Four lessons from the world of mobile gaming to get people to pay for news

theMediaBriefing reporting:
I've spent a lot of time contemplating paid content strategies and alternative revenue streams for digital news operations, so when I recently attended the Mobile Games Forum, it felt like catching a glimpse into a parallel universe aeons ahead in terms of user monetisation.
While news publishers are starting to turn to paywalls and move away from an almost complete reliance on advertising, game publishers are already creating experiences that attract millions of paying users and, according to Shai Drori of Appsfire who spoke at the event, "most revenue for mobile games is coming from in-app purchases, not advertising."..
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1) Payment can come in many forms

When it comes to in-app purchases, games usually employ a credits system which disassociates the cost of a purchase within the game from the real currency value of that purchase (ie. if a magic wand costs 15 credits and you can buy a bundle of 70 credits for $4, how much does the magic wand cost? Who cares, just buy it already, it's shiny!)...
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2) How to charge for personalisation

In free-to-play mobile games, there are many types of in-app purchases publishers employ (here's a whole list of the in-app purchases available in Angry Birds Go), and often the purchases either enhance the gameplay in some way, or let players customise their identities in the game (or both)....

3) There are premium uses for user data

One of the other benefits of Ruzzle's premium upgrade is access to player statistics and ranking. Tracking a player's activity in a game and frequently sharing indications of their progress in the form of scores and statistics are essential elements of most gaming experiences.
However, this premium use of user data is still a very foreign concept for most news sites. Publishers are increasingly tracking the usage habits of their digital readers, however this is generally consulted on the aggregate level, and very rarely shared with users....

4) Focus on the cross-over experience

Another common topic during the "user acquisition" panels at the Mobile Gaming Forum was the cross-over experience. Alex Dale, CMO of King, which publishes the wildly popular Candy Crush Saga game, explained in an interview with Pocket Gamer:

With Bubble Witch Saga and Candy Crush Saga we are providing a single game experience across multiple devices...Your progress in the game, your social graph and your virtual goods will be synchronised. Our development philosophy is very much cross-platform.

What's commonplace for the gaming world is only just now starting to be seen in a handful of news apps – if you can start a game on your desktop and finish it on your phone, why can't you start an article at work and pick up where right you left off on your mobile during your commute, then finish it on your tablet when you get home?...
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/garrett-goodman-four-lessons-news-mobile-gaming-app-purchases