Hacker News Reader

Comment by ja27 | Hacker News Reader

The app was released seven days ago. I'd say 200,000 * 0.67% * $2.99 ($4,000-ish) is a nice first week for an indie game. Now I guess I know how I can get Penny Arcade to feature my next app.

http://appshopper.com/games/gasketball

http://www.appannie.com/app/ios/gasketball/ranking/history/#...

View on HN

What? All that whining over one week? Sounded like it's been out there for months! Of course conversion rates are low - users haven't played thru the free content yet!

This is really gonna sour sympathy for future stories of actual failures.

If I'm right, this was a fantastic job of link-bait. Users, especially parents, hate in-app purchases. But that's the way the app market has gone for now. So far I've been able to resist but except for educational apps (schools have the worst time paying for IAPs), I'll likely be doing a lot of freemium apps. So this hits a sweet spot to vent hate for IAPs and the freemium model. Great job guys.

Users hate in-app purchases

Yup. For what little it's worth, "IAP" is a big red flag to me, a warning that the "free" app will prove annoying and/or expensive. I'll usually not download any with it, having learned the hard way (right or wrong) that at these prices it's better to pay the couple bucks up front and get the full clean app, than get "free" and have to wrangle with brokenness and intrusive ads and still end up having to pay.

Sounds pretty dysfunctional. Surely, being able to try something for free before buying it is a positive thing? A shame that it's being done badly then.

I've noticed a lot of games in the Mac App Store are starting to have a single "unlock full game" IAP. These I really like. The good ones have enough content to show the nature of the game, get me hooked on the mechanics or story and lead directly into the single unlock.

It's a classic shareware model and results in my willingness to pay more for games because there's much less risk. The good ones also are very explicit in the description on the App Store that it is a first level/trial with IAP.

I find it to be very consumer friendly.

Like old school shareware, where you got the first episode to play through and then could purchase the rest of the game for a small fee.

As for the guy's situation it sounds like they need some more nag screens and easier ways of sending them money. (Well it is currently a lot easier than the old days of shareware, no envelopes to fill out, just a button to press.

Uh, wow. This seems to be entirely true, which makes the article outrageously misleading.

That's a less than ideal launch if you've failed to monetize it properly, but obviously that was nowhere near the cause of homelessness.

Whoa, yeah. These guys have the #2 free iPad app and have been gained in sales rank every day the game has been available.

Freaking out because conversion rate on their IAP is lower than expected seems a little premature. If they keep getting 30k installs a day, they will end up with plenty of options for monetizing the thing.

You have to keep in mind that, traditionally, app sales basically halve week on week for the first month or so, and then hit a plateau. You basically make all your money in the first month (or two, if youre really lucky). So, if i was in their shoes i'd rightly be worried: they'll likely make 2000 next week, 1000 the week after, and so on. They'll be lucky to make 10k out of this, which is great but not life-sustaining for a team of two in the first world.

Of course i'm talking trends, not real numbers here, so don't nitpick the specific numbers i've made up here please.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com