The Teenage App Tycoons

"he was ready to submit The Impossible Game ... to the Xbox Indie marketplace ... Unlike Apple's App Store, this outlet has no corporate gatekeeper - the games are reviewed and rated by the community."

Is that true -- that there's no editorial control of indie games on the Xbox marketplace (except by the "community")? Edit: impressive!

Do you think the $100 + a Mac barrier has been a damper on the crowds of would be teenage app developers?

Good story, but I think many people might miss a key point about the one app-store success described in the story.

When the app was first released in the app store "This was a total failure - the reviews dribbled out, hits on the website were meagre, and it seemed the game might disappear without trace."

The app ended up being very successful and getting to the top of the charts because Apple featured the app in "New and noteworthy" and then in "App of the week".

Great another kid of x years old makes x amount of $ in less than x days story. Where have I read this before. Is there like some kind of book filled with formulas/structures of how articles are to be written where journalists go and be like 'oh this week I'll use this formula and this and this'?

Anyway, the article could be spun in many ways. How about 'The Should Be Teenage Tycoons'... The story of how Apple has shafted true innovative app makers into scraping fractions of their apps true worth on the jailbroken market, and how the only real success come when Apple decides to select/feature your app.

> he's done what many British stars have failed to achieve - he's made it big in America.

Good article. Common thread is these teenagers are letting the market decide the value of their work.