Charging Money For Apps

[fusion_power]

It's free to join and I'm hovering around 75% goes to the dev, 25% to the running of the app store (which is a lot cheaper than, say, apple). Don't think running an app store is a simple or cheap job, it takes thousands of MB a month and requires full time attention. I've spoken to the people who run some of the bootleg apple stores and understand now how complex and costly it can be. However I think it will push the Pandora past the stagnation of Wiz software which we are seeing now.

:lol: Easy Solution: don't make an App-Store!
It really sounds hard and expncive to do compared to our old-fashioned file Archives. Do you think somebody really has time for "full time attention"?

 

[Klaus]

The uploading is as easy as clicking 'upload' and you supply a pnd image, a screen shot, an icon (small screen shot), description, title and price.

Wouldn't it be nice to have all this information automatically extracted from the pnd (except price, of course)? It's all in there, and an app could automatically be put into the freedesktop.org categories just like on the pandora.

 

[Monk]

I think a sort of tabloid newspaper set of rules is about right.

No porn, but boobs are fine.

Good, I like me some boobies

Sounds good to me tho I can see the value in a "no nudity#" or "age range" filter.

 

[craigix]

Out of curiosity, are you implementing a comment system for submissions? I know that works very well for torrents, and it might be a good idea for this too. And if you do, a really nice feature would be the ability to separate out comments for different versions of the application. So if someone makes a comment on an app and then the app gets updated, the comment gets marked as "posted about old version" or something.

Yes, I'm aware of the issue on the current file archive and I'm planning some kind of fix.

 

[Trevsweb]

Out of curiosity, are you implementing a comment system for submissions? I know that works very well for torrents, and it might be a good idea for this too. And if you do, a really nice feature would be the ability to separate out comments for different versions of the application. So if someone makes a comment on an app and then the app gets updated, the comment gets marked as "posted about old version" or something.

Yes, I'm aware of the issue on the current file archive and I'm planning some kind of fix.

well i would keep the rating stats and wipe old comments.
saves on database space and old comments often are irrelevent.

 

[EvilDragon]

I'd also suggest offering demo version. A demo version is a top-seller for a game!
Games without demos don't sell as good

The demo version could also be some kind of a free version. i.e. Battlejewels and Wind & Water have fully playable demo versions which are good enough for some people. But they can get the full version for a few bucks to improve the game even more.

I don't think free games will disappear because of the store.
I mean, most of the free games are really fun remakes of PacMan, etc. But I doubt people would pay for such games, so they will be free.
Also GPLed games: I doubt that ports will do sell well if other devs can port the same thing and release it for free. with GPLed games, the dev has to release the sourcecode, so anybody can compile and release it for free...

But if a dev wants to do a more complex game, he can get some money for it. And I think for good and complex games, customers will pay a few bucks.

So you don't lose anything, you just get more complex games for a few bucks more

 

[Monk]

I'd also suggest offering demo version. A demo version is a top-seller for a game!

Demos are an absolute must - World Of Goo got a good recommendation from here, but that didn't get the game purchased - it DID, however, get the demo downloaded, installed, and played - and THAT got the full game bought.

Doom (1. The original) I had the shareware first episode "demo" version, but didn't buy (IIRC) until Doom 2 came out. However, I didn't need a demo of Doom 2, and I've since bought more Doom than I care to mention.

Bad demos - ones that don't work well, or crash (e.g. Repton for Windows) or which do not uninstall cleanly are also an advert for the programmer's capabilities - but in a bad way! Make your demos SHINE as well as your full games do!

 

[OrR]

well i would keep the rating stats and wipe old comments.
saves on database space and old comments often are irrelevent.

Old comments can still have value, though, especially if it's a small version increase. Keping them and marking which version they were based on is the way to go IMO.

 

[Exophase]

It's free to join and I'm hovering around 75% goes to the dev, 25% to the running of the app store (which is a lot cheaper than, say, apple). Don't think running an app store is a simple or cheap job, it takes thousands of MB a month and requires full time attention. I've spoken to the people who run some of the bootleg apple stores and understand now how complex and costly it can be. However I think it will push the Pandora past the stagnation of Wiz software which we are seeing now.

It's slightly cheaper, Apple takes 30%, as does Cydia. Honestly I think places like Cydia are going to maintain at least an order of magnitude more sales than the Pandora store, but this is pretty moot with the cost being a percentage of income rather than fixed. Still, I think it'd be naive to think that stores aren't making a substantial profit at 30% - whether or not you still would at 25% I don't really know. A better question is, are you outright intending on making this solely a self-sustaining service and not a for-profit venture? So if you end up with a lot of money left over are you willing to lower the charge?

 

[aaronson911]

I have an XNA Indie game for Microsoft’s xbox 360 in review right now. Microsoft also takes 30%. I think 25% is a little high considering apple and Microsoft have closed systems so they are the only ones that can make a store. Anybody can make a Pandora store and undercut your prices, especially if your stores only interface is the web.

 

[craigix]

It's free to join and I'm hovering around 75% goes to the dev, 25% to the running of the app store (which is a lot cheaper than, say, apple). Don't think running an app store is a simple or cheap job, it takes thousands of MB a month and requires full time attention. I've spoken to the people who run some of the bootleg apple stores and understand now how complex and costly it can be. However I think it will push the Pandora past the stagnation of Wiz software which we are seeing now.

It's slightly cheaper, Apple takes 30%, as does Cydia. Honestly I think places like Cydia are going to maintain at least an order of magnitude more sales than the Pandora store, but this is pretty moot with the cost being a percentage of income rather than fixed. Still, I think it'd be naive to think that stores aren't making a substantial profit at 30% - whether or not you still would at 25% I don't really know. A better question is, are you outright intending on making this solely a self-sustaining service and not a for-profit venture? So if you end up with a lot of money left over are you willing to lower the charge?

I'm intending not only for it to make money but to also use the money to try to attract high quality ports, to pay for further Pandora software development, essentially as a money source to get us a dream software situation and distribution platform.

Or to put it another way I intend for it to be a massive success in as many ways as possible.

 

[kloplop321]

I'm intending not only for it to make money but to also use the money to try to attract high quality ports, to pay for further Pandora software development, essentially as a money source to get us a dream software situation and distribution platform.

Or to put it another way I intend for it to be a massive success in as many ways as possible.

Sounds much more motivating and open than apple's. There will be Terms and conditions, but what about filtering so it isn't a spam house?

 

[dflemstr]

I'm intending not only for it to make money but to also use the money to try to attract high quality ports, to pay for further Pandora software development, essentially as a money source to get us a dream software situation and distribution platform.

Or to put it another way I intend for it to be a massive success in as many ways as possible.

I sure hope that you're really good at developing secure, intuitive and good-looking web applications then, since it might be dangerous to put the entire success of a "business venture" (yeah not really) on one single application.

EDIT: Wait... it's not made with hacked-together PHP, is it?

 

[Kramy]

well i would keep the rating stats and wipe old comments.
saves on database space and old comments often are irrelevent.

Err....no.

Possibly have a ratings system for comments. Purge them if they aren't new and aren't useful.

It makes no sense to purge the gems, though, as old comments often are.

well i would keep the rating stats and wipe old comments.
saves on database space and old comments often are irrelevent.

Old comments can still have value, though, especially if it's a small version increase. Keping them and marking which version they were based on is the way to go IMO.

I agree.

It's slightly cheaper, Apple takes 30%, as does Cydia. Honestly I think places like Cydia are going to maintain at least an order of magnitude more sales than the Pandora store, but this is pretty moot with the cost being a percentage of income rather than fixed. Still, I think it'd be naive to think that stores aren't making a substantial profit at 30% - whether or not you still would at 25% I don't really know. A better question is, are you outright intending on making this solely a self-sustaining service and not a for-profit venture? So if you end up with a lot of money left over are you willing to lower the charge?

I think craig would be. Or perhaps doing contests, as was suggested in another thread.

Paying for ports is another good idea. Maybe he can get Osmos ported.

 

[craigix]

I'm intending not only for it to make money but to also use the money to try to attract high quality ports, to pay for further Pandora software development, essentially as a money source to get us a dream software situation and distribution platform.

Or to put it another way I intend for it to be a massive success in as many ways as possible.

I sure hope that you're really good at developing secure, intuitive and good-looking web applications then, since it might be dangerous to put the entire success of a "business venture" (yeah not really) on one single application.

EDIT: Wait... it's not made with hacked-together PHP, is it?

The area of security is something which I'll be doing some serious work on, but the only way to stop trojan apps is users reporting them. They would have to be approved first though.

 

[emil10001]

I really doubt that we'll need to worry too much about security. Don't get me wrong, I would appreciate any effort that goes into making the platform as secure as possible. It's just that there is a fairly small user base of technically inclined users on a device that won't be many people's primary anything. There's just not that much incentive for someone to start developing trojans or badware for our platform.

... except for those couple of trolls who might do it just to piss people off or to prove a point. I think that those are the people that we should be more concerned with.

 

[Klaus]

I'm not worried about trojan apps at all. Those will get sorted out very quickly, I'm sure. But the store should be rock solid! Maybe Craig should open the store a few days before launch for a big community penetration test.

 

[Esn]

Out of curiosity, are you implementing a comment system for submissions? I know that works very well for torrents, and it might be a good idea for this too. And if you do, a really nice feature would be the ability to separate out comments for different versions of the application. So if someone makes a comment on an app and then the app gets updated, the comment gets marked as "posted about old version" or something.

Yes, I'm aware of the issue on the current file archive and I'm planning some kind of fix.

well i would keep the rating stats and wipe old comments.
saves on database space and old comments often are irrelevent.

No. All comments should be kept, no matter how old. Automatic removal of comments would just provide a simple way to get rid of any criticism.

I like the idea about having comments for old versions having a slightly darker background, or something.

 

[kloplop321]

The area of security is something which I'll be doing some serious work on, but the only way to stop trojan apps is users reporting them. They would have to be approved first though.

Who will be officially in charge of approving apps?

 

[craigix]

Probably Pandora team members. If you also do a news post here we can do it pretty quick. Certain users might have auto-approval.