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Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

gamesfromwithin.com

11–18 of 18 posts

Re: Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

#11
Thought this was a very well written interesting article. What chart/graph software are you using, or is that a tool provided by apple?

BTW, graphs without labeled axises are a huge pet peeve (you can thank a certain georgia tech professor for dropping me a letter grade for that one).

Re: Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

#12
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand those complaints If you recruit most of your customers from a population which steals most of their software, then aggressively socialize them to think the software which isn't convenient to steal yet is fairly priced at $1 and expensive at $3, and then ask their opinions about your business model, what were you expecting their opinions to sound like?

This is the culture of the iPhone, 99 cents rules the day. The fact that the iPhone arrived at this is far more Apple's fault than the customer's. In the current iPhone world, 2.99 + a lot of 99 cent charges to essentially just use the app is outrageously expensive. Especially when you consider the app is a rather simple "toy." Just off the top of my head, Train Conductor is a full fledged (and beautiful) game, and i…

In the current iPhone world

The three top grossing apps in the UK are priced at £49.99, £59.99 and £26.99, and the rest of the top 25 average around £2-3 each. Looks like there is some scope for more expensive applications.

Re: Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

#13

Thought this was a very well written interesting article. What chart/graph software are you using, or is that a tool provided by apple? BTW, graphs without labeled axises are a huge pet peeve (you can thank a certain georgia tech professor for dropping me a letter grade for that one).

I used AppViz for most of the charts (it's a great program to keep track of your sales and visualize them in different ways). The chart with colors it's just generated from Pages since I had to do some aggregating of the different IAP items myself.

You're right about the lack of labels (that's how the program does it), but I made sure it was explained in the sentence following the first chart. I wanted to stress that the vertical axis is profit in US$ and not unit of sales (since Flower Garden is $2.99).

Re: Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

#14
post #5

The reviews in the app store for Flower Garden tell another side to this story. For example: "It costs 2.99 just for the base app. It costs 99 cents for more pots. 99 cents for fertilizer (to get your flowers to grow faster, since some flowers take as long as a week) and now, for the new seeds of winter, you have to pay another 99 cents." That seems like a legitimate complaint. But his numbers do suggest the IAP help…

This is Noel, the author of the post and of Flower Garden.

I was planning on leaving a detailed analysis of the effect of IAP for a later post, but you're right that some people didn't like it. Especially in the Facebook group at one point there was almost a small-scale riot from people feeding off each other's negative comments. But as usual, that's just a vocal minority.

I had to intervene by explaining why I was charging for extra content (http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=10677&uid=748971...) and I think that once people realized it was just me and not some faceless corporation, they were much cooler about it.

So my comment about "people loved it" referred to the fact that I got tons of positive feedback and the fact that IAP sold very well.

Frankly, I knew some people wouldn't like me moving in that direction (especially if you're used to the model of free updates for life), but I'm surprised that I didn't ruffle more feathers and most people took it really well.

Also interestingly, I think this has gotten people who had cracked versions of Flower Garden to purchase in-game items, so that probably helped too. But unfortunately I don't have a really accurate way of measuring that (I'll try for my next post).

Re: Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

#15
post #12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the culture of the iPhone, 99 cents rules the day. The fact that the iPhone arrived at this is far more Apple's fault than the customer's. In the current iPhone world, 2.99 + a lot of 99 cent charges to essentially just use the app is outrageously expensive. Especially when you consider the app is a rather simple "toy." Just off the top of my head, Train Conductor is a full fledged (and beautiful) game, and i…

In the current iPhone world The three top grossing apps in the UK are priced at £49.99, £59.99 and £26.99, and the rest of the top 25 average around £2-3 each. Looks like there is some scope for more expensive applications.

[deleted]

Re: Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

#16
post #12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the culture of the iPhone, 99 cents rules the day. The fact that the iPhone arrived at this is far more Apple's fault than the customer's. In the current iPhone world, 2.99 + a lot of 99 cent charges to essentially just use the app is outrageously expensive. Especially when you consider the app is a rather simple "toy." Just off the top of my head, Train Conductor is a full fledged (and beautiful) game, and i…

In the current iPhone world The three top grossing apps in the UK are priced at £49.99, £59.99 and £26.99, and the rest of the top 25 average around £2-3 each. Looks like there is some scope for more expensive applications.

But the most expensive apps, like tomtom, are iPhone versions of expensive products, so even though the iPhone app version is high for an app, it's less than the alternative. That doesn't really work for iPhone only apps.

Re: Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

#17

Thought this was a very well written interesting article. What chart/graph software are you using, or is that a tool provided by apple? BTW, graphs without labeled axises are a huge pet peeve (you can thank a certain georgia tech professor for dropping me a letter grade for that one).

one of the greatest app store success stories will be AppViz

Re: Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post)

#18
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand those complaints -- if it's too expensive, you won't play it! It's the developer's responsibility to play around with pricing, etc. to see what maximizes long-term revenue. (Also, AFAIK, you can't charge less than $0.99 for an in-app purchase, and each IAP has to be identified uniquely.)

I don't understand those complaints If you recruit most of your customers from a population which steals most of their software, then aggressively socialize them to think the software which isn't convenient to steal yet is fairly priced at $1 and expensive at $3, and then ask their opinions about your business model, what were you expecting their opinions to sound like?

I guess what I meant was that the number don't lie. Revenue went up, and all the haters can go STFU. If it's too expensive go play another game.
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