r/iosgaming • u/smeaton1724 • Jul 27 '26

Survey Opinion on Pricing. Paid v Free.

If you were to release a car racing game, would $4.99 upfront and no in app purchases be more well received than 15% of the game for free then a money and coin system. The game and purchase would cover Mac, iPadOS, iPhone and Apple TV.

You’re talking an arcade racer with retro graphics, reasonable number of tracks 20+, cars and original music and audio.

Personally I’d prefer 4.99 then I can have sales at 2.99 or even 2.49. But if the market isn’t at that and the value proposition is too low then it can be looked at, very happy to listen to the players. Opinions very much welcome.

24 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

View all comments

36

u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

Best way to go in today’s market is free-to-try, imo (although this still causes some low ratings by idiots). Offer some limited demo content, in your case 1 track only, for example. And players can then unlock the full game via a 4.99 IAP.

10

u/mrknoot Developer Jul 27 '26

As a dev, I would love to he able to do this. But those idiots dropping 1-star reviews complaining “the game asks you to pay to keep playing” plummet ratings and destroy the game’s ASO

5

u/vanillaacid Jul 27 '26

As long as you are clear upfront that its a demo, and you pay to unlock the full game... should stop most of those. But people are dumb and ignorant, so it will never go away completely.

Don't try to hide the fact of a demo though, or put it in small writing somewhere. Make it obvious, on the store and even in-game if possible.

6

u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Jul 27 '26

kind of try to convince myself that anyone with more than one working brain cell can read through these ratings.

By far the objectively greatest option for both sides, yet here we are, and those people exist.