The video game market while arguably an art form and culturally relevant of course is still primarily financially driven. With far over a billion downloads on both the App store and Android market the producers of games and apps are increasingly turning to new and creative ways to make money from their apps. The market for phone apps while burgeoning is still not as established as the traditional video game market for a number of reasons. Firstly apps have much more of a throw away value due to their lack of longevity. Secondly consumers are less likely to buy an app if there is a similar one of roughly the same quality for free. And of course the traditional bogeyman of the gaming industry, piracy, must also be taken into account. That is why when it comes to making money from apps publishers will not automatically charge for an app and might explore less traditional routes of generating capital.Google makes billions from advertising and many publishers are exploring ad supported games as a way of making money. The downside of this for them is of course that they will need to sell a vast number of apps to break even, and if course for the consumer the downside is the irritation of pop up ads. Other apps will be semi pay for with the user paying further on for more features and levels. Good for what you get but of course it can be painful if you are deep into a game and then need to pay to get further. Under the umbrella of Freemium games comes many different types. Many will work off micro transactions paying pittance for things such as new clothes for a gaming avatar, others will have content packs that need to be downloaded. For the publisher they will need a hard core audience engrossed enough in a game to want to pay for inane things. For a user unless you are paying for premium content you might feel cheated that you’re not getting all a game can offer. Of course despite there being many ways that you can splurge your cash on apps and games it must be pointed out that there is much free quality out there. And of course if you really have to pay for an app, just make sure that you turn to a service like Gametrender to help make your decisions!
