Making an iPhone app paid versus free
I launched an iPhone app called Lottomatic (iTunes link) a few weeks ago (it’s a scratch-off lottery ticket game). I decided to charge $.99 for it, but contemplated making it a free app supported by advertising and in app purchasing.
Since it’s been on the iTunes store there has been some interesting feedback. Some people really like it, while others have been suggesting features they think would make it better.
It’s a very fascinating experiment to see how people want to use something. It’s also helpful in figuring out what should go into version 2. The feedback has been helpful in deciding what features I left out should end up going into the game.
If I was going to make the app free there were two strategies that came to mind for monetizing it:
1. Putting in game advertising for lottery and gambling sites
I leaned away from this because I suspect that a large percentage of the audience is too young to gamble or buy lottery tickets. I’m also a little uneasy with the idea of real lotteries in general. I’m not sure how fair it is to tax people who are bad at math.
2. Selling tickets in game
This idea has more appeal to me. A free app with several built in free scratch-off games would probably get a ton of downloads. Building into the app the ability to buy additional scratch off games creates a different way to make money. The question is what kind of sell-through rate would be reasonable to expect. I suspect not a very high one. A lottery game isn’t as compelling as a first person shooter or some digital pet that you’re emotionally invested in and want to buy nice things for.
All things considered, I think the best strategy for the game is to keep it a paid app and incorporate some new features in version 2.0 and actually raise the price of the game and see what happens.
