I don't mean to be rude but...

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by postman, Oct 31, 2008.

  1. crunc

    crunc Well-Known Member

    Aug 11, 2008
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    #21 crunc, Oct 31, 2008
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2008
    What is the deal with getting money for your apps? If you have sold the game to anyone, shouldn't you be seeing 70% of those sales? Why have you received nothing? What happens to all that money you haven't received? Did Apple get 100% of it?

    Edit: the problem with Hiccup is not that it is a variant of an existing game, but that it is specifically a variant of a peg jump game. That just isn't going to illicit a buying frenzy. A demo was released, and that's good, but unfortunately for Moopf, the demo just made people see that, oh yes, it is just a variant of peg jump. A very, very well done one, but peg jump none-the-less.
     
  2. mek

    mek Well-Known Member

    i'll answer both of those questions

    first, you have to rake in $250 per region in order for apple to cut you a check, a good month or so later..if you dont get that 250, it goes towards the effort of another month of sales in order to get that 250, if you dont make 250 in per say region, apple will be delighted to hold on to that money for you

    or if you violate something, like I AM RICH, apple will not pay the developer, and hold on to that 7,000 dollars

    as for question number two
    i dont know the answer

    but happy Halloween
     
  3. moopf

    moopf Well-Known Member

    Sep 16, 2008
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    What mek said :) I haven't made enough in any region to get any money and I don't see it totaling up to enough in any region for the rest of this year. So, to date, I've seen nothing :)

    No, I wasn't expecting a buying frenzy at all. I wasn't expecting such poor sales, either ;) But, you live and learn.
     
  4. Mr. Charley

    Mr. Charley Well-Known Member

    Sep 6, 2008
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    So what happens if a developer never reaches $250 in sales per region? How long does Apple hold on to the cash and the accompanying interest?
    And do they give you your cash with interest (I probably already know the answer to that but was just curious)
     
  5. crunc

    crunc Well-Known Member

    Aug 11, 2008
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    Oh, and another thing... what are you folks waiting for? It's pretty simple: make an RPG and your app will sell like crazy. There aren't many RPGs for the iPhone yet. The only real one is Vay, and it's a port of a less then stellar original.

    Make a new, original, *and good* RPG and it will sell for at least $10, easy. If you need a suggestion for a game to model it after, check out the fan translation (or not, if you know Japanese) of Mother 3, or Paper Mario or Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door. Mother 3 is an absolutely fantastic action-ish RPG game, and the same with the other two. Humor, action, RPG. OK, so that's what I want, but I still think you can't go wrong with an RPG as long as it doesn't come across as a hack job. Make it a fully fleshed out, well designed, well balanced RPG and it will go gold and for a higher price then other games.
     
  6. moopf

    moopf Well-Known Member

    Sep 16, 2008
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    As far as I know they just keep hold of it until you do. This is why, in several regions, I doubt I'll *ever* see any of the money from the sales. The only places I think I'll see any money from (although not sure when) would be the UK region, the US region and...possibly sometime next year...the European region.

    And no, they don't pay interest :) That $250 is also after their 30% cut, you in effect you have to sell around $350 in each area to get that $250.
     
  7. crunc

    crunc Well-Known Member

    Aug 11, 2008
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    That is pretty disheartening to think that you might never see anything for your effort. Let me just say that I think you did a bang-up job with Hiqup and you certainly deserve to see money from it. That arrangement by Apple seems like a coup for them. In fact it seems like incentive for them to push for lots of low-selling games that they get to, in effect, keep all the revenue from, versus a smaller number of big sellers that they only get 30% of. EDIT: or to put it another way, it's disincentive for them to improve the AppStore. By making it hard to find older apps, they may in effect create more low-selling applications, and thus increase their take.
     
  8. Oliver

    Oliver Well-Known Member

    Vayis not available in the German store. I tried it since they had it in the US store.
     
  9. moopf

    moopf Well-Known Member

    Sep 16, 2008
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    Not really, I can completely see why Apple do it this way - otherwise they'd be sending out many thousands of really small payments each month which wouldn't be at all cost effective for them, and might actually cost them to do. So it's quite normal to set a limit for payments on something like this and I don't see anything really bad about it in that respect.

    And thanks for the comments about Hiqup :)
     
  10. Mr. Charley

    Mr. Charley Well-Known Member

    Sep 6, 2008
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    I hear you, and agree that it doesn't make sense for Apple to send payment on a daily, or weekly basis. But to have the stipulation that you must make a certain amount of money or else you get nothing just doesn't seem fair.
    Maybe if they then "paid out" every year? At least the developer gets the $200 at some point, which is rightfully theirs...it's chump change for your time, I know, but out of principle, Apple shouldn't be entitled to your rightfully earned money
     
  11. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    @crunc

    A new, original, good RPG with modern production values for the iPhone takes easily 1-2 years to develop with a development company of 10-30 people (again, depending on the production values, 2D versus 3D graphics and so on). Assuming those people are paid decent salaries, the company would spend $40k-$200k per month on wages alone to develop the game, bringing its budget without marketing costs or utility costs up to $480k-$4.8 Million.

    If you'd be willing to pay $10 for such a game, only ~650 000 similarly minded people would have to feel the same way (remember, Apple takes 30%) for the game to even meet its production costs, much less make profit :)

    Looking at the current iPhone marketplace, would you take such a risk as an independent developer or a publisher? Really?
     
  12. mek

    mek Well-Known Member

    but as we speak, there are a select few already going down such a road, some big companies, some people doing it on their own time after they get out of work

    whoever can release the first, well done published rpg, could make a small killing
     
  13. Frand

    Frand Well-Known Member

    I'm sorry if I haven't kept up with the news, but which big RPG is coming to the iPhone? The Squaresoft game is a tower defense clone ported from their existing cell phone game.
     
  14. nattylux

    nattylux Well-Known Member

    Sep 17, 2008
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    Ooh interesting thread.

    First of all, I think you're speaking to the wrong crowd here. Most folks on this forum appreciate quality games and pay good money to get them.

    However, you've hit upon the dirty little secret of the App Store: most people don't make money. I think there was a huge gold rush when the store opened up, and you heard the rags-to-riches stories of a couple of individual developers, and then everyone in the world wanted to get into the game.

    Fact is, 95% of the apps in the store aren't making enough money to sustain an individual developer. That's just how that market works, and you can't blame the customers for that. You just have to be aware of it and behave accordingly. You're not going to change the thinking of the millions of people shopping on the App Store by complaining about it.

    The question is, how do you get into that top 5%? A couple of misconceptions on that point:

    "If you make something good and original, it WILL sell."

    False. Unless you're a big company that has a game that's already known, or can guarantee that Apple will market your new app, there are NO guarantees of sales on the app store. There are countless examples of apps that are good, original, or both, that are not selling. No matter how good your game is, your customers need to FIND it. There are now over 5,000 apps in the store, and only a handful get displayed upfront. Unless you're lucky enough to be displayed or covered by multiple high profile blogs, your customers just can't find you.

    As to originality, this is a common misconception that I used to make. However, most people don't want originality. People gravitate towards the familiar. Take a look at the top 50 games. How many of those are actually original? Very few. Most are simply a port of an existing game, or are somehow like an existing game, OR come out of a known name that people trust. As much as people complain about the proliferation of match-3 puzzles, Bejewelled is now the #3 game in the store. People are much more likely to buy something they've heard of before. This is why popularizing a new game is a HUGE effort, as opposed to, say, making a Tetris clone.

    So basically - yeah, you're not making money. Most people aren't making money. It's a very tough market to be in, and you need to be able to handle it. The apps that make money are:

    - Ports or clones of existing games that everyone knows (Tetris, Bejewelled, Spore, Nanosaur, and too many others to name)
    - Apps made by known companies that can build up hype and get Apple marketing (EA, Pangea, Freeverse, ngmoco)
    - Apps lucky enough to get featured by Apple in the store
    - Apps whose devs were smart enough to invest a ton of money and effort into marketing (Trism, Where To)
    - The lucky few individual devs that developed an app with a hook that everyone just loves (Koi Pond, iChalky)

    If you're not one of the above, don't expect a big payday. You may get lucky, but the odds are stacked against you.

    This has been a public service announcement :)
     
  15. Oliver

    Oliver Well-Known Member

    You forget the apps that are just so great that they sell by word of mouth and then get featured on review sites like this one and even on Ars Technica. I really think that great games with long gameplay can come from single developers or small companies. Stuff like Fieldrunners prove it. Great game. Word of mouth. Reviews. More buyers. More word of mouth etc.
     
  16. nattylux

    nattylux Well-Known Member

    Sep 17, 2008
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    Yup, that's another one. Given the great execution and art, I would guess that Fieldrunners was developed by more than one person, and that it took at least a couple of months. And still - there are very very few of these apps that are so good and popular that they just sell themselves.
     
  17. crunc

    crunc Well-Known Member

    Aug 11, 2008
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    Or if you make a good RPG. :)
     
  18. Mr. Charley

    Mr. Charley Well-Known Member

    Sep 6, 2008
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    @ nattylux

    You're right about the goldrush at the launch of the appstore, and how individual developers (Trism, Chopper for example) made tons of money. Not certain if those were released today would they even be talked about...

    The rest of your public service announcement brought up some very valid points and things to consider. :)
     
  19. nattylux

    nattylux Well-Known Member

    Sep 17, 2008
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    Ok, so my list was not exhaustive :)

    Let's throw this into the list:

    Games of a genre that everyone wants (RPG) or that everyone generally likes or is willing to try (racing), but where the cost to entry is prohibitive to most small developers. As a result, making a killing on such games will pretty much be limited to the big gaming studios.

    I think the point of my page-long rant above is that making money on the app store is HARD and in general pretty unlikely. Right now, it's like after the Alaska gold rush, where everybody and their mom arrives in the middle of nowhere in Alaska expecting to come back a millionaire, where the reality is that most of those who don't freeze or starve or die of some awful disease will probably come back home empty handed.
     
  20. rootbeersoup

    rootbeersoup Well-Known Member

    Oct 4, 2008
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    I always thought that devs paid to have their apps advertised by Apple
     

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