The cost of software
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After spending a few hundred bucks on an iPad Mini, I went through the process of setting everything up. Hadn't used Instapaper and wanted to give it a try so I set up an account on their website and then went to download the iPad app. At that point, I hesitated because of the cost. It was 4 dollars. Really. After a brief moment I realized how stupid that was and bought the app. It's nice getting stuff for free or on the cheap but this really bugs me. These days, software is supposed to be free and if you actually have to pay for it, gosh, it really shouldn't cost more than 99 cents or it's way overpriced. As a professional software developer, I can't imagine why someone would go to all the trouble of writing professional quality software and then selling it for a dollar. Or even 4. This is why I don't write mobile apps on the side. I mean, seriously, try getting a plumber out to your house for 4 dollars. [edit] Since this appears to be the common thinking... Guys - you're not going to sell a million copies. You'll be lucky to sell 100. Lots of studies on this and the fallacy of Gold Rush thinking. And so the question - who are these people who are willing to work so cheaply, and are they free this weekend to mow my lawn? :-D [/edit]
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer Enjoy comedy? Watch Talking Head Games (SFW)
RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us Starting at 7:00 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc[^]
Eric
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After spending a few hundred bucks on an iPad Mini, I went through the process of setting everything up. Hadn't used Instapaper and wanted to give it a try so I set up an account on their website and then went to download the iPad app. At that point, I hesitated because of the cost. It was 4 dollars. Really. After a brief moment I realized how stupid that was and bought the app. It's nice getting stuff for free or on the cheap but this really bugs me. These days, software is supposed to be free and if you actually have to pay for it, gosh, it really shouldn't cost more than 99 cents or it's way overpriced. As a professional software developer, I can't imagine why someone would go to all the trouble of writing professional quality software and then selling it for a dollar. Or even 4. This is why I don't write mobile apps on the side. I mean, seriously, try getting a plumber out to your house for 4 dollars. [edit] Since this appears to be the common thinking... Guys - you're not going to sell a million copies. You'll be lucky to sell 100. Lots of studies on this and the fallacy of Gold Rush thinking. And so the question - who are these people who are willing to work so cheaply, and are they free this weekend to mow my lawn? :-D [/edit]
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer Enjoy comedy? Watch Talking Head Games (SFW)
Actually the desktop market is heading the same direction: Portals like Steam and Origin sell new top titles as well as Indie games at a fraction of the standard price. Apparently enough people are buying these programs and games to make it feasible. And it doesn't stop companies to offer the same titles for full price at retail. I'm not sure what to make of that, but more and more companies use these portals.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
As a professional software developer, I can't imagine why someone would go to all the trouble of writing professional quality software and then selling it for a dollar
Because £1 x 10000 = £100 * 100, so for small throwaway apps the model makes sense. Do anything complicated and that model breaks down I suppose, unless you can do things like sell cloud services on the back of your app. I wonder if there are any stats on this sort of thing (cost of development vs sales vs profit) for device based apps?
“Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”
“One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535)
A friend of mine who works and has visibility on these stats at one of the two mentioned above told me that 95% of the devs make less than $1k a year. Then again if you can do something worthwhile you will arrive in a helicopter. But there is one flaw in the original post, it is not gold rush thinking only. I do apps and I've received only about $25 from the App Store but what I learned there I have applied in my consulting business with very nice results and even better, they are my portfolio for showing what I can do. I get to an office and I want a demo and I tell the guy: let me show you an app that does something similar... Works great! And last but not least, every single time a person downloads one of my apps or registers on the web based ones, I get a small rush that money doesn't buy! Remember that happiness is not a destination, it is a journey.
www.cloudclipx.com and www.ccview.com -- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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That'a a fair point. I think what bothers me is the devaluation of what I do for a living. Once upon a time, spending $100 on professional quality software was pretty cheap. I routinely spend way more than that for dev, audio and video tools. Try listing an app on the App Store for $100 and you'll get death threats. With mobile being all the rage these days, and rightly so for the benefits it brings, why am I expected to work for staggeringly ridiculous prices in mobile compared to desktop software? That would suggest that mobile apps are only worth a tiny fraction of their desktop brethren. And yet, everyone's talking about how the desktop PC is legacy and destined to die. I don't think there's a legitimate reason for this pricing in terms of cost / value. It's just a trend that got started (looking at you, Apple). And as a guy who gets paid to sling code, I dislike the notion that we should work for less than minimum wage.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer Enjoy comedy? Watch Talking Head Games (SFW)
It's all about distribution. Before with $100 software you needed a lot of marketing and had a very small reach. Now you have 500 MM people with credit cards, instant access and if you go viral, they you become PSY hehe
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com -- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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After spending a few hundred bucks on an iPad Mini, I went through the process of setting everything up. Hadn't used Instapaper and wanted to give it a try so I set up an account on their website and then went to download the iPad app. At that point, I hesitated because of the cost. It was 4 dollars. Really. After a brief moment I realized how stupid that was and bought the app. It's nice getting stuff for free or on the cheap but this really bugs me. These days, software is supposed to be free and if you actually have to pay for it, gosh, it really shouldn't cost more than 99 cents or it's way overpriced. As a professional software developer, I can't imagine why someone would go to all the trouble of writing professional quality software and then selling it for a dollar. Or even 4. This is why I don't write mobile apps on the side. I mean, seriously, try getting a plumber out to your house for 4 dollars. [edit] Since this appears to be the common thinking... Guys - you're not going to sell a million copies. You'll be lucky to sell 100. Lots of studies on this and the fallacy of Gold Rush thinking. And so the question - who are these people who are willing to work so cheaply, and are they free this weekend to mow my lawn? :-D [/edit]
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer Enjoy comedy? Watch Talking Head Games (SFW)
Long live to the free market!... That's the problem when you have a fierce competition with another thousand "me too" apps, the only ones that make bucks are the ones that were there since the beginning, or are exceptionally good at what they do; the other 999 ones are niche and may be looked at when people realize they're paying "too much" for their favorite app.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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Along those lines, if you sell 100 copies, which is probably a realistic figure, you're working for $1 an hour. I could be wrong, but I think you're worth more than that. :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer Enjoy comedy? Watch Talking Head Games (SFW)
My line of thinking: I did ccview.com which allows me to present remotely my power point from a tablet, which very few people have bought. When I showed to a guy he liked the concept and we built a small version for showcasing cars in a show. I made 5 grand from the other non store app, which I sold because the guy saw something already working. So many hours on ccview.com meant $0. But then a demo and a couple of weeks of (night) work meant $5k for me. Not bad?
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com -- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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Software can be created once and copied a million times at no additional cost. Sell for $1 per copy and you're rich. A plumber has to use discrete pieces of copper/wire/gaskets etc. and those cannot be copied for free. The plumber cannot create a hot water connection and copy it a million times for free and distribute it to thousands of people overnight.
MehGerbil wrote:
Software can be created once and copied a million times at no additional cost.
Sell for $1 per copy and you're rich.And of course, supporting that million users costs nothing. After all, we all know that the more users you have, the fewer bugs they collectively find. :) OK, I'm just joking. I agree that the replication costs for software are virtualy nothing. And I'll even go so far as to agree that if you can sell enough copies, you can recover your development costs. Its always the support cost equation that I just don't get. The more users, the more the support costs are.. unless you don't care to support your users, in which case they usually go elsewhere. Heck, mobile users evaluate apps partially on how regularily they're updated, tending to ignore the ones that don't have (perhaps because they don't need) frequent updates.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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A friend of mine who works and has visibility on these stats at one of the two mentioned above told me that 95% of the devs make less than $1k a year. Then again if you can do something worthwhile you will arrive in a helicopter. But there is one flaw in the original post, it is not gold rush thinking only. I do apps and I've received only about $25 from the App Store but what I learned there I have applied in my consulting business with very nice results and even better, they are my portfolio for showing what I can do. I get to an office and I want a demo and I tell the guy: let me show you an app that does something similar... Works great! And last but not least, every single time a person downloads one of my apps or registers on the web based ones, I get a small rush that money doesn't buy! Remember that happiness is not a destination, it is a journey.
www.cloudclipx.com and www.ccview.com -- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
xavier morera wrote:
they are my portfolio for showing what I can do.
That's pretty much the only reason I'm considering mobile apps: a) give me experience in mobile development b) show off my mad skillz to potential employers :) I'm not even sure I'd charge for downloads.
“Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”
“One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535)
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It's worse than that for iPhone development: Apple takes a princely 30%, so you'll only see ~70 cents per download, as ever it is the people selling the tools that make the bucks, not the prospectors. Reminds me of the 80s, when the home computer (Spectrum/C63 era) market was flooded with games and it drove the prices down. I did hear a theory that development would split into two: the "hard" comp sci stuff which will be paid well, and low-paid low-skilled work where people cobble stuff together from simple to use frameworks. The apps store thing might be a sign that this theory has legs?
“Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”
“One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535)
Keith Barrow wrote:
Apple takes a princely 30%, so you'll only see ~70 cents per download
and here I was thinking you probably would be lucky to get 50 cents on the dollar with all the resellers it would go through. Also reminds me of the $19.95 + SH for a book on making money on the internet, they take two people off-stage while they make their pitch. Bring them back in 20 minutes, and they've made money. I'm wondering if some shills are backstage too, making the purchases that makes the money. And if you can learn all that in 20 minutes, why write a book on how to do it?
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Real figures from a real game Here - makes interesting reading[^]
MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
_Maxxx_ wrote:
Real figures from a real game
The article was written well over a year ago in 2011. Wonder what kind of profits were made since? Reminds me of the Dot.com boom/bust. So, it cost 100K to produce and they made 50K since. I'm wondering if they laid off the developers that produced most of that 100K cost, or if they are continuing to suck cost because they are working on the next project? When they produce that next big wonder will they make 20K on their 100K cost or will it be profitable too? Just two developers should generate 100K in cost in 6 months, so how hard was the code to write? Wait, it had the pound symbol, make that a year. Have they had any black holes?
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After spending a few hundred bucks on an iPad Mini, I went through the process of setting everything up. Hadn't used Instapaper and wanted to give it a try so I set up an account on their website and then went to download the iPad app. At that point, I hesitated because of the cost. It was 4 dollars. Really. After a brief moment I realized how stupid that was and bought the app. It's nice getting stuff for free or on the cheap but this really bugs me. These days, software is supposed to be free and if you actually have to pay for it, gosh, it really shouldn't cost more than 99 cents or it's way overpriced. As a professional software developer, I can't imagine why someone would go to all the trouble of writing professional quality software and then selling it for a dollar. Or even 4. This is why I don't write mobile apps on the side. I mean, seriously, try getting a plumber out to your house for 4 dollars. [edit] Since this appears to be the common thinking... Guys - you're not going to sell a million copies. You'll be lucky to sell 100. Lots of studies on this and the fallacy of Gold Rush thinking. And so the question - who are these people who are willing to work so cheaply, and are they free this weekend to mow my lawn? :-D [/edit]
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer Enjoy comedy? Watch Talking Head Games (SFW)
Good post from everybody... I want to add this: The prize of an app is based on the effort and marketing target... For sure you will not sell for 1USD if this is a project of 1 year development (unless you know that you will sell 1 million copies in 1 week)... but if it's something you do on your free time probably winning $100 is a success... I think that is the idea about mobile development (let's forget about quality, let assume we are using our old good code).. quick and low effort... today you can develop a nice game in like a week. Plus, there is the marketing, lets use the idea of Online Free gaming.. yes, you sell the "full" game at 1USD or also for free.. but if your users wants that beautiful and powerful armor they must buy it at 1USD... then on next week a new update with another new and better armor (with just +1 on all stats) and they will buy this other new armor... we start getting a profit. Then, you sell a game or app that toke 1 year of development almost for free... but the profit will be not on the App itself. You can see this loging in almost all the free apps, where you must pay to remove the publicity or to get the full version. Then you want to have profit: make easy app for cheap, or expensive apps for cheap with market inside, that works. But then if you app is a big project, probably it will cost 10USD or more and they app will have it's value, people will love to pay 10USD for it!!