My friend and I just released our first iOS game and are confused about what pricing model to use. There are two popular models:

1. The pay up front model (e.g., angry birds). All level packs are playable in sequential order.

2. Free to play with in app purchases. (e.g., almost every other game). Only the first level pack is playable with a price tag of 99cents on each additional level pack.

There seems to be quite a bit of data implying that the freemium model is the way to go. The idea is that one would release the game for free, get lots of users and hope that a small percentage of those users will spend money in-app.

Articles like this one (http://www.marco.org/2013/09/28/underscore-price-dynamics) seem to indicate that "the market for paid-up-front apps appealing to mass consumers is gone." Then there are the success stories like Clash or Titans, Candy Crush, etc. that seem to be raking it in on in-app purchases. I suspect that there is some observational bias here since we only ever hear of the successful apps that use this model.

It seems that success of the freemium model is largely a numbers game. To get a large number of downloads, one needs to either have money for advertising or some clout/influence in relevant industry journals/blogs; both of which seem dire approaches for small time indie developers.

I think that a pay-up-front model seems to have a longer tail than freemium models since it is less dependent on the initial marketing momentum. Additionally, the benefit of pay-up-front models is that you get the user to commit to pay you from the beginning -- theoretically that means that you can focus marketing efforts to people who would actually spend money on a well-made app instead of a shotgun approach to get the most number of active users.

Any advice/suggestions are welcome.