All I would add is that it would be nice if you got at least a 7-10 day price guarantee. If you buy an app and the price drops the next day, you should get the discount. Most retail stores have this type of policy, and it would make those on the fence more likely to buy.

As for the Spore game, I paid full price and played it off and on for about a week and it has been sitting on my home screen since. (I have had it since it launched).

It runs well and I haven't had a problem getting it to do what it is made to do as far as controls go. Do I think its worth 7.99? not really. There's only like 20 levels or something and if you are looking for a creature creator like the PC version than you will be sorely disappointing.

I've always been of the assumption that the people who complain about app pricing are the same who normally torrent music and movies illegally. Obviously these people have never noticed that when DVDs are released they're around $30 (in Australia), but drop to $25-$20 a couple of weeks later. Within a year or so they're in the $10 throwout bin.

Let's face it, if you go to the movies it costs about $10. If the movies crap do you ask for your many back? Seriously guys.

I think Appstore pricing is great.

I like that they've made it so you have to buy an app to review it.

The devs have worked out that the cheaper something is, the more buy it...

It'll all work out.

Does no one realize that for a quality X-BOX game, you pay SIXTY dollars?

If you're complaining about a crappy X-box game for SIXTY dollars, go ahead and b!tch all you want, but when you cry about wasting 4 bucks on a bad app because you ignored reviews and didn't bother to go on youtube and find footage of the gameplay, you really are a cynical and cheap person. It especially ticks me off when an ADULT complains about blowing 5 bucks. If you are an ADULT, that can afford the $100 per month iphone plan (Or has a several hundred dollar itouch), even working at minimum wage ($7.xx - $8.xx ish), surely you can afford a $5 app?!?!?!?!?!

Ok, my rant is over

- One way to fix the situation is for Apple to reduce the number of price segments, and to implement a policy that limits the content providers' ability to change their pricing to, say, once per month. If that were to happen, there'd be complaints about Apple stifling the free market...

- A major cause for the price drops is hobbyist developers who aren't really trying to make a living from their apps. There are hundreds of games from nightstand coders who can afford to drop the price below one dollar, because for them it's all profit. The situation is different for indies and big publishers.

- Big publishers don't have that much of a problem setting their price to the high segment of App Store games. Their games don't even seem to need demos, as people are always willing to buy branded games. Many of the branded games are simply ports from games that are available on other mobile phones.

- Small indie studios are caught in a difficult situation. They need their games to sell in order to pay the wages, and because App Store is flooded with dozens of new games almost daily, the only way to get buyers' attention seems to be through price drops. It remains to be seen if this is a viable strategy, or if indies will be forced out, or start making smaller and smaller games. Don't think any of the developers actually want to lower their prices. Some of them simply have no choice.

- At the same time, there's something to be said for the internet drama queens as well. Nobody's forcing a buyer to spend their dollars before reading a couple of reviews, so blaming the developer after making an impulse purchase that didn't meet the expectations is hypocritical and a troubling sign of a twisted perspective.

- Likewise, complaining about price drops when something that already cost about the same as a sandwich comes down a dollar or two... Can you really, honestly, say you feel cheated? Quite the contrary, you should congratulate yourself for being one of the few who agreed with the developer about the value of the application! You are the reason they might actually be encouraged to scale their games up in the future, as opposed to cutting them down to $2 tilt-sensor gimmicks.

- Remember, the big decision makers hate taking risks, and with the way the App Store is behaving right now, it is not encouraging publishers to bring in bigger games when the games that sell the most cost around $2. You get what you pay for, and what you buy now influences what you get in the future.

express the retail price, and sales periods
out of respect to my customers, cause as a customer, i hate buying an app, then having a huge discount hours later which has forced me, as a customer...to hold out on buying initially

The app store is a mess, its starting to remind me of the financial markets. I can't believe I'm saying this but this up/down pricing ambiguity in the App Store is causing me second guess purchases. I think it would be better if the devs started selling the app at a discount and stipulated a time frame than upped the price to a retail value.

\than again what do I know, my degree (in 3 months hopefully!) is in Telecommunications/Networking