So this is something that I could be interested in exploring. However, since the game is competitive, I don’t really want players to feel like they have to ‘pay to win’ (or at least do better).
Basically, one needs a way of monetizing a game that:
An App wall on exit is one idea… If anyone has any others, I would like to hear them !
Does your app have a user initiated pause button in it? Like they stop to do something so they pause the game then come back to it?
If that is the case put a full screen ad on your pause screen or overlay. Some users may chose to click it when they come back before returning to the game. But at least its pausing at their request and your not just randomly interrupting game play.
One more suggestion have an in app purchase to remove ads. Not that many will go for it but a few might, especially if they really like the game. I have that as an in app purchase for my drinking game. It isn’t as popular as my other in app purchases but I’ve had about 25 people go for it. And that is more money than I have made from all of the ads for that game. Or put out a paid version with the only difference being that it has no ads.
I haven’t played your game yet. I’m about to download it and I will let you know from a user perspective if their is somewhere for a good transitional ad that wouldn’t be too obtrusive or annoying.
I’ve played your game for some time now, and I have actually never seen any advertisements. Not on any of the screens. Where I’m guessing there should be an advertisement in the leaderboard screen there is just a black hole.
Very nice game btw. There is a very similar game which have gained a lot of popularity, especially in Sweden, in the iOS app store called Rumble. It’s basically the same thing as yours but in Rumble you can instead play 1 vs. 1.
They have one free version and one pro version which costs something like $3
In the free version they have banner advertisements and a full screen advertisement after each game. With the pro version you can remove all advertisements, get different avatars to choose from, get detailed statistics (like number of games played, best word played etc.), probably some more that I can’t remember as I’ve only played it on my friend’s iPhones.
Maybe that is an idea if you want to add IAP’s. That won’t interfere with the gameplay or give anyone advantages…
Btw, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you learn how to make online games? I’d like to learn some more about it and tried searching the web but I can’t really find anything about it.
To answer questions:
I know that there are many games like it, but that was not my point.
I just wanted to show how you could have an IAP without giving players advantages over other (customization etc.)
Also, with an eCPM of $0.10 it would take a lot of impressions to earn the same amount as 1 sale for an ad-free version (but I understand why you don’t want to do it)
Good luck with your game. 
Well I agree with mind, I wouldn’t provide a “pay and get rid of the ads” version to get the short term benefit of some cash, even if it’d be hard to get to that value through ads eCPM because the long term value of HOUSE ADS is just too great.
Especially for someone who is willing to pay $3 to remove ads?? That’s a user you want to keep for life and have them play ALL your games!! They’ll probably get your other games, and more importantly, they’ll probably spend money on all of them! So yeah, I’d definitely go for microtransactions.
However, since the game is competitive, I don’t really want players to feel like they have to ‘pay to win’ (or at least do better).
Yeah, that’s definitely a concern. I’ve heard the Blizzard guys say the same about WoW when they were introducing microtransactions.
Edit: By the way, your app is one of the very few where I actually get served ads! In most other apps I don’t get any ads because of where I live. 
Oh and I also remember that was a topic in this article about a very profitable Facebook game (with server costs) that suddenly introduced microtransactions:
In the end, they say some users get angry and say that they don’t like the new gameplay because newbies can pay-to-win, but if the dynamics are balanced and well designed, it just becomes a different game that’s also enjoyable! There’s no reason why it has to become as drastic as “the one who pays, wins”
In fact, there are many different types of microtransactions for games. Solirify mentioned customization and that’s a BIG one that we often don’t think is important but to many people it is! There’s also expendables, which are the best type of microtransactions because some people will spend dozens of dollar on those (These are for example, extra ammunition or power-ups, you pay for it over and over again because you expend it by using it).
And yet another one you might want to consider since you’re already running a server is to have a paid membership that gets special features! I’d sit down and brainstorm what cool features you could give premium users (more playing modes, the ability to play against your friends, special theme boards,etc.)
So it’s similar to the idea of paying for a version without ads, but in this case you get a monthly subscription - NOW we’re talking!! 
Anyway, I’m not even giving out suggestions, I’m just throwing some ideas at you, in case one of them resonates for you and you like it enough to implement it. The reality is, you’ve got a GREAT game that’s really fun to play (especially for other that get more points than what I get =S hehe) and I congratulate you for that!
Well, with 26 updates to the game, I have added a LOT of features. I already took the game as far as I think it can be taken … and all free. I am sure I could add more though…
Current ‘extras’:
What users have asked for:
At this point, I feel that I almost need to sit down and re-imagine the game.
BTW: almost all my customers are on Amazon… which does not have a built in micro-transaction system (yet… in beta atm) … ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG !!!
I am sure I could add more though…
We can ALWAYS add more… Like the owner of PopCap games said (I’m paraphrasing):
“We used to have 2 and 3-year development cycles, then we’d release the game and that was it! Now game development is a never-ending process. Users want new content, new functionalities and new ways of playing, constantly. You can no longer stop developing.”
At this point, I feel that I almost need to sit down and re-imagine the game.
Sounds like a plan!! 
Or you could just create new games, that’s always a good strategy to leverage even more downloads accross apps, but I think there’s still a lot you could do here with WordHero, given that it has such an impressive amount of users.
Edit: PS: It’s more real already than you might think 
or
Thanks. The movend link looks interesting… in-carrier billing is totally the way to go!
I played your game last night. Very fun and addictive game. I see now that the way the game is there is no pausing. Very smart because it keeps people playing for a long time since they are automatically thrown into new game.
I did not really like it when you start the game and join an already in progress game with little time remaining. Just as you got started it would end and you would be way down on the leaderboard simply because you only had like 10 or 15 seconds to look. It was kinda frustrating. What I would suggest though is instead letting a user start a game with under 20 seconds left (or whatever number seems best) I would take them to a ‘waiting for next game’ screen. Then during the remaining time till the next game you could show a full page ad. I don’t think many users would complain waiting at most 30 seconds for a new game to start. And you could get some good attention on ads as well.
I also sometimes wished I could spend more time looking at all the possible words or more time looking at leaderboard. I wouldn’t change the time between games because that is what make it addictive. But maybe give the option to ‘sit out a game’ and unless they choose to sit out then they automatically start new game. They could then look at the possible words longer or leaderboard longer or just take a quick break. Then when they are ready they start a new game. And use the same logic above if there is less than 20 seconds left then wait for the next game while showing ad otherwise jump right into current game.
Just some options. It’s a great game with alot of users. There is no reason you should not be reaping the rewards for your good work. Just have to explore all your options and figure out the best way to monetize it.
I also think micro transactions for customizations like was said above was a good option. People will pay for silly things like a theme to make the board look different. I often look at games like farmville and think who would spend good money for something to make their virtual plants grow faster? But there are people that do and alot of them.
So my new moto is always give people the option to give their money to you. Even if you don’t see why anybody would pay money for something. I have one app where people can vote for who they want to win the american presidential race. Just for fun I added in app payments to buy votes for your candidate. I didn’t think anybody would actually spend money on that. But one guy spent $20 buying votes.
Thanks for the feedback.
I have been thinking of putting up an indicator as to how much time is left in the current game. I always relied on the face that the games are 3 minutes and synchronized to the clock, so it is pretty obvious when the next game starts and how long is left on the current game.
Yes, the ‘need more time’ problem has been mentioned before. Typically you get 15 seconds or so and this is enough. Eventually there will be so many people playing, we will need to filter the results (you can’t scroll through 200+ results in a meaningful way). We will do this the same way we do already for the hour/day/week/month leaderboards (icon off the main screen!). You can see your best result + X people around you + top 10 + friends.
So, I managed to add Millennial Media to my Mopub setup. This was broken at first due to Proguard trashing one of the internal MMAdview classes.
For the last week I have been doing eCPM’s of around $0.34 to $0.39 on my banner adverts. It seems that my changes had a positive effect on revenue. To wit:
Summary: went from eCPM’s of $0.20 to $0.35+. Daily revenues of under $10 to around $35.
Thanks for all the feedback and sharing of thoughts. You guys helped me achieve this!
In other news, yesterday I released an update that enabled tablet mode. This is a completely new layout for the game on tablets. Since the majority of my users are Kindle Fire users, this has the potential to be very very bad for revenue (if nobody clicks ads again due to bad layout). On the upside, I am now serving 300x250 adverts, and they pay more CPC. I really wanted to serve 120x600 skyscraper adverts down the side of the tablet, but nobody has any inventory of them for android devices 
Wow, that’s GREAT news, mind!!! 350% increase in revenues is BIG!!
Congratulations, I’m very excited for you! And hopefully now that you’re catering to your Kindle Fire users, you’re going to get even better results now!
Keep us posted!
Thanks.
I still see this as an abject failure in planning though. Here is the story:
Errors I made:
Add those errors together and you get math that looks like this:
30 seconds per advert = 2880 adverts / 24hour period per user
200 users x 2880 = 576k adverts / day
Average eCPM = $1.5 x 576 = $864 / day
Average income per month = ~ $26k (projected)
I saw those numbers and worked my ass off day and night (working 8 hour day job, then looking after my kids till they went to bed, then starting work at 10pm, and putting in 6 hours till 2am, then some sleep). I was getting constantly sick/etc from not enough sleep, easting badly and no exercise. Finished version 1.0 in two months.
I spent $600 on a Nexus S phone from T-mobile (prepaid, so no contract).
I spent $250 on getting someone to do icons/graphics. They were so bad that I could not use them. The person then did not want to do any more work.
I spent $500 in advertising to jump start it using Flurry and Admob. Then nobody played it.
So I spent a lot more time doing updates to try make it a success. I added new features on every release. 27 releases in total so far. Then I got lucky at Christmas. Everyone got Kindle Fire’s and my app was one of the VERY FEW that had a manifest that said it could handle xlarge screens. So people saw my app and downloaded it.
Amazon: 22k downloads
Google Play: 1k installs, 4k downloads
Slideme: 1k downloads
Appia: unknown
As you an see, Google Play is completely useless for trying to find my app… since they removed the ‘just updated’, my app has gotten very few new users.
So… Thank you for being excited for me! But in the back of my mind, I still compare 25k/month to $35/day…
Now, I am thinking… $1k/month = spare change. But what if I had 3 or 4 apps all producing $1k/month ?
Wow, thanks for sharing your story, we can all learn from that… even if you had used the right data for your projections, I think things rarely happen the way we project them =/
And I know how you feel about losing sleep, no exercise, etc. I just got out of that about a month ago, hadn’t been taking good care of myself because I wanted to finish a coding project that took 13 months (6 really intense months at the end - and ironically, it’s a fitness application! lol). And it’s even worse if it doesn’t turn out to be the overnight success you expected =S
But on the other hand, I want to highlight your 27 (!) releases. That’s a big lesson right there because all those releases enabled you to have such an addictive game now. Of course the kindle thing helped but I’m sure if the game was crappy those users wouldn’t keep playing. So perseverance is what I get out of this story.
And dude, $1k a month is HUGE!! I know you were shooting for the stars with $26K, but $1K is no small income for doing what you love! From home! On YOUR schedule! In fact, in my country $1K/mo is a very good salary for a 9-5 office job! So you’re right, you make 3 or 4 of these and you’ll be doing just fine!!
Plus, every new app gives you a new push in terms of downloads and active users. I see everyone complaining about the “Just In” category, and I get it, totally. But I don’t think most people stop to think about the sudden burst of downloads you get out of having a NEW app on the stores! What if we had the discipline to push out a new game every month? Or every 2 weeks?? And then cross-promote all those games with house ads? THAT’s high leverage right there…
Your next app will be an overnight success because you have that huge install base of WordHero to launch off of. One simple house ad on startup will give you thousands of instant downloads on TOP of the regular big push we get from being in the “New” categories of the stores.
So you get all encouragement from me, great job, great perseverance, and off you go to build more assets, in no time you’ll see yourself achieving the great success you’re looking for!!
I once read an article about why most startups die. The reason is that the founders give up.
I know what you mean about $1k being huge. I grew up in a 3rd world country where that would have been big money…
Another chart for you guys. This is number of players playing that day - averaged over all games for the day. Horizontal axis is week number since Jan 1, 2012.
Similar to the previous chart, but instead of the spikes along the curve, you can see how the numbers vary each day. As you can see, the weekend usage is much higher than daytime usage.
You can also see Easter weekend (week 15) being much lower, and the Friday night on week 18 when Mopub screwed up and pushed adverts that crashed their advert mediator code (and hence my app!) for 4 hours during peak time.
As with the previous chart, I will try to keep the Google docs spreadsheet updated, which will mean this chart will always be current.
Yeah there must be a way to get more out of this.
It seems you are getting more and more players, so there is a value to your game. Maybe you can use tapjoy to introduce some points system for extras.
I once read an article about why most startups die. The reason is that the founders give up.
I can believe that! Although many entrepreneurs don’t know how to manage their money, so they spend it all and are forced to close shop. Luckily we don’t need seed capital to make Android games, so most of us will be ok in that regard
Fascinating chart!!
I agree with Martin, this has so much potential!! I say it’s never too late to introduce new, monetizable dynamics to this game!
Hah… so today MM is back to $0.03 CPC instead of $0.10. CTR is still 0.38% … and it looks like my revenue will be back down to $10/day instead of $30/day. Boo !!!