrew and I could be successful game developers given sufficient time to grow, expand and learn. The time to do those things costs money.

Industry studies show that globally in-app purchases account for more than 70% of all mobile revenue generated for app developers.

Our challenge is to adopt industry standard revenue generation practices without giving up the free to play spirit of our games.

We will be adding IAPs, but they will stay within the distinct spirit of Trese Brothers games -- and the updates will not stop so long as we are in business.

[contributor]

Wooaahhhh! Congrats on taking the big plunge and working for yourselves. I really wish you two all the best and hope that you will be able to continue doing what you (and we) love for many years. You guys really have a unique genius and if you can stay true to that I think you'll do great.

I think it would be great if you spelled out how IAPs will fit into the " Distinct Spirit" of Trese Brothers games. What are the major outlines of your philosophy (concerning IAPs)? What can we expect and what lines will you never cross?

[Cory Trese]

We will not sell consumable items like Credits, Gold, XP or individual items like ships or weapons.

We will sell shortcuts to content that can be unlocked through skillful play as well (unlocks, for example.)

We will continue to distribute our games with a high percentage available in a free to play version and continue to provide updates for both free and elite games.

Our IAP will offer a high price to product ratio (like our Elite games) which means large content packs, campaigns or stories.

Depending on the game, we may offer IAP only for the Elite version or we might offer IAP for Elite and Free.

And, as always, we will be available to discuss at every turn.

[slayernz]

Brilliant. I think that it is a logical step, and there have been numerous people who have come and gone saying "Just let me unlock everything so I can be the ultimate <insert descriptor>". IAPs would be a perfect way to satisfy those casual players.

You could even have a IAP that allows you to resurrect a fallen character (eg TA squad member, Captain, or Knight). I know people would pay for that. It does somewhat impact the permadeath aspect, but hey, if people want to give you money to be a zombie captain, then who are you to say no

I do have a slight reservation on the content packs because it might mean you will offer less new content without IAP, and these types of updates are one of the big drawcards of TB games. New ships, new campaigns, new weapons and gear ... all loved.

[Deleted]

Congrats. It takes a mind far keener than mine to juggle dishes while riding a unicycle across a tightrope. Thats how I view balancing business- especially an idie these days. But I believe in small business, and especially those I believe in like you guys. I'm just one guy but I do what I can with what I've got. A picture being worth a thousand words, I think I can help grab a few eyes for you guys.

[fallen]

slayernz - the addition of content packs will not stop the release of new content, gear, ships, levels, etc into the Free and Elite games. Those are a big draw for all of our players. IAP content packs will be significant items that have taken a long time for Cory and I to build. We believe this is reasonable, as three of the games have been on the market for 2-3 years of free content additions. All for a lovely $2.99 or $1.99, depending on when you got in.

We aren't interested in the consumable IAPs (resurrect anything). I could reference an old blog post about loving hard-core games, but if you didn't want to die, don't enable permadeath

[slayernz]

Aug 14, 2013 18:52:54 GMT -5 fallen said:

if you didn't want to die, don't enable permadeath

People like the higher difficulties that mean you are actually challenged, but those difficulty levels require permadeath so you can't turn it off. Sure, you could spend your days playing basic/normal, but after the first five thousand turns, your eyes begin to glaze over because you've killed yet another huge capital ship with your unmodified shuttle.

[captain nemo]

Congrats guys !!!! Best of Luck, being full time game dev's now. As always I'll do what I can to help. Seems like you guys have a good balance for the IAP's.

[johndramey]

Well good luck, guys! It is really exciting to see you guys taking the plunge, I know it was probably a big decision (and a little bit of a scary one) but I believe you guys did the right thing. The games you guys got out and the amount of care you put into them shows that you guys have what it takes to be successful, and now that you will be working on multiplatform games you guys can hopefully start bringing in more money!

IAP is fine with me, I'm a younger guy working a good paying job, I don't mind throwing chunks of cash at things that I support. You can pretty much chalk me up as an instant purchase for anything you guys put out.

I, for one, am extremely excited to see what kind of content you guys come up with.

[John Robinson]

Congratulations. A very close friend made the same leap, and never looked back. He is making way more money

working for himself, than taking orders from somebody else at a set per hour fee.

By now you know, I'm always going to ask about Star Traders for the Amazon Kindle Fire. How can I make the same

content purchases?  Is TA just the test drive?   Will you add the same to all Trese games? (I think you should.)

[fallen]

john robinson - we will be adding IAPs to most of the games, but are thinking of starting with Templar Assault. We will be supporting both Google Play and Amazon App Store in all purchase. Of course, nothing is transferable between the markets -- if you buy it on one, it stays on that one!

[piemaster]

I really hope this is done well. Unfortunately my experience with games introducing IAP/PTP for the first time has really not been good, even with companies that up to that point have been very gameplay focused. I've seen great games completely ruined by in-game purchases before due to:

- Developer resources diverted almost exclusively to the IAP content.
- Slow inevitable creep of the PtP mindset into more and more parts of the game
- Constant in-game reminders and adverts for paid-for content
- The removal of much of the sense of achievement for doing something that anyone can now do just by paying a token small amount of money.
- Content that is deliberately designed to make buying the in-game bonuses much more desirable.

I really hope that is not the case here. I always give developers benefit of the doubt, but my conversion rate on that benefit has not exactly been great over time. One of the reasons I bought ST in the first place is that it is one of the few games out there that doesn't seem to rely on a freemium model.

[grävling]

It occurs to me that I have never made an in App purchase, and indeed, as soon as I get prompted to make one, I immediately uninstall the game. That is how completely incompatible I find 'being bugged about money' and 'enjoying myself'. It is something to keep track of, at any rate, in case this idea turns out to be a bad one. I'd personally rather pay 10 times as much for the Elite version, and never run into an in App purchase
at all. There might actually be a business model in there, actually.

[Cyrus]

I'm very happy to hear your dog is getting regular food! Err, I mean that your games make enough money to pay for your fulltime work.

I'll be happy to pay for new campaigns in TA, though my budget for games and such is very limited. So far, it's been very good value for money and I'm confident you'll keep delivering.

To add to the discussion, here's thing some things I wouldn't mind as IAPs:

• New campaigns
• Different Templar skins (the whole team gets a different theme).
  I'm sure some sub-order of the templars likes to dye their Leviathans black with skulls painted on the helmets...
  
• Luxury shortcuts that are not a normal part of the game (change captain class, change game difficulty level)
• Stronger starting teams (a shortcut past the hairy phase where your templars can't hit a barn door at 3 paces) I wouldn't buy these myself, but like the option.
• Unlocks for the free version: Extra captain classes and specialist templars.

In fact, as long as the content itself is fun to play without purchases, I wouldn't mind either if you sold honor/xp packs. If someone else wants to skip part of the gameplay while financing more work on TA, that's absolutely fine by me. The trouble starts when the choice becomes grinding vs buying, which seems very unlikely with a solid game like TA where every single turn is meaningful.

Finally, do NOT make me wait for arbitrary timers to run out. 

[fallen]

Aug 20, 2013 8:47:30 GMT -5 Cyrus said:

I'm very happy to hear your dog is getting regular food! Err, I mean that your games make enough money to pay for your fulltime work.

Enough to feed the dog, at least. Not sure about the sock puppets or the rest of us, yet.

Thanks all - we appreciate the feedback!