A mathematical model for pricing game products for mobile games

Technology era arises new sectors, occupations and products or services related with this area. Mobile gaming industry is one of those sectors with the technological developments of personal mobile phones or electronic devices. This sector is rapidly growing in terms of the number of companies, employees and games and financial income, however, this situation increases the competition and companies in this sector survives as if they succeed a sustainable profit from the game by selling their products or services. These products can be grouped into four which are the game itself, cosmetic products, in-application purchases and advertisements or product placements during the game-play. This study outlines a two-staged decision process for deciding which products should be priced and how much they should be charged for every customer. First stage is an enumeration of all sixteen alternatives and expert decision to choose among those alternatives which would fit to the concerned mobile game. In the second stage, a mathematical model is used to price to obtain the maximum profit for the company. Another mathematical model is also proposed for pricing the products differently for each customer according to their psychological player profile as if the decision maker prefers such a pricing strategy. Implication and extensions of the models are discussed and a real-life application of them are also presented in the study.