guys.. seriously.. this is a great business model. do you think you get your adverts for free when you browse the web? someone has to pay for them so they appear - google does a very similar thing. ICS mobile is simply offering a marketing service to developers.. marketing costs money. it costs money to host and develop a website that will hopefully attract users - as a developer; you pay to have your application listed - it is no different from using google adwords. the good news is that this site is dedicated to iphone / ipod touch viewers - they dont pay to view the listings, they are offering a plate of information for the users to see what is available. if you don't like it, don't use it.
I think it's said that for a while the reason I don't like this is because appventcalender showed a great amount of unity of indie devs helping each other rise up in the ranks. It was not made to be a huge money making platform for blacksmith games but only to get their names out there to try and become well known.
The reason you don't like this is because it isn't Appvent Calendar. It uses the same concept, so in your mind you've made the assumption that because they look and function similarly on the outside, they're similar on the inside, and they're not. I'm not advocating for ICS here, but let's be clear about why this is a good or bad idea and try to avoid personal bias. To be sure, ICS is certainly riding on Appvent Calendar's coattails by trying to channel its success into his own in using a similar model, and outwardly there's a little bit of bait-and-switch going on from the perspective of the users because of that perceived connection between the two. That the terms weren't spelled out clearly from day one struck some people as shady, and I can understand that. Appvent Calendar had a certain degree of altruism to it; indie devs banding together to help promote one another and give each other some much needed visibility. FAAD is about the money, and the change in perception from Appvent Calendar-like unity to a commercial venture because those terms weren't spelled out in plain sight made it look like ICS was trying to hide them in order to maintain that air of altruism conveyed upon it by its perceived connection to Appvent Calendar. I don't think this was deliberate, but it was a mistake not to be up front about everything from day one, and I think ICS knows this now.
About 10 months ago there were 30k apps.. now there are close to 30k developers. http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/?mpage=appcount Number of Active Publishers in the US App Store: 29,340
isn't that what they said about Java? i think some day Apple will have to segment the iPhone developer market up - and possible relinquish control of the distribution. the market is already saturated with people trying to make a quick buck. if you bring diversity into your platform support - then you have a chance of surviving. keep your costs down is the most important thing.
Vovin, The Customer There will be churches built all over the world by iPhone developers, to worship you, Vovin The Customer
Speaking of selling and marketing, I don't suppose Freeappaday will sell the emails of those who signed up for notification services to third parties? There's usually some kind of notification if an email will remain private or not. Since details have been less than forthright, I'm guessing not.
Thanks for pointing out our shortcomings! Emails will of course remain private, I'll ask the guys to insert the disclaimer ASAP and also THERE WON'T BE ANY BANNER ADS ON THE SITE, the site is set up to promote iPhone developers and iPhone developers only!
what i find funny is that people don't see it cleary that this promo website is there for one reason. to generate money for the company that is behind it. if they receive 1,2k per app its more than 400.000$ !!! per year. even if you cut that by half and throw in a few freebies and 600positions its more than 200.000?! yeah sure thats the amount to compensate for the hard work and huge staff that necessary to run this excuse of an website.. i'm sure there are 10 guys running all day round in a office just to maintain the website. all the enourmous content that is generatet there, all the articles of the dozens editors typing interesting articles.. oh wait.. they just list one app a day. well then its 10 of them sitting in front of one keyboard each one allowed to strike one key after each other.. sorry, but this seems to me like , pardon my french, bullshit. its seems like an effective way to earn money by doing not much at all. at the end of the day is the actualy developer who creats the app and gives it away for free. this page is there to generate money, and if by accident gives the advertising developer a boost in sales, good, if not who cares as long as there are enough devs in line to throw their cash into their directions. at the end of the day i couldn't care less, its just another business, like website wanting money for reviews. but what i dislike is the tone this website started, like its doing something generous to the indie developers, where its not. someone managed to use someone elses idea and slap a price tag on it.. wow, way to go!
30 days x $20 = $600. For $600, what other site allows developers to have an icon with a link to their game on the homepage for a month that has 4,300+ followers on twitter and is ranked higher by alexa.com? http://twitter.com/freeappaday http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/freeappaday.com#trafficstats
I'd be more interested to see how RnF2's sales are afterwards quite frankly since that was most likely the biggest reason for them to decide to go free for this service. To promote the sequel. Also you would need to wait 30 days to truly get a feel for how well a game did or not. Reading through this thread has made my head hurt a bit honestly, I see both sides to the story but in the end Freeappaday.com is well within their rights ( maybe not promoting on TA but in general ) to charge. If you dont like the service dont use it! I dont understand what the problem is, devs can ALWAYS just make their app free themselves right? So why would you need freeappaday.com services anyway? Oh cause of traffic? lol I mean you are paying for advertising. If you dont want it dont buy it it seems quite simple. It reminds me of gambling at a Casino, people always risk lots of money to hit it big and they are WILLING to risk their money to hit it big, there might be a small chance they will win but they are WILLING to do so. This seems no different there may be a small chance they get good sales outta doing this but they are WILLING to take the gamble. Theres alway the chance they take a look at your other games or future games, tell a friend etc. Also its a new service if devs see its not turning profit for them less devs will be inclined to do it I'm sure some devs will keep track of other games successes or failures. If less devs are interested in paying that much they will lower their prices. But as long as the demand is there they will continue to charge. So far you've seen games like RnF and RoS older games that have sequels it certainly seems like a good idea on their parts as a promo for their newer games hopefully. Also the Kart Racing game that was on there only had a partial free single player part of the game and Im sure they got many sales of the online portion of the game through DLC. All that said I dont think ICS is very morale ( or very mature by some of his posts but I do think at least hes explained himself if in a very politicians way ) but heck theres alot of businesses ( and alot of politicians ) that aren't, it doesn't seem like its much work on there part if they are raking in 20k a month from this service from offering other peoples free games but again, they are not forcing anyone to use their service, they aren't stopping you from making your game free on your own or creating your own free service if you dont like them.
Charging money for using a FREE app as an exposure generator is not right. You just don't calculate a value based on what benefits it would potentially generate after having provided your service. In any business, you calculate a service's price based on the duration of this service. Here, basically, the app won't generate any money at all during the service, but the service will generate tons of dollars (600$ versus free = infinity, technically). It's exactly similar to trainees over-exploitation : Some enterprises don't pay the trainee but ask them a maximum investment, claiming that it is a benefit for their CV. This is literraly called Dream Selling, and that's not right, imho. That's my personal opinion, though.
Do you guys honestly believe there will be 365 days at $600 each? Right. I wouldn't bank on that one. There will be 10-20 takers, and after no results, the word will spread around.
I don't see what the big deal is. You aren't required to use the site, right? Don't like it? Don't use their service. It is beyond my comprehension that developers, trying to sell something, expect a service for free. I'm not saying you should sign up for this service, or that it is a good deal (doesn't seem it to me), but I am saying that you can't expect something (exposure) for nothing. The anti-piracy group posters on here, especially, should take a moment to reflect.
@jonlink: I find it absolutely fine to pay money to TouchArcade to advertise one of my games. They have good traffic and they can expose my game to their audience, for a fee. Win-Win deal. FAAD gets their audience because of my game being offered for free there. Without developers offering free games, there would be ZERO visitors on FAAD. They get traffic because of my game. Why should I pay? In the past 8 years I have done a lot of deals like FAAD. It meant offering one of our PC games for free on a certain site for 24 hours, or being included on the cover CD of a magazine. We got PAID to offer our game for free. People went to that site or bought the magazine because there was our free game.
I just want to repeat that I'm not saying it is a good deal. It sounds bad. But it doesn't seem like there is anything immoral or underhanded about what he's doing. I completely understand and agree with you about everything except for the outrage some folks seem to be displaying. EDIT Just for perspective. Look in the app store. Some of the apps carry a high price tag and offer almost nothing or are way inferior to lower priced apps. They are a waste of money. Consumers who buy those apps will walk away feeling cheated, but so long as there wasn't any false advertising it was really just a bad choice on their part. "The Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary" is to me, what FAAD is to you. I encourage you not to make my mistake. As disappointed as I was in the dictionary and the value I got for my money, there is no moral point to argue.
