For my Destiny Garden project, which is a desktop game, I want to use freemium monetisation strategy, so I plan to publish both free demo version and a paid full version, and I'm wandering is there any advertisement networks for desktop games? There are dozens of them for mobile games, but I cannot find any for a desktop app 🤔 Theoretically, something like embedding of an HTML-page with ads is possible, but I'm not sure this is a good approach... Or, does anybody knows other ways of monetisation of free desktop games?
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3\$\begingroup\$ This doesn't really answer your question very well. But I think you will find a serious backlash from players if there are ads in a desktop game. I'm not saying that's fair or good, just what would probably happen. One of the most popular ways to monetize F2P desktop games is to sell cosmetic items with no gameplay value. Fortnite, Rocket League, etc. \$\endgroup\$– Almo ♦Jul 7, 2022 at 18:59
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1\$\begingroup\$ @Almo thanks for your reply! I'm much more experienced in gamedev than in playing games themselves, but I had a feeling that ads are really unusual for desktop games 🙃 \$\endgroup\$– AivanF.Jul 7, 2022 at 19:02
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Ads in desktop games can receive a significant backlash, but there's a way around that. Rewarded Video Ads are optional, and are all over my apps now. Here's a quick explanation:
<< Rewarded video ads are one of the most popular mobile types of in-app ads. Publishers, advertisers, and gamers – everybody can benefit from rewarded video ads. ...
When players watch a rewarded video ad, they receive a reward in exchange. That can be any kind of in-game benefit like extra lives, currency, points, etc. This gives players the incentive to watch through the whole ad. And the only thing required from the players is their time and maybe attention. >>
https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/rewarded-video-ads
I use DuoLingo to study foreign languages and if you want to get free Gems, you have to watch a video. Then you get the gems... but you have to wait an hour or so before you have the option to watch another Rewarded Video. (I imagine the rate limiting is just to prevent someone from watching tons of videos to earn gems and avoid buying them.)
For your RPG, you could make it so that if you want a powerup of some kind... you can watch a Rewarded Video and earn it that way. Or maybe they earn Gems which they can use to buy your powerup... or if they don't want to earn it that way, they can just outright buy the powerups with cash.
I always thought skins and cosmetics were huge for free games but this video had a great overview on monetization that puts skins/cosmetics in perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3_Oe0SD1rc
His point was that the most profitable microtransactions are those that reduce the amount of grinding a player has to do. Maybe this is why there's so much grinding in free games these days!
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2\$\begingroup\$ Hi! Thank you for the answer, but actually the question was about appropriate ads networks for desktop games/apps, not about the design and mechanics
(:\$\endgroup\$– AivanF.Jul 8, 2022 at 7:34 -
\$\begingroup\$ You did ask if there were any other ways to monetise desktop games. \$\endgroup\$– StomfJul 8, 2022 at 15:13
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\$\begingroup\$ @AivanF. ah apologies, i was responding to this part of your post: "does anybody knows other ways of monetisation of free desktop games?" best of luck to you with your app! \$\endgroup\$ Jul 9, 2022 at 8:43