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I've been selling $5 apps for Mac and Windows for over 3 years now already, completely independently and homegrown, so this won't impact me much. :) There was

I've been selling $5 apps for Mac and Windows for over 3 years now already, completely independently and homegrown, so this won't impact me much. :) There was a point in the past where I did a lot of research in the traditional PC/Mac shrinkwrapped boxed retail bricks-and-mortar software market, and the pricing model was rather shocking. Speaking in very general terms, and especially more about PC software, what I found was that for a say $50 priced unit of software, in a box there at a retail store, about 50% of that went to the retail store, about 25% or so went to the distributor, 20% to the publisher, and then only about $3-5 went to the actual developer. (Approximately, details varied.) Add-in traditional publishing industry shenanigans that try to turn developers effectively into sharecroppers, and almost require huge hype-driven sale numbers, and the situation is even worse. Now with things like Steam and the App Store and with PayPal, etc., developers can publish software directly, much more easily, and the distributor/online-retail middleman takes a smaller cut, so say the retail price can be $5 and the developer takes home 70%-97% of that, depending on if more like App Store or PayPal model, respectively. So the take home income per unit for the developer can be about the same, but at a much much lower retail price point, which is a net win for consumers. And since there are less publishing shenanigans with compensation structure, it's actually possible to sell a small number of units per month and achieve at least Ramen profitability. Which at least buys you runway to develop additional stuff or work on side ventures, so it's a virtuous cycle/snowball effect.

Stormbringer 16y ago
Which begs the question, would you publish on the Mac app Store? I agree with what you are saying about the traditional bricks and mortar approach being an exercise in rogering the developer. Which was why when the iTunes App Store opened up I thought it was a huge deal that they were only taking a 30% cut, and yet were doing all this other stuff effectively for free: hosting, payments processing. But - if you already have all that set up and in place, is it still attractive to you? If only for 'marketing' purposes? E.g. to say that you're on there, to be searchable etc. NB: I realise that the walled garden is very restrictive, so your particular apps might not apply, ignoring that, is there any aspect of the deal that appeals to you?
- mkramlich 16y ago
  I am considering making distributions for the Mac App Store, yes. But I've had higher priority things on my plate in recent months. But yes, it could be a net win, or at least an additional channel. The biggest potential net win, in my mind, is that even if my net take home pay per unit is about the same for a Mac App Store sold unit, if it gets exposed to a larger number of eyeballs, the overal revenue stream should be higher. And may be a different, non-overlapping demographic as well. So yes, I am considering it and if it looks like a net win I'l do it. I haven't studied their packaging/platform requirements yet, however. Some of my apps may have technical or content qualities which are disallowed or at least problematic due to their requirements/policies.

Stormbringer 16y ago

Which begs the question, would you publish on the Mac app Store? I agree with what you are saying about the traditional bricks and mortar approach being an exercise in rogering the developer. Which was why when the iTunes App Store opened up I thought it was a huge deal that they were only taking a 30% cut, and yet were doing all this other stuff effectively for free: hosting, payments processing. But - if you already have all that set up and in place, is it still attractive to you? If only for 'marketing' purposes? E.g. to say that you're on there, to be searchable etc. NB: I realise that the walled garden is very restrictive, so your particular apps might not apply, ignoring that, is there any aspect of the deal that appeals to you?

mkramlich 16y ago
I am considering making distributions for the Mac App Store, yes. But I've had higher priority things on my plate in recent months. But yes, it could be a net win, or at least an additional channel. The biggest potential net win, in my mind, is that even if my net take home pay per unit is about the same for a Mac App Store sold unit, if it gets exposed to a larger number of eyeballs, the overal revenue stream should be higher. And may be a different, non-overlapping demographic as well. So yes, I am considering it and if it looks like a net win I'l do it. I haven't studied their packaging/platform requirements yet, however. Some of my apps may have technical or content qualities which are disallowed or at least problematic due to their requirements/policies.