
How an app with 200,000 downloads led to developer homelessness - PixelRobot
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/going-broke-with-success-how-an-app-with-200000-downloads-led-to-devel
======
ja27
The app was released _seven_ days ago. I'd say 200,000 * 0.67% * $2.99
($4,000-ish) is a nice first week for an indie game. Now I guess I know how I
can get Penny Arcade to feature my next app.

<http://appshopper.com/games/gasketball>

[http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/gasketball/ranking/history/#...](http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/gasketball/ranking/history/#store_id=143441&view=grossing-
ranks)

~~~
ctdonath
What? All that whining over one week? Sounded like it's been out there for
months! Of course conversion rates are low - users haven't played thru the
free content yet!

This is really gonna sour sympathy for future stories of actual failures.

~~~
ja27
If I'm right, this was a fantastic job of link-bait. Users, especially
parents, hate in-app purchases. But that's the way the app market has gone for
now. So far I've been able to resist but except for educational apps (schools
have the worst time paying for IAPs), I'll likely be doing a lot of freemium
apps. So this hits a sweet spot to vent hate for IAPs and the freemium model.
Great job guys.

~~~
rdrimmie
I've noticed a lot of games in the Mac App Store are starting to have a single
"unlock full game" IAP. These I really like. The good ones have enough content
to show the nature of the game, get me hooked on the mechanics or story and
lead directly into the single unlock.

It's a classic shareware model and results in my willingness to pay more for
games because there's much less risk. The good ones also are very explicit in
the description on the App Store that it is a first level/trial with IAP.

I find it to be very consumer friendly.

~~~
daemin
Like old school shareware, where you got the first episode to play through and
then could purchase the rest of the game for a small fee.

As for the guy's situation it sounds like they need some more nag screens and
easier ways of sending them money. (Well it is currently a lot easier than the
old days of shareware, no envelopes to fill out, just a button to press.

------
alanfalcon
Such a confused and poorly written article. The developers aren't homeless
because they had 200,000 downloads... They're homeless despite 200,000
downloads because they're game developers and not salespeople and so didn't
even consider that they have to actually make the sale! Apple and Google and
Amazon provide the big parking lot where people show up and have money in-
hand, but if you give away the goods and never ask for the money, of course
you'll end up broke. I'm glad to see that the developers have taken some steps
to change the situation, but from what can be gleaned from the article, it
sounds like they're not really handling the situation well.

~~~
mechanical_fish
What's wrong with the article, again?

You seem to have learned the facts, _and_ you seem to have gotten the point,
and it seems to be the same point that I got, which suggests that the message
is getting through clearly enough. So what's wrong?

Are you unhappy because the article doesn't have a strong editorial slant, as
your comment does? Do you wish the journalist had come right out and said, in
paragraph one, "These developers are homeless because they have lousy sales
skills"? I'll say three things about that.

One: Some articles _do_ have that style ( _ahem_ Zero Punctuation _ahem_ ),
but others simply try to state facts and let the readers draw the conclusions.

Two: The two styles work well together. The interviewer lets the principals
tell their story, states some numbers for perspective, and politely adds a few
important factual observations ("It took me a few minutes to figure out how to
pay for the game, and I was specifically looking for the menu. There’s nothing
shocking about the low amount of paid sales; the value proposition is never
made explicit.") and then someone else - like you - draws a conclusion and
drives the point home. It's a team effort.

Three: If one makes a habit of using the stories one hears to overtly and
publicly ridicule the storytellers, one's career as an interviewer won't last.
People will clam up. This is a fact of human nature. Don't expect more from
journalists than is possible.

(There _are_ journalists who are so talented that people happily visit with
them in order to be ridiculed. This is a miraculous skill and I suspect it's
particularly hard to pull off in _games_ journalism: The people building the
games have no need to appear in public at all, let alone risk ridicule.
They're not politicians or celebrities.)

~~~
ctdonath
_What's wrong with the article, again?_

A whole lot of emotive verbiage burying two salient facts:

1\. The "buy" button was hidden. People who _wanted_ to pay couldn't find it.
People didn't even know there was anything to pay for.

2\. The app has been out a _week_. Users haven't had time to play thru the
free content and develop any desire for [unknown (see #1)] paid content.

Made near all users sound like Scroogeish tightwads. Unfair.

------
clarky07
So many things wrong with this article and devs I don't know where to start.

1\. Contract work sucks. You know what sucks worse? Being homeless. Do some
work, get paid, save some runway, then get back to your game.

2\. Man I'm having trouble making money on this thing I'm giving away for
free. No kidding? If your app is free you should be making it really really
obvious that there is more to be paid for that is really awesome, and then
maybe have a button somewhere that actually allows your customers to give you
money.

3\. Don't spend 2 years on an app with an ARPU of a couple of pennies. The
mobile app market moves really fast and you can't expect the revenue from this
game to last you for the next 2 years unless it is a huge hit.

4\. This app has been out for a week. This linkbait title is a joke. 200k
downloads for a free app isn't that amazing, but it's not bad for a week. Even
if it had 10 million downloads, they'd still be homeless as they won't be
getting a check from Apple for this until October. Their stupid decisions over
the past 2 years led to them being homeless. The success or failure of their
launch week has nothing to do with it.

Clicking to the article I assumed this was going to be a case of giving away
something and server costs bringing them down. Nope. We just decided to not
have jobs for 2 years, not do any contracting, and not having enough money
saved ahead of time.

------
Zimahl
While this is a sad story, I'm finding it hard to feel sorry for them. This is
a prime example of excellent execution but poor marketing.

First, I've never heard of this game an it looks pretty awesome. My wife and I
loved The Incredible Machine and this seems like a great derivation on that.

Second, it's iPad only so you are missing out on a ton of iPhone sales. I've
bought stuff on my iPhone which I didn't on my iPad. It would be great if it
sync'd between the two.

Third, .67%?! You've made some poor design choices if you can't get more
people to upgrade that that. Sounds like you gave away the buffet and not just
a taste test.

From the article author: _I had downloaded the game based on the positive word
of mouth, and had already enjoyed what felt like a wide amount of content
without paying anything._ _I wasn’t even aware there was anything to pay for
to unlock ..._ _I learned I could buy the game .. I went looking for that
option .. took me a few minutes to figure out how to pay ..._

This plug on Penny Arcade should give them a significant bump in revenue.
Tycho and Gabe could talk up toilet bowl cleaner and the PA audience would go
out and buy it in an instant.

~~~
alanfalcon
I agree about the iPad-only choice being unfortunate.

As for exposure: Surprisingly, Gabe and Tycho haven't managed to talk up
_themselves_ enough (IMO):

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pennyarcade/penny-
arcade...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pennyarcade/penny-arcade-sells-
out?ref=home_popular)

With an hour and a half left, I'd expected this number to be three times
larger than it is. Sure they "hit their goal", but when you set up that road
map of stretch goals it seems like you're really hoping/expecting to hit $1M,
and that doesnt look like a remote possibility.

~~~
ktsmith
I think they talked themselves up plenty, I don't think they made very good
use of kickstarter. It is possible PA would have had significantly more
success if they had put up each of their project stretch goals as individual
campaigns. I would probably kick in for the automata and daughters projects
but not for a reality tv show. Lumping everything together made it feel like a
gamble as without enough people kicking in it's not very likely the projects
you as an individual care about will make the cut.

------
revorad
_"It makes me sick to my stomach as it so transparently preys on the
weaknesses like addiction and compulsion."_

You know what makes me sick to the stomach? Developers starving themselves to
death because of a complete disregard to basic business sense and a misguided
sense of righteousness.

5 easy steps to homelessness:

1\. Spend years building products for a platform, where $1.99 is a high price.

2\. Avoid doing even the most basic mental arithmetic to figure out how many
units you need to sell at $1.99 to be able to pay rent.

3\. Then set the price to zero, because _you're a nice guy_.

4\. Sell in-app purchases for the super duper high price of $2.99, thus
raising your customer's LTV to a magnificent $2.99. But, don't be an asshole.
Ask for the upgrade politely and quietly, in the third screen of the settings.
Remember, you don't work for $ZNGA!

5\. Make it up in volume

 _"We really want to stick to the ‘free and pay 2.99 to unlock’ model, but if
only .5% of users buy our game, we’re going to have to figure something else
out. It’s very malleable at this point. Perhaps we’re giving too much away for
free, it’s really hard to say until we see more data.”_

6\. Look a bonus step no.6! If after following steps 1-5 you're still not
quite homeless, then it's time for some more data collection. Spend another
year or so A/B testing the gradients of your upgrade button. And oh maybe,
your upgrade price is too high? Yeah, test that.

Excuse me while I relieve myself of the agony of watching people do this over
and over again.

AAAAAAAAAARGHH!!! FOR FUCK'S SAKE, STOP IT!!!!!

Why do developers worship Apple, but absolutely refuse to take the slightest
hint from them on how to do business?

Read this - <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html>

And repeat after me:

"Commoditize your complements."

"Commoditize your complements."

The app store is the most brilliant and brutal execution of this strategy.
Apple is selling $500 _phones_ \- the most expensive phones - while
simultaneously making developers fall over each other and well, go homeless,
to make software for their platform to give away for free.

As if that's not tragic enough, the celebration of the lottery winners has the
public and developers believe that making apps is a great business to be in!

patio11 has been trying to drill these things into people's heads for ages.
But, all he seems to get is upvotes and not enough people _getting his point_.

You don't have to suddenly go all Zynga on your users. There's a vast chasm
between selling virtual sheep to addicted grandmas and giving away the farm
for less than the price of a toilet roll. You can charge a good price, which
does not depend on huge scale to pay the rent.

Edited to add: Lest I sound like some smug business know-it-all on a high
horse, I've made the same mistakes. Most of us are like this. We need to make
a conscious effort to be good at business.

~~~
rscale
It's awesome that they didn't want to engage in predatory behavior, but what
they did was self-predatory, which is no better! The opposite of exploitative
game design isn't a life of asceticism; it's value for money.

I'm not a big gamer, but on the first page of my phone's springboard I count
$300+ of apps, some of which have ongoing subscription costs. That's money
that I paid because I got value. I'm happy with every one of those purchases,
no developer starvation required!

One objection I take to your post is that I don't believe the narrative that
the App Store is just a lottery. As an example, Tripit raised $7m, built an
app that makes my life better, charges me $40/yr, and sold to a corporate
buyer for $120m. That's a fantastic, real business.

On the flip side, these guys built an app with ARPU of $0.013.

Tripit didn't win a lottery; they provided big value and got paid because of
it.

~~~
revorad
Ah yes, I wrote about that yesterday -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4378546>

Tripit and every other VC-backed company is in a _completely different
business_ than indie devs making apps. The product that companies like Tripit
are selling, right from the beginning, is the company itself, not some free or
cheap app. The app is just a marketing vehicle to increase the price of the
company.

The amazing thing is that PG himself has been clearly saying this for years.
And we still refuse to accept it!

Blindly copying VC-funded startups' surface tactics is the second leading
cause of indie developer homelessness.

If you are in the business of business, you've got to sell. Successful
entrepreneurs, whether VC-funded or bootstrapped, know how to sell.

If you are funded, it would be stupid to try and do anything that doesn't
increase the valuation of your company. The best founders know how to weave a
compelling story, and are always selling their company. Always.

The most successful bootstrapped entrepreneurs are always selling their
product. Notice how patio11 does not miss an opportunity to somehow weave in a
mention of one of his products, while still coming across as the most helpful
guy ever (because he is). And when he's blogging about SEO and other useful
stuff for other entrepreneurs? He's selling his consultancy services.

If you're not selling, it's not a business. It's a hobby.

ABC: Always be closing.

~~~
patio11
For what it is worth, I have historically taken pains to avoid selling on HN.

~~~
skyhook_mockups
At this point you are the product Patrick. The second you decide to monetize
the patio11 brand (maybe by writing a book?) you're going to print money.

PS: write a book.

~~~
richardw
He's already written why that'll never happen, but I'm on his mailing list and
I suspect him of building up the steam to leverage that financially. It'll
likely be repeat-sales oriented and have a greater-than-$10 customer lifetime
value. I can't wait to be fleeced, because at least we know he'll be focused
on providing me with value.

------
tomku
Sounds like they wanted to get the sales figures of the addictive IAP-
dependent top-selling games, but without any of the actual psychology behind
it. Doesn't work like that. The reason those other games were in the top 25
weren't just because they had IAPs - nearly every mobile game has IAPs
nowadays, whether they're initially free or not. It was because they struck
the "right" balance between entertaining and manipulative.

In particular, most of the games/apps I've tried that use that "upgrade from
free via in-app purchase" model make it _annoyingly_ easy to upgrade. They
remind you when you finish a level. They remind you when you start the app,
and when you go back to the main menu. They have buttons for full-version
features that just pop up a "Sorry, you need to upgrade to do that, click here
to do so!" dialog. They beat you over the head with the idea of upgrading
until you submit, and going by the sales figures, it seems to work. That's how
they make conversions, and if you're going to leave that out you're probably
better off pursuing a different style of monetization.

~~~
thetrb
I agree and another point to consider is the price. I don't have any
statistics for that, but I wouldn't be surprised if setting the price to 0.99$
would give them more overall income.

------
fijal
I'm seriously sick with people complaining that the software they gave away
for free didn't make them any money. Maybe we need a better business model for
people who make other people's life better, but hey, at the point you make the
decision to give away stuff for free, please don't complain.

DISCLAIMER: I'm making Open Source software and I can (sometimes) make a
living out of it. I'm trying not to complain too much though

------
coryl
1) Don't spend two years working on your iPad game before you ship it. Far too
long a cycle.

2) As an indie dev, you're suppose to attack the easiest, lowest hanging fruit
to build your income base. After you're past a point, you can take on
ambitious long-term projects. Otherwise you are always depending on a "hit"
title.

~~~
bryanlarsen
That's basically what they did. They lived off the profits from solipskier
(<http://mikengreg.com/solipskier/>) while building this game.

~~~
coryl
But it wasn't enough, which is one reason they're in the predicament now.

------
tarice
It sounds like a major reason they've had such terrible conversion rates to
the paid version is that nobody could figure out how to actually buy the game.

Remember: When people want to give you money, make it as easy as possible.

Hopefully they get some better conversion after their update: "There was an
update available for the game, and after applying it, an “unlock the full
game” message was added under the main logo."

------
mbenjaminsmith
I'm currently building a game company so I sympathize with these guys, but it
sounds like most of this is self inflicted.

1\. Development cycle is way too long. You have to move much faster in mobile,
especially for a casual game.

2\. Assume financial failure for each game. Doesn't sound very encouraging but
you should never count on income from a new title, especially if you're trying
out new ways of monetizing.

3\. Keep a cushion. If you need to take some time off to contract then do it.
Running out of cash isn't an option.

4\. Don't leave customer acquisition to chance. It sounds like their customer
acquisition strategy was based solely on app store visibility (and hope).

~~~
shurane
At least they'll learn from this venture. Maybe avoid the mistakes made on
their next such adventure.

------
phatbyte
I'm going to be honest here, I look at IAP games as spam. I don't care how
much time you game took or how well it's designed, as soon as I see that I
must buy coins/points to upgrade weapons, levels etc, the little 10 year old
nes kid in me dies a little.

Everybody is so worry about monetization and get rich that they forgot the
fundamental rule on a game: Let it be fun and enjoyable, let it be immersive.

How would you feel when you were young playing atari, nes, etc and something
kept asking for your parents money to continue to play the game ?

TBH I rather play 5-7 dollars straight away for a game that includes
everything then 0.90 cents where everything is locked up.

If DLC's are getting ridiculous on consoles, IAP is the apple store game
cancer. It should go away.

~~~
brazzy
The numbers say that yours is the minority view. Like it or not, IAP works
really, really well.

And it can be done in a way that does not compromise the game design. These
guys tried to do the most simple variant of that (try before you buy), they
just executed very, very badly.

Heck, I wouldn't mind DLC at all if it provided decent value for money instead
of costing $10 for a measly 1.5 hours of gameplay compared to the $60 for 40+
hours in the main game.

~~~
smackfu
Well, I think DLC lets a small minority pay much more than a developer would
ever ask for as a sales price. Like a $50 iPhone game would be crazy, but
people really do buy that much content.

So even if most people do hate DLC... it just doesn't matter.

------
S_A_P
I personally am pretty turned off to in app purchases. Most games are only
getting worse. I cannot count the number of times that I have been approached
by my 5 year old asking for me to "type in my name so I can have _______"
while playing angry birds, jetpack joyride, or where's my water.

The problem is that he doesn't realize that there is real money tied to that.
To him, I just enter my iTunes password and the level/swag/etc that he wants
magically appears. Most of these games are geared towards kids, and they may
or may not understand this. IAP is a great way to disappoint children!!!

~~~
chubbard
But I felt like the authors of this game realized how predatory most IAP are
and while they didn't specifically say its disgustingly exploitive to children
they did say they were trying to design a game that wasn't exploitive. After
reading their article I'd say they are just giving away too much. I think the
free to play X levels then pay to play more is not predatory IAP. It was bread
and butter of the shareware scene for the better part of a decade during the
pre-internet era. And that's what we're in right now with mobile that time
period where the difference between amateur and professionals is invisible. So
I think they're model is right they just aren't applying it correctly.

------
patio11
There's multiple aspects of this story you can tweak such that the business
becomes successful. Pick any one of them:

1) There is an extraordinarily lucrative market opportunity in iDevice
contracting right now, which they allude to but mentioned that they avoided
doing to keep momentum. Giving that living on a couch is presumably not
momentum-enhancing, a two week consulting engagement would buy them another
6~24 months of runway at their imputed burn rates.

2) A platform/language/etc is not a death-til-us-part commitment. You can
follow the money. Independent developers are not best served by the App Store,
unless they get ridiculously fortunate with regard to its kingmaking
economics. If you only have one chance to develop an application, you would be
better served by developing for a platform where the median case pays the
rent.

3) Don't develop video games. You're competing for the business of toxic
people who hate paying money against the union of well-funded corporations
(which have high production values and effective, ruthless monetization) and
amateur hobbyist artistes (who have "that vision thing" and are willing to
starve to deliver it for free). Try making something for more lucrative
markets like, oh, businesses.

4) You may have deep psychological issues with comfort about charging people
money. They seem to be fairly common in our community, which is unfortunate,
and we seem to actively promote them, which is unfortunate++. You should first
recognize that you are creating something with value for people (if not, stop)
and then come to the immediate realization that, as a business, people trade
value for money. (If you desire to do charity work, do it for more deserving
people than gamers with iPhones and entitlement issues... and you should
probably do it after having secured your ability to deliver on obligations to
your family.)

5) If you've got a budget of 100 awesomeness points or focus points or
whatever, spending 90 on your software and 10 on your business will have much
worse results than spending 10 on your software and 90 on your business.
Having people who can concentrate 100% on building software is a wonderful
thing. They're called "employees" and they cost about $10k to $20k a month;
you can pay for them after you've got a business. _If you desire to work 100%
on software, you desire to be an employee._

6) Burying the buy button three screens behind Settings: probably not ideal
for conversion rate maximization.

7) Maximum customer LTV of $2.99: also not ideal. Consider anything you can do
to increase this, for example, offering upsells on top of the base offering,
cross-selling them to other things in your portfolio or things from others'
portfolio for a percentage, or developing a permission marketing asset such as
an email list. Some of these are very not viable on the App Store but I think
I already gave you the advice for that.

8) If you sell X, look at the tactics used by successful sellers of X. If
these tactics strike you as morally outrageous, don't sell X.

~~~
sgdesign
Have you considered that maybe these guys _want_ to develop iPhone games?
Telling them that all they have to do to make more money is simply stop
developing games, and choose a different platform might be true, but it's not
very helpful if they want to live their passion.

~~~
Impossible
This... Mike and Greg are definitely game developers first and businessman
second (or 3rd, or 4th or whatever).

"amateur hobbyist artistes (who have "that vision thing" and are willing to
starve to deliver it for free)" - I'd say that Mike and Greg are _already_ in
this category. If you check out their site (<http://mikengreg.com/>), you'll
see that they release most of their stuff as free. They live in Iowa because
it's cheap. They want to be able to make their own games and not starve or be
homeless while doing it.

Software isn't necessarily the best way to make money period, if all I cared
about was money I'd rather be managing a hedge fund or something.

~~~
richardw
_This... Mike and Greg are definitely game developers first and businessman
second (or 3rd, or 4th or whatever)._

Well, then they succeeded and we should be happy for them. They don't have a
business, but they've got a great game.

If and when their priorities change, they'll move business skills up the
priority list. I guess they could get a publisher, or something?

------
smartician
So their first game sold for $2.99 up front and earned them $20k-$40k for two
years. I would call that successful. Then, for their second game, instead of
sticking to what works, they made the decision to switch to a freemium model,
and made the mistake of making the "free" mode too good, and neglected to
advertise in-game that there even is a premium version to unlock. Many lessons
to be learned here, but rather stunning that they weren't able to fix this
much earlier, before becoming homeless.

~~~
slantyyz
>> So their first game sold for $2.99 up front and earned them $20k-$40k for
two years. I would call that successful.

Depends on the context, especially considering the opportunity costs of having
a higher paid job.

The problem is that everyone thinks that you have to price games low to sell
them. I regularly pay more than $5 for iPhone/iPad games if I know they're
good. Hell, after years of paying through the nose for handheld console
cartridges, even $15 is cheap to me.

~~~
smartician
I fully agree with you there. It just makes the decision to sell their new
game as free with IAP even more questionable. They should have just sold the
new game for $4.99 up front. Even if only a fraction of the people who
installed the free game would have bought it, they'd still have most likely
made tens of thousands of dollars in a week. If it hadn't sold at all, THEN I
would have started thinking about a freemium model.

~~~
slantyyz
>> They should have just sold the new game for $4.99 up front.

Yes. I think the tough part when you have a higher priced game is getting the
word out there and getting written up in some major blogs.

Personally I consider $1 or $2 games to be disposable. It's not much of a loss
if they suck. Once you go into higher price points, I base my purchase
decision on name recognition/reputation or word-of-mouth.

------
jonny_eh
I think it's important for stories like this to get out there to contrast with
big successes like Super Meat Boy and Fez (which were featured in the awesome
movie "Indie Game: The Movie").

~~~
Jare
The Squids story reached some notoriety and is much more interesting:
[http://thegamebakers.com/money-and-the-app-store-a-few-
figur...](http://thegamebakers.com/money-and-the-app-store-a-few-figures-that-
might-help-an-indie-developer.html)

Not exactly a failure story (their strategy eventually paid off I think), but
certainly far from the big hits.

------
colinplamondon
They're now Top 200 Grossing on iPad- seems like they managed to trip their
way into one hell of a marketing strategy.

1) Bitch about not making enough money because you boned your conversion
funnel.

2) Get an article written about how you don't make enough money

3) Make money!

Don't try this at home.

~~~
aeiowu
We didn't. We were homeless! ;)

~~~
colinplamondon
Haha, well played!

------
credo
At first, 200,000 downloads sounded impressive, getting into the top apps
lists is also impressive, but the problem is outlined in the second paragraph.

>> _Gasketball was released for free, with a one-time in-app purchase that
unlocks the rest of the game offered for $2.99. The conversion rate to the
paid version of the game sits at 0.67%._

It seems like they should figure out why the conversion rate is low (e.g.
perhaps the free version offers too much functionality for free, perhaps the
free version quality is poor and users aren't motivated to pay more etc...)

~~~
rom16384
Conversion rates around 1% are typical, but in this case even if the
conversion rate was 4% (which would be very good) it would only translate to
~17k

------
nevinera
This smacked of RIAA logic. It doesn't matter what your conversion rate is
when your game is free - non-converts don't _cost_ you money.

~~~
mhurron
Where did they say it cost them money? They said they weren't getting any from
selling anything.

~~~
nevinera
They kept complaining about their 'conversion rate' thoughout the post.
Everywhere they talked about how they weren't selling enough, they couched it
in terms of how many downloads they got.

------
robomartin
This is going to sound harsh. This story exposes a simple fact: These
developers went at this in utter ignorance of the realities of business.

If their goal was to put out a free app and not try to make a living off of
it, then fine. I take it back. You don't need to know anything about business
or making money to give shit away. If this is the case, don't complain and be
very thankful that people around you are kind enough to support you
financially and beyond.

If, on the other hand, their goal was to offer a free product with IAP in
order to earn money and make a living, well, their decision making reveals
their level of business ignorance.

Why is it that the competitors they refer to have such intense IAP approaches?
Could it be because that's a pretty solid way to monetize your app? If my goal
was to make money in that segment I'd certainly stop all coding and look at
what others are doing in detail. I would not hold myself back due to
ideological nonsense. If it is a business, it is about making money. If it is
a hobby, it is not. So, yes, I would copy, borrow and mutate ideas from others
who, before me, trenched the territory and became successful.

The only exception to this is if you truly have in your hands one of these
edge-cases that will succeed because it is so unique, entertaining and, yes,
addictive.

This also demonstrates a reality of FOSS (even though this was not OSS): In
order to provide FOSS someone has to be earning a living somehow or the
equation is never balanced. That's why FOSS is never really free (as in cost)
because the development costs are being banked by someone. Linux, as an
example, is probably the most expensive piece of code ever developed.

This case was a simple failure to make the right business decisions and
nothing more.

That's how you end-up on the street and broke.

------
larrik
1) Depending on writing _games_ for your income is foolish. Very few people
make real money from games.

2) In-App Purchases come in 2 flavors: The kind that are permanent, and the
kind that aren't. Apple doesn't tell you which one you are buying, which means
that I just don't buy any, generally.

3) The few times I experimented with IAPs, my conversion rates were also total
crap.

~~~
TillE
There are tons of indie game success stories. Even more so if you count modest
success from niche games. Jeff Vogel has been doing it since 1994, when
finding an audience and taking payments on the internet was much, _much_
harder.

Making niche games actually strongly resembles more "serious" software
products, because you have a group of potential customers who have a decent
idea of what they want and a market that isn't providing it. If you're lucky,
you'll find pages and pages of forum posts describing the sort of things they
like.

Expecting to make the next Angry Birds is stupid. But making games with the
expectation of a decent income is entirely realistic, and just requires the
same marketing skills as anything else.

------
slevcom
Most apps, particularly games are limited to a few dollars, which requires
them to basically be hits. Reaching out to tons of people to make a hit, is
difficult and expensive.

Giving a game away for free seems like an easy way to gain some marketshare.
In practice it isn't enough. In other hit based businesses, companies use
multi-faceted marketing strategies to get the word out, each one a lead
bullet.

Unfortunately for app developers, measuring marketing efforts through the
iTunes funnel is almost impossible. Where do they come from? What's working?
Nobody knows. Its difficult for marketing pros, let alone a pair of developers
who spend all their time developing and not marketing.

They just need to keep at it. Being an indie developer requires more than just
developing. Marketing is part of the job. If they are determined enough they
will get there. Its just tough to put 2 years into a project, thinking you are
finished, and only realize you're at the halfway point.

------
AznHisoka
These guys are homeless? I'm willing to shell $1000 to buy ownership of the
entire game :)

But it sounds like they focused too little on making money. You can't give
everything away for free. Give people a taste of the good stuff, but make them
pay for the rest.

------
briandear
This isn't a sad story it's another example of developers being good at code
but terrible at business. If code is your livelihood, treat it as such.
Misplaced idealism is dangerous. Besides, doesn't giving someone a free game
feed into their game addictions? Game pricing shouldn't be subject to some
moral code. It's a game: if people don't like the price, they don't have to
play.

This illustrates the problem with pirate software as well as pirate music and
movies. People don't buy the cow if they get the milk for free.

~~~
icebraining
It doesn't actually illustrate anything because the app's only been out for a
week.

------
georgeecollins
The linkbait title is much more interesting then the actual article. This
discussion is also much more interesting then the article.

The obvious thing is that if you are self funding, don't bet everything on one
game. No one knows what games will hit and what games won't. The best thing is
to swing the bat a few times. As many have pointed out, it seems like these
guys should experiment more with what they have. It's not clear at all that
their situation is dire.

------
Shoomz
It's an interesting article and I love how they're approaching app sales.
There are some successes out there that are doing well with this sales model
(the most recent download I've had like this is Outwitters:
<http://onemanleft.com/>). It is hard to see where the app sales ecosystem is
going though (and if consumers will really dictate this path).

~~~
engtech
Weird, Outwitters is listed as free on the one man left website, but iTunes
has it as $0.99

------
austinlyons
+1 to devs in Iowa!! But maybe if Iowa wasn't so cheap, they would have
started by charging for their app out of the gate.

------
chubs
I hope they read this (not sure if they will), but:

Ads!

I've a friend who gets approx $4/user/year from a non-game mobile app from ads
through mobclix. I think it's a fair assumption that you'd get even more ad
impressions on a game (as people spend more time in games), but even without
that, 200k players * $4 each = a lot of money.

~~~
aeiowu
I did read it and we're doing this exact thing right now, hope to have the
update submitted tomorrow.

-Greg

------
salman89
0.5% upsell sounds about right. In the app business you want to avoid a one
time sale and focus on recurring revenue. There is a cap on growth, and
revenues must be sustained by current users.

------
belorn
incentives are tricky and the story is showing what happens when you induce
the wrong ones.

They want to have "a free game", a "cheap upgrade" and a "only one upgrade
needed". Three things that do not match. If they are going for a free game but
that offers the enthusiastic 1% an payed to play upgrade, that upgrade can not
be cheap. If they increase to 29.9$, their conversion rate would likely only
go from 0.67% to 0.5%, but increasing profits by around 500%.

------
rokhayakebe
Change the game name, Change the action names, Change the colors (nothing
else), Put the new thing on the appstore, Report results.

------
goggles99
Take this link off or HackerNews. It is a fraud.

Ctdonath summed it up beautifully... "1. The "buy" button was hidden. People
who wanted to pay couldn't find it. People didn't even know there was anything
to pay for.

2\. The app has been out a week. Users haven't had time to play thru the free
content and develop any desire for [unknown (see #1)] paid content.

Made near all users sound like Scroogeish tightwads. Unfair."

------
goggles99
Where is the story here? You can have the best game in the world but if no one
can figure out how to buy it - of course you will go broke. Isn't this common
sense?

I see you have finally figured this out (now that you are homeless). If that
does not boost your revenues - Lower the price to 1.99 or $0.99. We are in a
bad economy and $2.99 is not in the sweet spot by any means.

