Hey guys,
New developer here - I have made plenty of projects in learning across multiple engines,
however I am yet to publish one in the hope of a profit. I finally have a game plan ready, love unreal engine and am keen to see it through.
It is a mobile/tablet game and given that I am a new developer I think the free model with (video) ads and in-app purchases will be the best for me as I would otherwise struggle to generate initial sales for a paid game in such a competitive market.
Specifically I would be looking to allow a certain number of plays per day before a video ad must be watched to continue. Any in app-purchase for any item within the game would remove the need to watch ads forever effectively meaning the player has paid for the game.
(I am sure paid vs. free is highly debatable and that this model is probably disliked by many, but that is what I wish to go with for this one).
I have falling in love with UE4, there are too many positives to list, however before committing this project to UE4 I would love to hear from others as to whether they have found that it in its current state (4.7.6 and 4.8 preview 4) a free mobile game is a viable option to actually make a profit if the game is somewhat successful.
It seems at first glance that mobile ad support is in its infancy (can only see banner ads, not even sure its possible to get video or interstitial ads?) and I cannot see any in-app purchase documentation.
Has anyone managed to make free mobile model work with UE4?
Is the above video ad and in-app purchase model currently possible with UE4 (preferably out of the box)?
Is support likely to increase in this area (or is UE4 more committed to the high end AAA titles that it is so good at)?
Thanks.
This is how you would create in-app purchase blueprint.
Great thanks , doesn’t appear to be any documentation on this. I was not expecting this to be an option via blueprint, that is great.
Although I am a little worried as after reading 's response I found this post:
Which states that restoring a purchase is currently not available and not likely now until 4.9. This is a requirement for the IAP to remove ads.
Am wondering if with the mentioned method of any ‘consumable’ purchase removes ads if I can work around this as a consumable does not require to be restored.
Although that does mean the removal of ads will be reliant on my server and not ‘restorable’ through Apple or Google meaning I am not sure if this would be allowed and pass approval processes.
Also I still have not found a way of doing video or interstitial ads. Has anyone managed this?
So unless I am missing something (which is possible as had not seen in-app purchases as pointed out)
It seems that this set up is probably not possible or viable with UE4 in its current state.
It is coming… but from reading other posts, might be a while and appears to be a low priority which I do find odd as would have assumed there would be a lot of mobile developers wanting to do a similar set up and there is money to be made.
I will likely wait as I do enjoy Unreal that much more than other engines, so any further ideas or updates would be greatly appreciated.
The Tappy Chicken has iAD support built into it so you might want to give it a look. With C++ you could implement anything else yourself, in case of Android you could do that on java layer which source is in Engine\Build\Android\Java.
Also you can enter your android mobile advertisement ID at Edit Tab > Project Settings > Android
Under the Android section, you can locate the Ad Mob Ad Unit ID
Saw that in Tappy Chicken thanks , banner ads only though right?
Will start looking into looking into implementing something myself. Might be a stretch for my C++ abilities, but always fun learning.
Thanks .
