Well it's a chicken and egg argument isn't it? Do you do well because you're on the lists or do you get on the lists because you did well? What I'm trying to say is that something has to get you on those lists to begin with.
This is true, it was started by some of us smaller indie development, as it was one of the quick way to get visibility without spending too much effort/funds in the short term. Indeed most consummer will be happy, even myself if I can get a good deals on an items I wont complaint (I got good deals for PS2, PS3 games and on some electronic such as my LCD TV, etc...). Even my wife always check the flyer every week to find where are the special to buy foods. I think its in our nature. But in the long run being a loss seller is never good. I once had discussion with a manager higher up in one of the large grocery franchise and he told me that some of the items they arent making any $ out of them. But knowing normally you will also buy many other thing then they can still turn a profit. But apps or games aren't the same as the local items in your grocery where they have thousands of different thing to sell. As most developer will only be able to release a few quality apps/games a year (well they are exception, but those people releasing 100 of apps are probably to emulate that). That not surprising, as if you see the company drop the price so quickly, then you will think that you might just hold a little bit and get what you want at a very low price. That's why most company try to avoid speculation and leak of their pricing in advance as they know this will completely kill their sales. How many times did we see Sony say no PS3 price cut until finally a few hours later they announce it. Also they will loose a lot of revenue in doing so too. Though they are some market where such thing work as you normally recoup your $ elsewhere, such as in the game console market, where they sell the console itself at a lost (well Nintendo dont due to their strategy) and get their revenue from the sales of games. This is why so many developer have complain and try to strongly suggest to Apple that they should have a list order in another way such as rating (will need to be based on unique ID, just to make sure nobody try to control it). Revenue is also good ideas, as the bigger apps with more sales can reach the top, though this will disadvantage smaller price games/apps. It could also even out if they do sales a lot of them due to cheaper price. Ohhh cartel did you say, now you are talking... let make a deals, Ill let you take control of Europe while me ill be happy to control the Canadian market is that a fair deal with you? This is indeed bad and illegal, I already suffer enough with those gas station around here . Several of them in the province got fine for that as they were literally fixing the price between themself. We all are, and some of us are even lucky to make a living out of it. I dunno if ill have the same success as you guys, but something when I see what's going on with the AppStore it surely put my hope down . Fred
Don't want to go into politics, but this is what OPEC does. Illegal? mm Anyhow, if this anytime can be done and we set as a Cartel a mininum price of 5$ the problem will still continue with that.
This is more of a problem for the big boys than indie devs. The big publishers are lashing their price to compete with the 99c indie games at the top selling list. They cant survive like this though because the production costs are too high that's why so many of them are lobbying for Apple to change the app store format so that their expensive games show up at the top of the list.
Not always, as you know big studios also tend to have more deeper pocket (already have large amount of capitals that let sustain this, remember most of them will make their revenue on other platform whether its on PC, PS3, 360, Wii, DS, PSP, PS2). Which isn't the case for most of indie developer that are limited with their personal saving and the revenue they can make with their few games on the AppStore. If I was going to make bet about who is going to last longer ill say the big studio. That is if we consider that indie developer try to do this for a living and not just as a hobby with regular day jobs (as those people could easily not care if their sales are good or not and could even put their game FREE). Fred
Oh I dont mean the studio wont survive but their iphone divisions may not. There's no reason to keep releasing 99c iphone games if they're selling them at a loss.
Personally I'd go for the mom n' pop store, but being that I live in Seattle, Starbucks isn't exactly known here for great coffee, whereas the small artisan shops are. Incidentally I just did an average of the top 25 paid Strategy games (I like this genre personally, and I'm developing a game for it) and it came out to $6.60... which is well above the $0.99 mark. An average of "All Games" top paid games comes out to $2.50, however. I think this reflects the popularity of some games that have gone on sale for $0.99. But, given the higher dollar average for the genre games in Strategy, I am not dismayed. It still seems that quality games can sell for a reasonable price and still make the top 25 (in their genre), not to mention the top 100.
Well OPEC doesn't actually set the price as a single body. They simply agree to lower the output of the product (oil) resulting in the price going up. (demand/availability).
Ahh the race to the bottom. We released iNetMania earlier this year, started at 4.99, was New and Noteworthy for about 5 weeks. After that we disappeared, never to be heard of again. One interesting thing we learned was that PR did not help much in sales, a price drop to 1.99 did not help much. Soon, we may have to goto .99, my guess is that may have a small impact. *What we really learned is this. Make a great product ( iNetMania was too high rez to run on 2.0 phones) *Hire or work a deal with a PR company, this can cost on the front end or a % on the back end. Be ready to deal with spreadsheets and lots of numbers. *Work with known talent to help your marketing efforts. This last one is a doosey, but I can tell you for a fact it can be done. We are now Screen Actor Guild Signatory's. Our next App (announcing next week) features a voice that has been in at least one game you have loved. Ranging from Halo Wars to Call of Duty, to even being in Transformers and Beast Wars...ok spilling too much here. I guess my point is, to compete with the big IP's you have to think and act big, put together a solid marketing and PR plan and execute on it. We will not be able to control the price wars, I have seen this many times before. The app store may end up being a bunch of .99 games/apps that really make $ from in app transactions. Anywho My .02
This is proably true. The .99c is just the hook, to get people to buy it. If they enjoy the game they can purchase "more" of the game inside. This will basically be a tiered service model where the users can opt out, in the long run this is more sustainable and more profitable than the buy for a fixed priced model ( which seems to be an outdated pricing convention geared toward the standard retail model where the seller has to make up all their profit in one transaction ). -ddn
I actually think that if you polish your indie app and make it top notch, you'll actually benefit from sale frenzys. I've been going on an app buying craze thanks to all the price drops. And I've had good experiences since I was getting fantastic games for low prices. It was very psychologically reinforcing. So I just kept buying more apps, anything discussed on the forums that was under $3 basically. And many of the apps I wound up buying are polished ones from indie developers. If what I was buying was $60 retail games, then no, I would never buy more than one per month. But I can easily justify spending $60 buying a ton of quality games that are all around $2 or so. A rising tide lifts all boats and what not. Just make sure your app is well presented and polished and has some gameplay variety to make it fun, and you'll do great.
It seems like lots of devs are following in the wake of Gameloft's sale frenzy. I have notice several big devs dropping the price of certain apps like they are trying to compete against some of Gameloft's big titles now that they have dropped in price. For example 'Fast And Furious' is now on sale, this may be due to the fact that Gameloft's Asphalt 4 is now only £0.59. Well, I suppose it is only good news for us consumers. Not so good for the indie devs, although I am more than happy to support them. edit - the second after I posted this post, I went to the TA homepage and, well, see for yourself.
this 99 cent business is both a blessing and a curse. Well, much like the whole iPhone market itself I suppose.. I am still fairly new to the mobile arena, keeping a keen eye on it however. It is very difficult to predict exactly what the fallout from all of this will be, but the overall gist that I get is this: if you are gonna play this game, you had better strap in for a while and expect to work hard and not see much return on your investment for awhile. It appears as if things are basically going to play out like a microcosm of the "regular" games industry, at an accelerated pace due to the nature of things (low overhead to develop things, ease of self-publishing, DIY marketing, etc). To sum up, if you want to get some success in the long run, dig your heels in NOW and start trying to release numerous quality softs. Don't shit them out so much, but don't get caught up in 6 month development cycles either. Do what you can to maximize your assets (engine reuse, build a steady base for your consumers to "hang out," concentrate on developing not only your games as brands but your company as well, etc) A few people will get rich right now with their fluke apps. Some super-geniuses will release stuff and do quite well (that always happens) but most people will have to fight in a war of attrition to determine who can hold out. Don't quit your job and expect to make tons of money, just hang out for the longer period and after the dust clears, you might have some name and brand recognition which will allow you to charge higher prices, or at least sell low-priced apps to a potentially larger customer pool.
Also it doesn't hurt to start diversifying. Other mobile and indie marketplaces are opening up! Don't miss out, there is a founder effect (first adopters have less competition). Stay ahead of the technology curve (you need to intergrate a social gaming backend and support microtransactions). And mabye teamup with other people to spread the risk and share the cost of making larger games ( this was the natural evolution of PC games companies, it you noticed many of them were founded by a programmer, artist, producer type person ). Good Luck! -ddn
@HeadcaseGames Very well said, me and my 2 other friends are also to indie game development (though we had dream about doing it for a long time), just recently we had 2 interesting opportunity to do so. One his of course here with the iPhone and the other one his with the XNA/XBox Live Indie Game (formerly Community Games). We all have our regular 9-5 day job while working on our game project. We know it wont be easy and we dont expect to make some big ROI either at first. We need to learn and get experience, but we just hope that this market can grow and eventually support us to do more interesting project and devote more $ and time. Fred
Since it's obviously going to continue to happen I see it this way. It is what it is and...it is what it will be. Staying selective helps. i know (through research) what my investment is and i have no regrets when the price drops on a game i really set out to have. Yes it does hurt a small bit but i don't regret it. When its a game I'm on the ropes about that drops to 99 cents over time. I then can welcome it with open arms.
What really killed the market is the success stories that was so widespread. Now everyone thinks that they can create an iPhone app too. We got a very high developer ratio and it is not something good. Supply exceeds demand = price drop ($0.99) In a long run it may be what the media have predicted, the fall of App Store.
On the upside of all of this, there's a chance that a lot of the folks who showed up "for the gold rush" will realize they aren't making squat after 6mo - 1 yr and a lot of them will clear out and return to business as usual. Those who can afford to stick around (and continue to release quality, affordable, unique softs in the meantime) will get a collective bump. It really depends on how the numbers play out - but those who know the industry (paying attention) and understand what the heck they are doing will of course have a leg up. Still far from a guarantee of success mind you, but definitely a much more compelling forecast then "it's useless for everyone who's not EA or NGmoco"
