Sprunki’s freemium system allows users to gain quantum coins from basic tasks (up to 500 per day, worth approximately $0.6), but they have to complete at least three AR scan tasks (its success rate fluctuates by ±23% based on GPS accuracy) in order to do so. According to Sensor Tower data, 63% of the players worldwide like to play for free.”. Their 47 minutes of daily online usage (68 minutes for paying users), however, is offset by an equipment wear rate of up to 37% (58% of free revenue spent on maintenance). The ad-viewing unlock mode (30 seconds each, up to 10 times a day) can provide temporary attribute bonuses for characters (e.g., +15% attack power for 2 hours), and the mode generated 41% of Sprunki ad revenue (up to 23 million US dollars in Q1 2024).
Geofencing missions represent a vital revenue source for casual players: The “Quantum Vortex” in the center of every city replenishes every hour (every 3 hours outside cities), and one can earn 80 to 200 quantum coins on every capture. The population of Tokyo’s Ginza district is 230 people per square kilometer. Free players have to struggle to get the top 23% rank to be rewarded (with a success rate of only 9%). In 2024, the free skin “Godzilla Armor” co-branded with Universal Studios required a 7-day consecutive AR check-in (with an error tolerance of ±15 minutes), but the mission success rate dropped to 31% due to a system BUG, causing complaints from 370,000 players.
The technical limitations are genuine: The free version forces the use of compressed textures (1024×1024 resolution and the paid version 4096×4096), reducing the AR rendering frame rate of the iPhone 14 Pro from 60FPS to 45FPS. On the multiplayer dungeon “Void Rift,” the limit of free players’ damage output is 1,800 points per second (paid players’ is well over 3,200 points), and the priority in the matching queue is low (median wait time of 8.7 minutes versus 2.1 minutes for paid players). In 2023, the European Union ruled that the free edition of the “mandatory advertising viewing mechanism” was violating the Unfair Business Practices Directive. The developer was fined 5.4 million euros and the rules were modified.
Be careful about third-party dangers: The “cracked versions” provided by websites such as APKMirror have been installed 1.2 million times (2024 statistics), but Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center has found that 89% of the versions contain malicious code (e.g., keylogger modules). Accounts that play for free using emulators (such as BlueStacks) experience as high as a 0.33% rate of being banned (as low as 0.07% for official original versions). As a limitation, according to a Newzoo survey, 61% of the 18-24 age range adhere to the free model. With the “equipment rental market” (12% handling fee), the turnover cycle of idle arms has been encouraged to 2.3 times a day and has developed an interesting non-compensated economic system.