I came across this recently and it was a good read so I thought I would pass it on: http://venturebeat.wordpress.com/20...effective-mobile-ads-heres-how-rescue-gamers/ If it works as they suggest this sounds like a great way to increase existing monetization without too much effort. Has anyone tried something like this? Does it work?
Thanks for the link. The gist of it is that the gamer is paying for a game event by watching an ad. - I think in the near term this will be profitable but since the gamer isn't watching something they want the advertiser isn't ultimately seeing value. What I haven't seen is how we drive more value for the advertiser, when we can do that we are making our ad. space more valuable. Trialpay offers where purchases are bundled is one of the most effective at delivering a win for all parties. I'd like to see more discussions on here of this kind.
You're right, this seems like it would promote a lot of views, but not necessarily sales. It all depends on how targeted the ads are I guess. What if, in order to respawn to fight the final boss in a mario-style game, you had to watch a video about the new (actual) Mario game? It seems like this would do pretty well.
I agree, regardless of how you're monetising ultimately it's finding that sweet spot in the gamer's game play where you can insert an ad for maximum effect all round. You don't want to annoy the gamer so they won't play again but you want a decent return and provide value for the advertiser so that they'll continue to place ads. I think incentivized ads like that can be a good way of keeping the player hanging around but I've seen reports that big paying advertisers don't like it http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/23/big-brands-want-nothing-to-do-with-incentivized-ads-on-mobile/ I've seen my best ad returns on the game over screen so having some way of keeping the user playing by just watching an ad could be a good placement.
That's a good point Iain. I'd be happy to roll a youtube video on my game over screen and on my high scores screen - both screens have the room and they are natural stopping points.