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'Premium' App Store Rumors Revived

Movin' on Up

This makes me want to raise the price of the app I'm working on from $9.99 up to $20 to get it out of the ghetto and into the penthouse, so to speak. Is that a good thing? I'm not so sure...
 
I'm shocked!!! I thought most people on here would be loving the chance to throw money away for some not great apps.

You know, those who claim that .99c apps are killing the opportunity for better apps to come out

NVM- look above........
 
Good. I'm glad this is coming and is not just for games. I'm looking forward to some extremely well done, serious apps.

Maybe this is why a good Office Suite hasn't appeared yet.
 
anubis said:
I think the free market has decided that complicated games (i.e. games that take a development team to code and have a steep learning curve for the user) don't belong on the iPhone.
Click to expand...

Is there data to back this up? My impression is that a number of the most complex iPhone games, such as Rolando, BiA, Hero of Sparta, more recently Zen bound, etc, did quite well sales-wise.
 
I think this is a good idea, there is so much c**p in the app store. Not sure if the price alone makes an app worthy though, and there are probably cheaper apps that are still 'professional'. We are only looking at a handful of apps that will qualify each month, maybe apple just needs a 'by invitation only' section where the apps inside are vetted.
 
dubhe said:
I think this is a good idea, there is so much c**p in the app store. Not sure if the price alone makes an app worthy though, and there are probably cheaper apps that are still 'professional'. We are only looking at a handful of apps that will qualify each month, maybe apple just needs a 'by invitation only' section where the apps inside are vetted.
Click to expand...

This may not be popular around here but I think the price of the iphone dev program should be raised from $99 to $599 with the 3.0 SDK. There needs to be a higher barrier to entry to raise the quality of the apps. A higher price dev fee would do much to do that IMO.

And If a dev balks at this then he's not serious enough for me to waste my time and money on.*

(Why do I feel like one of those field runner guys after saying this? :D;) )


*maybe except for the free apps, maybe keep it at $99 for that so hobbyists and people learning can still ship product. maybe.
 
I think this is a good thing. It's hard to take the App Store seriously when it has hundreds of fart and "flashlight" apps.

Although I do think $20 is a bit steep as a minimum price. I can well believe that there are apps worth this amount, but I don't think this should be the minimum price for entering the store. Maybe $12-15.
 
I agree. There should be separate section for "commercial" quality apps to separate them from the community free apps. That being said, there should also be different approval standards on these apps. Canning one of these apps in the approval process can have a big impact on future development from that and other high profile developer.
 
Surely the simplest solution is to allow users to see apps by price category? People can then make up their own mind what is "premium" and what isn't.
 
plumbingandtech said:
And what of PSP portable and DS games, which are $30-$60, should they be 99 cents too?
Click to expand...


1) The majority of PSP or DS games are under $30, and many are under $20. They also generally offer deeper playing experience and offer more content than your average iPhone game. People play DS and PSP games for hours. Most people play iPhone games to pass time while waiting in line.

2) PSP and DS developers pay a licensing fee AND a royalty fee to Sony and Nintendo, respectively. That is a large reason why they cost as much as they do. Developers also have to pay licensing fees to other IP owners for many branded games as well, like Madden.

3) PSP and DS Developers also have to cover the cost of media, packaging, & distribution. That also increases the cost of titles for those platforms.

My point here is that comparing iPhone apps to PSP, DS, or other hard media platforms isn't all that neat and tidy.
 
Good points. all of them..

Devs do pay 30% back to apple though.. (which is still probably less then the factors you state to be fair.)

media $7? license $5?

is PSP on CDs? much cheaper then, DS is on Carts I believe, much more $$$

$30 game

$18 after costs,

but they get $20 after paying off apple as well...
:eek:

oops, forgot the whole retail cut thing... never mind.

no wonder Nintendo is rumored to be going solid state with an app store with their next handheld.
 
The price for "real" apps seems to have settled at $9.99 (i.e. apps with full-time developers published by established companies), and my hunch is that it's not because people can't find the $20 apps. Instead, there are just more than twice as many people willing to pay $10 for an app than willing to spend $20, so $10 apps make more money...

As far as the comparisons to $20 blackberry apps, keep in mind that the blackberry is marketed to businesspeople, meaning that blackberry owners often (a) have the cost of the phone/data plan subsidized by their employers and/or (b) use the apps on their blackberry to actually make money. iPhone is a consumer device whose users have to work within consumer spending limits.
 
Why not just make the present app store more appealing by removing the tripe.

Most peeps could get rid of 80% or so without breaking a sweat.

Good start would be to dump everything with an 'i' preifx.
 
koollectablz said:
Why not just make the present app store more appealing by removing the tripe.

Most peeps could get rid of 80% or so without breaking a sweat.

Good start would be to dump everything with an 'i' preifx.
Click to expand...
What stops you from only looking at the Staff Picks in the App Store? Or maybe macrumors.com should clean out the less appealing commenters, that for sure would improve things here.:rolleyes:
 
mkrishnan said:
Are there games on the market worth $20 now? No. That's the whole point. I wouldn't pay $20 for any game I have on my iPhone now.
Click to expand...

Yea, that's the point I was trying to get across, that and I'm kinda excited to see what will be coming that's worth $20!

I'd like to see some more 'developed' apps like the ones you listed.
 
This is one of the stupid-ist and GREEDY-ist ideas I have heard in a long time!

iPhone apps have been selling like hot cakes - because they have been priced EXACTLY RIGHT!

Premium apps should be so called because of QUALITY and NOT by price.

STUPID IDEA APPLE - VERY STUPID IDEA
 
Yeah, wow... Rolando changed prices several times, so it's hard to extrapolate what ngmoco made off it, even if they had sold all the copies at the current US figure of $4.99, their pre-tax take would be about $2.5M USD. Considering it previously sold for substantially more, their take is probably something like... $3-4M (just a guess).

I don't know exactly what this game cost ngmoco to make, but I have a hard time imagining the business case on it wasn't good. This certainly was not a game like a Final Fantasy installment that has a $20M budget.

In this case, Rolando launched at $9.99 and sold quite briskly, with sales sustained by the price drops. Rolando has modest length but excellent quality. Whether the next step up is a game that's 75% longer and costs $15 or a game that's 150% longer and costs $20, I'm not sure, but I'm less than convinced that the App Store has proven that only very brief and poorly conceived games can sell.
 
mkrishnan said:
Yeah, wow... Rolando changed prices several times, so it's hard to extrapolate what ngmoco made off it, even if they had sold all the copies at the current US figure of $4.99, their pre-tax take would be about $12.2M USD.
Click to expand...

Am I missing something here? $4.99 * 700,000 is about $3.5M, right? Where did the $12.2M number come from? I'm guessing I'm just missing something obvious.
 
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