Crossy Roads hasn’t been out that long for mobile gamers to enjoy. In fact the game has only been out since November 2014 on iOS, on Android since Christmas (on Amazon), and on Google Play since last week. That, however, hasn’t stopped the developers from making a cool million dollars already off of just video ads.
The entire process of watching the video ads is something we have seen slowly creeping its way into more and more games. Essentially you have a choice as to whether or not you want to watch a video ad and when you do, you are rewarded with virtual currency that you can spend in-game to unlock new characters to play. This isn’t the first game to implement this strategy either. The recently released Bitcoin Billionaire also features this video ad viewing reward system occasionally throughout the game.
Revenue numbers were released by Unity, who are also the providers of the video ads in Crossy Roads, when they interviewed Hipster Whale’s Australian co-founders Andy Sum and Matt Hall:
We wanted it to be free, so that everyone has a chance to play. I played Disco Zoo and thought that video ads were a really good way to earn money without getting into people’s faces. We just needed to figure out a fun reason for players to watch them. We didn’t want any consumable purchases, we wanted to do something that everybody could pay a little bit for if they wanted to, but where it wasn’t necessary to keep paying. – Matt Hall
So what is the point of all of this and us writing about it? Well aside from the fact that making a million dollars in such a short period of time is pretty impressive, especially for a small indie studio, it also is important to note that this is from video ads and has nothing to do with in-game purchases even though they are offered in Crossy Roads. IAPs are not always the way to go when it comes to monetizing your game even though a lot of the time it seems like the best route to go, it really isn’t.
Website Referenced: The Guardian
