I built a game and naively added ads to it as it seemed a good way to monetize. The game started to be really liked, and had 300k+ downloads overall. Many kids started playing it also.
Luckily I realized quickly that kids play on the devices of parents and so the ads they might see are at times super inappropriate!
Then I removed all ads, I'd rather make less money but have people play and have a good time. Its not always about money. At times I get contacted by players, how they love the game and how it has been part of their childhood etc. Some very moving messages, worth more then a few additional bucks from ads and I feel much better because players aren't exposed to random ads, pictures and messages.
The learning for me was that I will never work on anything that uses ads as source of income, this includes turning down jobs at Google and Facebook.
I built a game and naively added ads to it as it seemed a good way to monetize. The game started to be really liked, and had 300k+ downloads overall. Many kids started playing it also.
Luckily I realized quickly that kids play on the devices of parents and so the ads they might see are at times super inappropriate!
Then I removed all ads, I'd rather make less money but have people play and have a good time. Its not always about money. At times I get contacted by players, how they love the game and how it has been part of their childhood etc. Some very moving messages, worth more then a few additional bucks from ads and I feel much better because players aren't exposed to random ads, pictures and messages.
The learning for me was that I will never work on anything that uses ads as source of income, this includes turning down jobs at Google and Facebook.