Tag: monetisation

The dark side of ‘Free To Play’ games

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Eil Hodapp edits an interview with a producer behind many of the well-known ‘free to play’ mobile games on just how much you give up for a free download to play games like Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, and pretty much anything with an in-app purchase. Even users who don’t really use Facebook or fill it with “fake” data actually tell us a lot. You might not use Facebook, but your connections give you away. If you play with friends, or you have a significant other who plays, we can see the same IP address, and learn who you are

The sobering reality of Candy Crush and freemium gaming

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The issue is not that Candy Crush is raking in a reported $633,00 per day on a freemium model, it’s that the app is going to be held up as ‘something that’s possible’ with the current freemium model. Like a gold rush, we’ll see more games turn to this model, which extract more money out of users (over a longer timescale) for games of dubious quality that start out as ‘skill’ and slowly morph into ‘you must pay to have any success’. It’s feeling a lot like Las Vegas. For a more sobering look at the issue of freemium games,

Twitter Japan Is Here, as is Twitter Monetisation

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Congrats to Joi Ito and the team at Digital Garage on the launch of Twitter Japan. While it’s still part of the core Twitter group (i.e. it is not a separate island of users), the nationalised interface should provide a much easier Twittering experience compared to the hoops that people went through at launch. I also never knew that Tokyo is the world’s most Twitterable city (made up word alert!). But what caught my eye is Toyota, or specifically the advert for Toyota in the top corner of the web interface (which leads to Toyota’s Twitter account, not a Toyota