8 ms·

Developer strikes it rich with iPhone game: Makes $250K profit in two months.

35 points by makimaki 18y ago

savrajsingh 18y ago
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?
- tc7 18y ago
  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.
- alaskamiller 18y ago
  There are iPhone apps analytics/tracking companies -- Medialets for example -- with this kind of data.
stillmotion 18y ago
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.
geuis 18y ago
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.
- iigs 18y ago
  There are no links in the article either. (Not counting the garbage "other news in this category" links that stay in-house)
  - light3 18y ago
    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.
zandorg 18y ago
I talked to a guy who wrote a 'map' route finder for the Psion 3c in about 1996-1997. It paid his mortgage...
tsally 18y ago
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.
- tdavis 18y ago
  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.
  - tsally 18y ago
    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.
josefresco 18y ago
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.

35 points by makimaki 18y ago

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?

tc7 18y ago
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.
alaskamiller 18y ago
There are iPhone apps analytics/tracking companies -- Medialets for example -- with this kind of data.

stillmotion 18y ago

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.

geuis 18y ago

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.

iigs 18y ago
There are no links in the article either. (Not counting the garbage "other news in this category" links that stay in-house)
- light3 18y ago
  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.

zandorg 18y ago

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

tsally 18y ago

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.

tdavis 18y ago
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.
- tsally 18y ago
  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.

josefresco 18y ago

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.