5 ms·

Honestly, I wouldn't mind ads if they weren't so obtrusive. a simple ad on a loading screen isn't the end of the world to me. What's annoying is trying to tap a

Honestly, I wouldn't mind ads if they weren't so obtrusive. a simple ad on a loading screen isn't the end of the world to me. What's annoying is trying to tap a tiny 'x', unskippable video ads, ads that try to fingerprint my device, ads that slow down my machine, ads with volume, time limiting play unless you buy an IAP (when there's no option for just buying unlimited time for a reasonable price) I want game devs to be able to make a living, but there's a difference between game devs who responsibly put in monetization and game devs just trying to squeeze every last cent through deceit and manipulation.

StavrosK 7y ago
I want devs to be able to make a living too, that's why I have ad-supported games on the list, as long as you can disable every single ad with a payment. What I hate is devs seeing me as a wallet to wring as much money out of as possible by preying on my addiction/impulses.
- csours 7y ago
  I love to see games that have one-time payments to permanently remove ads. This lets the creators provide a free-ish demo, but also may provide some residual income. It also allows players with less money support the creators.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    They are in the list, marked with "One-time purchase".
    - vehementi 7y ago
      Can you put that one time purchase price in the price column? So it's not just listed as "free"
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        I don't always know it, unfortunately.
  - kevstev 7y ago
    Over the years though, I have found that shady creators find ways around this. I paid about $10 on "Scrabble Free" a bunch of years ago to get rid of ads. What EA did was essentially abandon this version of the app, and eventually it would not run on modern android versions and replaced it with "Scrabble" Then later to finish the deception, they renamed "Scrabble Free" to "ZZZScrabble free." Considering the amount of time I spent playing that game and the relatively cheap price, I can't complain too much, but the new game has no option to skip ads, a bunch of in-app purchases, annoying notifications some of which let you straight up cheat. Meanwhile, I have an old scrabble cd-rom from the late 90s that might run right out of the box on my windows laptop, and worst case can easily run under an emulator and I can happily play distraction free until the end of my days.
  - soraminazuki 7y ago
    I'd rather prefer the demo version be published as an separate app, since you can't remove the advertising SDKs entirely even after you pay. Even if the developer was payed and stopped displaying ads, advertising companies have zero incentive to actually disable their code. It might still be spying on users in the background, and you can't be sure about it unless you go to great lengths to see what servers the app is communicating with. Worse, even if the SDK did actually stop functioning, it might be too late since you can't disable ads before first launch.
wtetzner 7y ago
Why not just charge money for games? Seems like a reasonable way for them to make money...
- fredsanford 7y ago
  Then you create a soft ceiling and miss out on the whales that will spend $1K a month to have a shinier hat.
  - Lammy 7y ago
    Still waiting to hear a downside :)
  - Zenst 7y ago
    Yes many of those games litterly throw their freemium players as cannon fodder to those whales. Few get the balance right and many will always tip one way on the odd patch, pandering to the whales - who after all - spend money. Though the games that just offer hats and other cosmetics, well, you have to love those and certainly a solution that appeases all and rich fools are not to be scoffed at in such games as they are paying for it to carry on.
  - someone7x 7y ago
    For some, “missing out” on that kinda exploitation is the reason for not doing it. I’m not interested in the nicotine business for the same reasons, regardless of how much each smoking whale is worth.
- rchaud 7y ago
  Because the app economy doesn't reward that kind of behaviour. A free game will get more downloads than a paid game. Kids are the biggest consumers of mobile games and they can't download it if it's paid and they don't have a credit card set on their account. Obscure games with low sales will fall off the rankings pretty quickly. And that's before you consider that there are only a few successful game types (Clash of Clans, Tower Defense, Candy Crush) and probably 10 different clones of each out there. How would you stand out? This incentivizes devs to just put out a game for free, load it up with ads and hope that it gets enough downloads for it to become an acquisition target.
tripzilch 7y ago
> ads that try to fingerprint my device pretty sure they all do ...

StavrosK 7y ago

I want devs to be able to make a living too, that's why I have ad-supported games on the list, as long as you can disable every single ad with a payment. What I hate is devs seeing me as a wallet to wring as much money out of as possible by preying on my addiction/impulses.

csours 7y ago
I love to see games that have one-time payments to permanently remove ads. This lets the creators provide a free-ish demo, but also may provide some residual income. It also allows players with less money support the creators.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  They are in the list, marked with "One-time purchase".
  - vehementi 7y ago
    Can you put that one time purchase price in the price column? So it's not just listed as "free"
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      I don't always know it, unfortunately.
- kevstev 7y ago
  Over the years though, I have found that shady creators find ways around this. I paid about $10 on "Scrabble Free" a bunch of years ago to get rid of ads. What EA did was essentially abandon this version of the app, and eventually it would not run on modern android versions and replaced it with "Scrabble" Then later to finish the deception, they renamed "Scrabble Free" to "ZZZScrabble free." Considering the amount of time I spent playing that game and the relatively cheap price, I can't complain too much, but the new game has no option to skip ads, a bunch of in-app purchases, annoying notifications some of which let you straight up cheat. Meanwhile, I have an old scrabble cd-rom from the late 90s that might run right out of the box on my windows laptop, and worst case can easily run under an emulator and I can happily play distraction free until the end of my days.
- soraminazuki 7y ago
  I'd rather prefer the demo version be published as an separate app, since you can't remove the advertising SDKs entirely even after you pay. Even if the developer was payed and stopped displaying ads, advertising companies have zero incentive to actually disable their code. It might still be spying on users in the background, and you can't be sure about it unless you go to great lengths to see what servers the app is communicating with. Worse, even if the SDK did actually stop functioning, it might be too late since you can't disable ads before first launch.

wtetzner 7y ago

Why not just charge money for games? Seems like a reasonable way for them to make money...

fredsanford 7y ago
Then you create a soft ceiling and miss out on the whales that will spend $1K a month to have a shinier hat.
- Lammy 7y ago
  Still waiting to hear a downside :)
- Zenst 7y ago
  Yes many of those games litterly throw their freemium players as cannon fodder to those whales. Few get the balance right and many will always tip one way on the odd patch, pandering to the whales - who after all - spend money. Though the games that just offer hats and other cosmetics, well, you have to love those and certainly a solution that appeases all and rich fools are not to be scoffed at in such games as they are paying for it to carry on.
- someone7x 7y ago
  For some, “missing out” on that kinda exploitation is the reason for not doing it. I’m not interested in the nicotine business for the same reasons, regardless of how much each smoking whale is worth.
rchaud 7y ago
Because the app economy doesn't reward that kind of behaviour. A free game will get more downloads than a paid game. Kids are the biggest consumers of mobile games and they can't download it if it's paid and they don't have a credit card set on their account. Obscure games with low sales will fall off the rankings pretty quickly. And that's before you consider that there are only a few successful game types (Clash of Clans, Tower Defense, Candy Crush) and probably 10 different clones of each out there. How would you stand out? This incentivizes devs to just put out a game for free, load it up with ads and hope that it gets enough downloads for it to become an acquisition target.

tripzilch 7y ago

> ads that try to fingerprint my device pretty sure they all do ...