Pocket Gems’ Tap Pet Hotel Scales to #2 on iOS Free & Grossing, Offer Wall Conspicuously Absent
As mobile game developers struggle to understand the new industry landscape after Apple cracked down on incentivized downloads and offer walls this week, Pocket Gems, which vaulted to success using this strategy, debuted a new game this week, Tap Pet Hotel, with an offer wall that’s conspicuously absent (see right).
If you open the game today, on the screen where players can pay for virtual currency, there’s a bottom button that would lead to what would be an offer wall. Instead it leads to a screen with filler text saying, “Buy more rooms, collect room revenue and level up to earn more coins!”
While the company’s profit margins may be more compressed without the offer wall, it doesn’t appear to be hurting otherwise. Tap Pet Hotel raced to #2 on both the Top Free and Top Grossing charts in the U.S. (though Apple’s Top Grossing chart doesn’t include revenue earned through incentivized downloads). The company also holds the #1 Top Grossing slot with Tap Zoo.
Apple began rejecting apps with offer walls earlier this week, arguing that they cheat the chart rankings even though the company has tolerated them for a year. Many free-to-play games derive 30 percent or more of their revenue through these walls, which let players earn rewards or virtual currency if they install another developer’s game. When done at scale, this practice allows developers to pay to break into the top of the charts.
Pocket Gems was a poster child for the use of offer walls. The company used to make all of its revenue through them before it turned on in-app payments for virtual currency. Pocket Gems probably had the most symbiotic relationship with a pay-per-install network of any freemium developer out there given its close relationship to Tapjoy, the biggest company in the space. They even shared an investor, Gameview Studios chief executive Riz Virk, who helped finance the company’s first game.
Now several larger developers are racing to take offer walls out of their games. We couldn’t find offer walls in several of TeamLava’s games yesterday and TinyCo’s new title Tiny Zoo doesn’t seem to have one either. That said, we’re hearing anecdotal reports of games with offer walls actually getting through the approval process into app store from multiple sources. Like we wrote on Wednesday, we suspect that Pocket Gems may be one of the companies that has acquired such a large user base that it may be able to cross-promote new games successfully to its existing players without having to rely on incentivized downloads.
Pocket Gems, which raised $5 million from Sequoia Capital last year, has excelled at taking proven genres of casual games to the iPhone. It said earlier this month that it had surpassed 28 million downloads and its title Tap Zoo has consistently ranked among the Top 10 grossing apps for 28 weeks out of its 32-week existence.
Its latest addition Tap Pet Hotel appears to be inspired by any number of virtual pets games that emerged on Facebook in 2008 and 2009, like Zynga’s Petville, Playdom’s Pet Society, Slide’s Superpoke Pets or Crowdstar’s Happy Pets.
In the game, players manage a hotel where they can build special rooms where pets can play, sleep or bathe. It uses classic social gaming-style monetization. Building each room costs earned currency in the game, but players can use a paid currency to speed up tasks. Like in Tap Zoo, a good share of the content is gated and can only be bought with the paid currency.
The launch comes just as several competitors like Andreessen Horowitz-backed TinyCo and Storm8′s TeamLava studio have also released zoo games, which could make it harder for Pocket Gems’ big hit Tap Zoo to stand out.
April 26th, 2011 at 9:55 am
[...] Pet Hotel – Pocket Gems have released a new game in recent days (April 21st) called Tap Pet Hotel. Withgame play similar in respect to [...]
April 30th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
you need to make it soo that you can colllect bones for freee
May 6th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
[...] app Pinger said it had an update with an offer wall rejected this week. Many developers, like Sequoia-backed Pocket Gems, responded by taking offer walls out of their newest [...]
May 21st, 2011 at 6:08 am
You want to know why they are making so much money on this game??? Listen to all the angry parents who had to enter their credit card info to set up an account for their children to play the game, only to find huge charges on said credit cards for “purchases” their children had made to feed their pets.
May 27th, 2011 at 7:30 am
My daughter spend close to 300 dollar on this game. Be careful. Apple should not allow this game to be in the app store. Every other developer will suffer.
June 13th, 2011 at 10:20 am
I am one of those angry parents (friends have a much larger $$ amount to be angry about) but this is highway robbery.
It asks for a password for the purchases but when you cancel/enter invalid/leave password blank, it still creates the purchase in a cloud for the next time you enter your password for something you do want. No warning no nothing until you get your credit card statement!
Apple should not allow games like this to be published and purchased from iTunes. If they want to continue them then they should require the app to work the same way it does everywhere else in iTunes…no password/invalid password/cancel should CANCEL the purchase!!!
I am hoping that Apple will help me out or I will be considering other options!
July 3rd, 2011 at 6:37 pm
dont give your kids your password so that they can purchase items…silly parents…dont blame the company for your negligence..you should never give your children password to such things…
July 13th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
[...] enviable though is the company’s consistent ranking atop the highest-grossing charts on iOS. Tap Pet Hotel has stayed within the top 13 grossing apps for the last month, while the company’s original hit Tap Zoo has hovered around third [...]
July 26th, 2011 at 8:43 am
Well, as a marketing & comms specialist, I am appalled at the lack of communications and parental controls/password restrictions surrounding this app. My 8 year old daughter bought ‘stars/coins’ within the app, and my account was debited £159, WITHOUT my knowledge. This needs to be sorted out soon, or there will be a hell of a PR stink.
July 31st, 2011 at 11:19 pm
The app does not allow you to earn ‘dog treats’ and these must be purchased. It’s definitely not a free game. This is completely against the concept of free as some items can only be purchased with ‘dog treats’.
For the parents put restrictions on your iphone so you can’t make inapp purchases.
August 9th, 2011 at 6:05 am
My 8 year old downloaded this “free” app last week. We were on vacation so was not checking my emails as I usually do. We just got back and I found out that my child had unknowingly run up a credit card bill of $709. Had I not been on vacation. I would have caught this much earlier. This company is using predatory tactics targeted at young children. No adult in their right mind would spend $9 to over $40 on in app purchases offered in this game. So they set it up to make it easy for kids to do this without their parents knowing whats going on. This has nothing to do with whether or not a parent is allowing their kids to use passwords because once the game is downloaded, no PWs are needed. It appears that there may be a class action lawsuit in the works. I may not get my money back but I would love to see this company get taken down.
August 10th, 2011 at 6:00 am
Well, I have been an Apple person through and through since 1986. Owned nothing but Apples, and have purchased iPod and iPads for my kids. It’s the best corporation in America.
But I am absolutely livid that such a scam could be allowed on their iTunes store. My daughter racked up $400 in charges without knowing that real money was involved in ‘tapping’ the commands for new coins.
And no, don’t go lecturing me about ‘parents giving children their passwords.’ When your kid asks you to buy Tap Pet Hotel and you look it up on iTunes to research the game, there is nothing there about add-ons costing money. All you see is the game listed for ‘free’. Nothing tells you that there will be charges applied once you are in the game.
Kathryn is right: This is only just getting to be known on a broader basis. Pretty soon, once the media gets ahold of this, Apple’s going to see one heck of a PR stink. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
August 24th, 2011 at 8:36 am
[...] The company’s staffed up from around 10 people at the start of the year to more than 60 now, so it certainly has the capacity to step up the pace. Tap Petshop is Pocket Gems’ second launch this year after Tap Pet Hotel. [...]
August 28th, 2011 at 10:08 am
After your last update it keeps kicking me out. I can’t click on party ones thats an automatic kick out. Please take care of this issue. It’s driving me crazy. I can’t play the game.
November 6th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
It clearly states buy in bold green and then it said how much it cost for money & treats. Any 8 year old should understand what word Buy it means. If you dont want your kid to run up a big bill watch your kid better. About the parental controls/ password use an itunes gift card insted of a credit card. Don’t blame the game becase you don’t keep a close eye on you kid.
November 11th, 2011 at 10:40 am
I had the same problem with Tap Pet Hotel. Apple should refund but ONLY one time. So…
And if you ask Pocket Gems they say to Apple control refunding because they control the Credit Card use (this part is true)é
BUT
Any company that want “customer happy” should not charge 99.99$ for a game 0.99$ in a “candy buying” view.
This is intellectual fraud at least.
More than this a company CAN refund without asking Apple in other way…
So Pocket Gems do want money and the gonna have it from us customers!!!
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:37 am
Top grossing app- halarious that Pocket Gems has to use our innocent
Children to aquire this ranking! DO NOT purchase any of these games! With a double click (tap) my daughter who is 5 purchased over $100 of things she had no idea about but loved the cute animals! Sick company I’m sorry I ever allowed any of my children to even see 1 of ur apps
November 26th, 2011 at 6:25 am
PLEASE warn parents!!! ALL POCKET GEM games such as Tap Petshop, Pet Hotel , Tap zoo are scams. it is MISLEADING, The predatory tactic they implement is appaling. Itune should Ban these games because it will ruin their reputaion. I AM VERY angry with the way it baited us. we were charged $500 plus ….
Business bureau should watch this company!!!!
November 26th, 2011 at 6:29 am
Hi Karen
I am one of the moms who is extremely angry and livid with this company. What can you advise me on putting this company out of business? I am trying to get information on how the government or business bureau should intervene against these companies.
November 26th, 2011 at 6:31 am
Robin,
Please pray that one day when you have kids, you will not experience the pains of being a parent. If there are honest companies , there are no ” stupid” parents…
November 26th, 2011 at 7:26 am
Anne,
When you have kids one day, please look back to your comment….
December 12th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Hi Karen, I can’t believe the things I am reading about this game, I just noticed charges to my account from this game, my 4 yr old plays this, he has no clue what the password is to buy things so im really confused on how this could have happened, were you ever refunded by itunes? If so how did you do it?
February 4th, 2012 at 10:37 am
I just received over $300.00 in various credit card charges from pocket gems.
I too am livid. I am also pissed at Apple, because they are the ones that require your ID for any of their products to work!
February 10th, 2012 at 11:58 am
After the last update I only get one coin, for the heat. Earlyer to day I get about 20000. What went wrong?