
How to Evaluate a (paid) iPhone App Idea - jamesjyu
http://www.tonywright.com/2012/how-to-evaluate-a-paid-iphone-app-idea/
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cageface
_First off– let me say that the paid side of the App Store is not where the
real money is being made._

This is why I think the whole app economy is a house built on sand. How long
are people going to be entertained by this gimmick of junk IAP?

Sure there are a handful of apps where some kind of recurring IAP actually
makes sense. But the vast majority of these apps are selling virtual
Tchotchkes with absolutely zero real value. Sooner or later this seems bound
to lose its novelty.

More and more it seems that the only smart way to make money writing code is
selling SAAS B2B apps.

~~~
jbigelow76
I think there is a big opportunity for mobile developers that build a great
app that solves (or greatly alleviates) a problem for users and giving the app
away for free, but make money on the back end off service providers that are
willing to pay money for access to users/consumers. You'd be moving higher up
the marketing food chain from simple ad displayer to lead generator.

~~~
cageface
All the apps I've done on contract have been this kind of app. All of them
were free and none of them had IAP.

Honestly I think this is the future of the app business. Apps will be
important but most often only as a component of some larger business.

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phatbyte
As a developer and mostly as a gamer I find IAP a cancer, not just regarding
the app store but on gaming console as well with all those DLC.

As a gamer I feel like I don't actually own the game, I've installed it and
all, but it's like this feeling of not being "safe" and confortable while
playing it. I'm always expecting to find some stupid option to request my
credit card in order to upgrade my weapons or some levels so I can finish the
game.

We shouldn't be loosing this sort of honesty in gaming, just give it a price
for the whole thing and get out of my way.

~~~
5hoom
Wonderfully put. As a developer working hard on an iOS game I feel exactly the
same way.

Back in the day loading a video game was a very private, safe almost sacred
experience. The world melts away and it's just you in the fantasy world the
game presents to you.

For this reason I'm going with the boring old model of pay once, own the game.
Everything I read says free + IAP is the way to go for maximum return, but I
really feel something crucial is lost when you make the player contemplate
their credit card bill while supposedly experiencing escapism.

~~~
phatbyte
I wish you the best of luck on your game, I still believe there's plenty of
people like us who feel this way as well. I look at Limbo, Braid or Meat Boy,
and they get it. They are great games with no BS.

I don't mind iap for other type of apps, in fact, it's a cool thing, you
select only the features you need and you upgrade accordingly. But on games,
it's crap, and it must go away.

~~~
5hoom
Thanks for the kind wishes, and yeah it's something I feel pretty strongly
about.

There are obvious problems going this way (how do you get people past the
hurdle of paying for a game they haven't played?) but it just feels... better.

It also seems like a better way to build trust between the developer and the
player. The way I see it is if you've taken the risk and bought my game, I
love you! We're best friends now! So here's the best damn game I can give you
for trusting me enough to pay for it.

And then hopefully they'll come back for the sequel.

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cageface
_So, yeah. The App Store is really mostly a game store. And a free game store
at that._

And this is why I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for mobile coding.

After a decade of writing web apps I've enjoyed getting close to the machine
again and having the tools to write really powerful multimedia apps but the
reality of the app store is that what sells are gimmicky doodads and the kind
of games that you used to find on flash game sites.

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abhiv
Any data on how this works for kids apps? It seems like there's something of a
backlash against IAP for kids-targeted apps. Paid kids apps also have the
benefit that parents pay when they install the app on the device -- rather
than a pay prompt coming up while a child is playing the game, which would
require them to seek out their parent(s) and have them enter their password.

It seems to me that it makes more sense to make app selection and payment be a
single action at the point when the payer (the parent) is looking at your app,
rather than at a later point when the user is a child.

~~~
jcromartie
When I give my iPad to my toddler, I disable purchases (among other features)
so that this isn't an issue. It is quite annoying when kids apps have links to
buy more stuff on them, but it seems so widespread as to be unavoidable. I
guess I could just build my own :)

I even found a kids drawing app (explicitly marketed towards kids) on Android
that had very _adult_ advertising in it. That one got deleted, for sure.

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Someone
Another viewpoint: this guy claims there are about 450 paid apps on the app
store that make $30K or more a month gross revenue on the App Store (if they
manage to stay at that level for 3 months or so, that is over $100K gross
revenue. That easily pays a developer for a year in most of the world)

If I look at <http://www.neoseeker.com/Games/title/GBA/all.html>, that is
about half the total number of games ever made for the Gameboy Advance over a
period of 11 years. I do not know that market, but I do not think you will be
able to buy over 400 of those today.

From that, I get the impression that the reason it is hard to make big bucks
on the App store is that it is highly competitive, not that there is no
market.

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BadassFractal
Good thing that, as we all know from that post from a few days ago, freemium
is dead.

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zupreme
I would think that a major part of such an analysis would be identifying other
apps similar to your idea and evaluation of their success, lack thereof, and
possible reasons for either.

Without a realistic understanding of your target market from a competitive
analysis standpoint one could wind up spending cycles writing an amazing app
which is doomed before it even launches.

