You are into game dev and want to earn a living of it? Mobile sure is the easiest way to do it, seeing those simple hypercasual games on Playstore with millions of downloads quickly inspires you to expect for one thing:

Most of the monetization strategy used in those games suck

And most people don't talk in-depth about it, it's hard to get right.

If you are like me and you want to approach the monetization strategy in a clean way welcome as we journey together looking for answers... And here are the cool ways you can do monetisation right and effectively. Disclaimer: These are all personal and not official, if you feel something is wrong or you want to add to it, please do comment... This is a post written solely for collaborative ideas

1. Make your game fun and addictive to mainly support the gameplay

Let's just focus on the most obvious one first and say it, making your game fun is your main focus... Having an intricate fun game would easily crush retention numbers. Building a game for the sole purpose of fun is the fastest way to get you on the right mindset and monetisation is just another layer to add to gameplay. I am just going to say it here, "I believe a stronger fan base is far better and rewarding than a ton of cash" and heck, yeah if you are a beginner in the industry, chances that you are going to make a ton of cash is very slim... Most successful companies thrive on aggressive marketing and also aggressive monetization. So please make sure your game is crazy fun and if you want to go crazy with the psychological tricks, just do it to improve the gameplay experience, not with the mindset driving in cash. Examples of games that nail this are cookies must die

2. When have IAPs for a multiplayer game make sure it doesn't impact gameplay

Majority of gamers don't like microtransactions and because most of the games that have it, do it badly. As sad as it is, microtransactions are hard to get right and you can quickly be greedy with it which results in a lot of backlash and bad ratings. So your best bet is cosmetics items and skins, let the player want to buy and not forced to buy it. Fortnite, COD mobile, Pubg are heavily monetized through selling skins and it works, stuff like loot boxes sometimes kinda ruin it a bit. Don't give the paying player a better chance in winning cause he/she pays, simply put Pay 2 Win sucks for everyone as non paying players are punished and progress slowly and paying players now find the game easier and less of a challenge. Good Examples are Fall guys and Among us

3. Interstitials are too be used as a breather

This is one place where most hypercasual games fall short of, placing interstitials almost at the end of every match session which is not up to a minute long... For we indie devs that cant put loads of cosmetic options for IAPs, Ads are our next best bet, the best mindest is this when it comes to interstitials:

Interstitials ads are to be used as commercial breaks

This is the easiest way to do it, yeah not enough money but yeah a stronger fan base... Retention numbers stay up this way and one neat trick I am going to tell you is: It is most effective if the player dies a lot in a level and if you keep a friendly message before the Ad is shown makes it feel a lot nicer e.g. "Here is a word from our sponsors, Let's take a commercial break". Go crazy with it and vary it with a bit of randomness and it could be a way to jog the player's mind. A good example is Walk Master

4. Rewarded Ads should be Rewarded

Don't be cheap with giving an option to watch a rewarded video

Rewarded video ads should be earned from my point of view, it feels far more satisfying, in my game Whot King, we only rewarded players with an option to watch a rewarded video with a big multiplier effect only if the player wins a match... That way it added a layer of strategy to it, which was very effective through the analytics data. At the time of writing this, I realize that this might be a sensitive issue as there is no one size fit solution for games but the core should be having fun with it

5. Banner Ads should not be in the gameplay area

This is pretty self-explanatory, banners ads don't pay that much but are very distracting and annoying. If can find a way to make the player stay long in the UI section of the game then banner ads there is not a problem

6. Offline Players vs Ads

I personally do feel like the easy way to monetize is through the premium version package. A good example is Smash Hit, relieves me of the headache of thinking of monetization and makes me focus on the game, but it doesn't work that well nowadays and Ads cant be fought by just going offline if your game is playable offline. Here are strategizes for Offline Players that I figured out:

• Make your rewarded ads as juicy and strategic as possible
• For interstitials, if offline place an inbuilt ad to subscribe to something or one-time purchase, a good example of this implemented is Fancade
• Timed rewards that can only be open through Ads, an example is the daily spin reward in Candy Crush
• Parts of the game that can be accessed only if online( use with caution )

7. Paywalls are a big no

Your content should be fully accessed even if it is a slow grind...

8. Products should be desired and feel good when the player does have them

Pretty self explanatory

Conclusion

All being said, this post is mainly for having a solid fan base and you might make a slow but stable income or just be one of the big hits even though underhanded greedy tactics seem to work due to marketing, the mobile industry is not going to move forward like that. Learning how to channel your players to a social media platform, popular ones being discord, Facebook and youtube is crucial.. That way you can keep in touch. Please do comment your awesome suggestions and leave a like... I remain your Awesome Mike 😁😎... Cheers and good luck