In the new project ACECRAFT, I came across an interesting mechanic that combines ads and in-app purchases. Before each rewarded video, the player sees a pop-up offering to disable ads. There’s also an option to hide this pop-up for the rest of the day.
The player is given two choices:
disable ads for a month (with a bonus in hard currency),
or disable ads forever (and additionally receive daily energy).
What I find interesting is not only the recurring pop-up itself, which constantly reminds the player about the option to turn off ads, but also the way the offers are structured. It’s not really about “buying ad removal”, but rather attractive hard currency bundles, with ad removal thrown in as a freebie.
My guess is that this is tied to a large-scale user acquisition campaign: the developers don’t want paying players to slip away into ad funnels, but at the same time they’re not ready to abandon ads entirely, since they remain a solid source of revenue from non-paying or low-paying users.