Report: How free apps are changing ad-supported content


An interesting report at Mac Rumors looks the changing dynamics of apps sales on mobile platforms. Conventionally, major publishers dish out a lot of marketing money to bring awareness to their software. Discovery on the App Store is strongly driven by sales charts, so if you can pay to get enough downloads, your title will gain critical mass and rise the charts for even more downloads.

This has given birth to an entirely new method of performance-based marketing known as user acquisition. In 2015's App Store, games typically aren't promoted through advertising on sites like TouchArcade and growing brand awareness in a traditional sense. Instead, developers pay countless different in-app advertising networks to just buy users and drive downloads directly."

Basically they're gaming the system.

Furthermore, when a game is free and money is made through in-app purchases, publishers just need to get people to install the game. If the game is compelling, people will pay to unlock features/resources.

This is a significant problem for many indie developers, who do not have nearly the same budget or resources to put towards marketing, and do not gain considerable traction on their apps as a result. The disparity also places pressure on enthusiast iOS gaming websites such as TouchArcade, Slide to Play and Gamezebo, as large developers move away from traditional advertising and towards direct user acquisition.