
Developer strikes it rich with iPhone game: Makes $250K profit in two months. - makimaki
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/11/18/iphone.game.developer/index.html
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stillmotion
Now that the mainstream knows that this is some type of gold rush, we'll see a
lot more crap being thrown at the app store.

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tsally
Is it just me, or every time I see a story like this in the mainstream media,
I think of O'Reilly's comments at the Web 2.0 Summit about getting serious. I
mean, it's great for iPhone and Facebook application developers. Hats off to
them for producing a great product, but how much real world impact does it
have? I feel like students are more likely to spend their time trying to make
the next big Facebook app, as opposed to solving the next big problem. Still,
obviously give credit where credit is due, and clearly this guy did a good
job.

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tdavis
Well, it's not _me_.

This former banker taught himself a new platform, realized an idea, and
created a game that obviously many people are entertained by. The real-world
impact? He got to quit a job he (apparently) didn't like very much, created a
product that entertains people, and got to start his own company.

What real-world impact are you looking for, exactly? What's the "next big
problem?" Should we all be trying to cure cancer? Save the environment? Create
true AI? This may come off condescending, but I truly do want to know.

I have yet to find a single useful Facebook app, but that doesn't mean there
are no apps which other people, perhaps thousands, consider to be useful
improvements. Presumably, every successful product solves some sort of real
world problem for some number of people, otherwise why would anyone pay for
it?

Seriously, what should I be doing instead? I'm not smart enough to create
SKYNET and since I'm not a pharmaceutical company there's no money in finding
the cure for cancer. If entertainment and "poking" aren't enough for Tim and
you, then that's on you guys to do something more with _your_ lives. As for
me, I'm perfectly happy to help people find cheaper tickets.

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tsally
No worries, you don't come off as condescending.

There is no doubt that this man has been successful and he seems to have
changed the course of his life for the better. I am happy for him. However,
consider the long term impact of cases like these. It's not about his success,
it's about the type of behavior his success will inspire. People will look at
him and they wont see someone who started his own company, they will see
someone who made $250K in two months. Above all, people are attracted to short
term profits (it's what got America into the current economic crisis). Someone
who might have tried to start his own company will instead go for the quick
profit creating Facebook and iPhone applications. He may be happy with his
large payday, but the loss to society is large. At the end of the day, I'd
rather have people starting new companies.

My concern is that cases like these will be sensationalized in the media and
result in the incorrect perception that "social networking application things"
are the best thing to go into. Hell, maybe this guy has real world impact.
After all, people who don't normally play games are emailing him to tell him
how much they enjoy it. But the way the media has presented his example will
not inspire people to create value, rather, it will inspire them to go for the
quick profit via the next big Facebook app.

I will admit I was a bit careless in my first post. Even entrepreneurs not
skilled enough to come up with "the next big thing" should still strive to
work towards solving real world problems. At TicketStumblr, you do have a real
world impact. You are solving a situation that cause markets to fail: when
people have incomplete information. Your service allows people to find cheap
tickets because you give your users enough information to judge the market
accurately. That is the type of real world impact I am talking about.

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tomsaffell
This feels like a _value judgment_ to me.

Did any of the following 'solve the next big problem'?: Jerry Seinfeld, Seth
MacFarlane, Claude Monet, Francis Ford Coppola, Kubrick, the list goes on...

This guy made something that entertains people (although he's probably not yet
in the league of those above ;). It seems to me that you're not valuing works
of _entertainment_ as highly as some other works. That's a judgment on your
part, which makes your, "should still strive to work towards solving real
world problems" sound quite judgmental. I like to think there is more to life
than efficient markets (even though I _love_ efficient markets)

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tsally
Fair enough, and perhaps I am being a bit too harsh. :-) I would point out
that I haven't wished anything but the best for this guy, and have
congratulated him several times in my comments. I also like seeing a Second
City showing in downtown Chicago as much as the next guy :-). I can't say I
have any specific criticisms with regard to entertainment. What bothers me is
when things of little value are assigned a very high value.

I will say this: entrepreneurs are people with particularly powerful talent;
with that power comes a responsibility. Imagine the choice between developing
a Facebook application that lets friends buy digital icons of drinks for their
friends (why not just real drinks :-p) versus an Facebook application for
FreeRice [1]. A responsible entrepreneur would develop the FreeRice
application, even though profit might be smaller. A more concrete example can
be seen in Google. They own the most valuable piece of real estate on the
internet (their homepage), yet they don't monetize it. Their restrictions on
content on AdSense are stricter than they are required to be by law. The list
could go on.

As tdavis pointed out, there will always be people looking for a quick buck.
Let them monetize the things that don't really matter. Instead, skilled
entrepreneurs should tackle the more difficult problems and monetize things
that create value and have real impact on lives.

I may be stretching your analogy, but I would compare Google search to the
works of Claude Monet and most Facebook/AppStore applications to paint by
number. If the media keeps sensationalizing paint by number, eventually people
will believe in it.

[1] <http://freerice.com/>

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Tichy
I don't see the point of the freerice game. Why don't they just donate the
money directly? I suppose the rice is paid for with advertising, but all the
ads seem to be from wellfare organizations, so they are paid with donations
that otherwise could go into rice directly. The only time this would REALLY
yield some rice would be if somebody playing the game would end up donating
money to one of the sponsors.

Anyway, that is a bit off-topic. Yesterday I had a discussion with friends who
were all very depressed about their prospects on the job market. Basically
they saw it as a given that everybody would either be jobless or be forced to
work 60 h weeks and take shit from their bosses. So apart from the
entertainment (which I personally value, too), I think it is a worthy
achievement to show that there can be an escape from living as a drone. (Too
bad none of my friends were programmers or engineers, but that is another
problem).

As for trading drink icons on facebook, I don't know. But maybe it would serve
the networking and socialising of human beings, which in turn might yield
other positive effects. Maybe Unicef could win some sponsors for rice by
giving out free drinks to people on Facebook, for example.

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savrajsingh
Here's a question -- what percent of iPhone developers see this sort of
success? Would be interesting to know. C'mon Apple, please share the data with
us?

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tc7
We may end up 'finding' the magical secret of making money in any medium; make
good stuff.

Are complete crap apps making tons of money? Probably not. I don't see the
surprise in well-made or original apps being successful.

I guess the surprise may come from the fact that this amount of success is
relatively unheard of in the mobile market. Shows that the iPhone is a new
ballgame, or at least an old ballgame prettified and brought to the masses.
Mobile sucked before, now someone's created something that doesn't, and
there's not much to compare it to.

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geuis
Man, CNN is sooo behind the news cycle. Steve announced this like a month ago.
The private release of his Onyx platform is going into testing in a couple
days.

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iigs
There are no links in the article either. (Not counting the garbage "other
news in this category" links that stay in-house)

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light3
I didn't even read the article because it was on CNN, anything from CNN is sus
enough, even more so with such a hyped title.

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josefresco
250K would pay half of one of my (arguably over-inflated) mortgages. I
wouldn't refuse money like that, but it's far from 'striking it rich' when you
factor in what people paid for homes 24 months ago.

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zandorg
I talked to a guy who wrote a 'map' route finder for the Psion 3c in about
1996-1997. It paid his mortgage...

