As your buying an app, does your money go to Apple or the developer? I am wondering this, as I am often buying apps, where does my money go to?
When Square get you to buy a 15 dollar game, Apple gets 4 dollars and 50 cents, or so. Square gets 10.50. On a one dollar game, Apple gets 30 cents. Same goes for IAP.
The money actually goes to Apple, who then pay us out once a month at 70% of whatever they took in. (That's why the developers can't do refunds directly, we don't have the tools to do it.)
I think Apple got too much, so bad. May it's a lot cheaper than tranditional game platform, but IOS device is far from a pure gaming system. They'd already make a lot from the hardware to be the biggest company in the world. The company shouldn't grab money from developers any more.
Apple have money overflowing from their anuses. Or is it AnI They have no right taking such a considerable slice of developers hard earned money. Developers struggle enough as it is. Developers are what makes apple desirable. If it wasn't for apps, I probably would have saved myself the money and bought an android. Apps and games are probably the number one selling point to apple. Apple should not sh*t where they eat. Without devs, they wouldn't be as successful. Every time they hold an event to announce a new apple product they ALWAYS say "we have this many apps on the AppStore" then compares it to google, etc. It's one of their biggest marketing points, devs are doing them a favor and apple still needs to rob them. Alot of devs make one game, then never return, they run far from the hills when they realize how hard it is to even make enough money to cover your basic expenses and game development costs. If apple continues the way it is, one day there probably won't be indie devs, the market will only consist of chillingo, game loft, rovio etc pumping out mindless clones yet still getting rich because with enough PR they could sell ice to eskimoes. It's all about PR these days, unique concepts go un-noticed Since apple have hoards of cash that even if every employee of apple had unlimited access to apple funds to buy whatever their hearts desire, mansions and boats, lamborginis and Shetland ponies, the money woud never run out, (within reason, ie an employee can't just transfer a trillion dollars into the bank, it has to be spent and you cant be multiples of the same item like hundred mansions etc) even if they bought hundreds of mansions each they'd still probably be an abundance of money. Apple should make it's own developer team, made up of the best game concept artists, graphic designers, coders, etc from past big companies like nintendo etc. They should have a team of like 200 people just working on iOS games every day, after a few months of starting a bunch of projects and splitting into teams, they could probably start releasing a game weekly, it'll get heaps of exposure as the official apple game of the week, and they could make high quality, lasting games that would actually attract hardcore gamers to use apple. It'd be hugely beneficial but apple are racist against gamers, they don't give a crap anyway, they'd rather take every other devs money instead.
Apple isn't the bad guy...And developers, if they think Apple is evil, can choose to develop a game for another platform. It is the same percentage on Android as well so I guess that makes Google evil, too?
Well I find Apple pretty cheap. for 30% (+100$ annual subscriptionh) they handle the transaction fee, the customer support, the validation process and the server. They also developp the software for it. And when you make a free app, it probably cost them money. The problem is that they accept too much crappy/spam app now. When user search an app with keywords, they find +99% of crappy app, and 1% good app. Of course developper spending at least 2 or 3 month to make an app (more than 12 months for me) are in competition with app made in one day with misleading screenshot... Apple still fighting with numbers against google, that's why they accept all types of app, even bad one. Until they made a more restrictive selection of app (at least forbide the ones made in one day), and improved discoverability (don't always show the same top 25), the applestore will stay the kingdom of spamer and big corporate.
They take 70% of mine. (Although their subsystems are so pirate friendly it's probably fairer to say they largely give my games away.)
On the point about Apple robbing the developers... If Apple didn't make iOS, the developers wouldn't have this market of millions of users to sell a product to. Developers should be thanking Apple.
Read this: http://mikamobile.blogspot.com.br/2011/06/android.html BTW, nobody forces one to develop for iOS.
before the app store most of us little mobile developers used to have to go through publishers who would take your pants down and spank you for 60%. I'm eternally grateful to apple for giving us smaller guys a fighting chance at making a living doing something we love.
