I don't know about you, but when I pay good money for a quality game then find that it has gone free within a couple of weeks I feel really peeved off. This makes me want to take the crap out of the developer for giving away what they worked hard at for nothing in return, however this might be considered offensive to some people so I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread where people can release their anger/frustratione at developers being silly enough to offer a high-quality product for free. Developers might not want to read this thread in case they are one of the many who will get reprimanded. At the moment I'm really annoyed at bit pilot, tilt to live and skullpogo developers, all of which I paid good money for and think that they were well worth it v
You might wanna look into this latest thread: (edit: thanks, Coldar. Correct link is now online) http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?threadid=58464
Its called marketing strategy. With tons of other games available the developer decides to promote their game by releasing it as a free game for a limited time thereby giving it more exposure. This has come to be expected and has been in practice for quite some time now. I can understand where your coming from but devs need to make $ off their games and this a viable option. (Vovin.......the link is locked.....for me anyways).
In my opinion, i see absolutely no advantages for putting your game free except for getting another of your games recognized. Potential buyers will just feel lucky and get it for free. people who were not going to buy it. might still get it for free.People that miss the chance to get it for free will now feel unstable about buying it in case it goes free again. you make no money but loose customers, unless you want to get recognition for another game, in which it's a pretty good idea. why did tilt to live go free seriously, it's an awesome game that should be paid for. i would have paid for that game many times over.
I feel its good for sequals or if your sales are bad. Some games benefit (BB went free two times & is still saling) others not so much. Lots of games that go free (tilt to live, plushed, iblast moki) I didn't have my touch at release or i didn't have the credit.
price drops grr... I think if they want to get their game's name out they should make it free on release for a few days then increase the price. Not after I bought it, and unless the game is waay overpriced I don't see a need for to screw over early buyers... They should make it so if the price goes down in a week or two after you bought it you should only be charged for what the price goes down to.
So by your logic every new piece of clothing, electronics, anything should be free the first whatever number of days for fear of a sale. Sales happen. And when do sales happen? When the excitement wears off, to encourage more buyers, to remind people of the product. Not BEFORE the product is released for crying out loud! If you really want an app, then expect to pay the premium price. If you don't want it that badly, wait and watch the price. Simple. If you buy it and it goes on sale hopefully you got your buck's worth of enjoyment out of it before the sale. If not, well don't buy a Pepsi/water/coffee the next day to save a buck.
Ahhhhhhh tilt to live developers better watch outttttttttttttt i ammmmmmmmm comingggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAR
Exactly, you could pay 20 dollars for a steak dinner or you could rummage for scraps in the dumpster around back for free.
Well imagine if you bought Burnball back when it was they were charging $30 for it and then not only 3 days later "SURPRISE! ITS NEW PRICE IS $1!!!! ENJOY!" EDIT: And really I have no fear of getting screwed on a electronic because they most likely wont go down and if they do it will be at least a year before it happens and if it does happen oh well at least it wasn't in three days after i bought it. BUT wait! If it did happen within two weeks after I bought it I can take back the receipt and get the difference back in cold hard cash! And clothing I don't care much about anyways, I am still wearing cheap shirts you get in a 5 pack for like $10 for over 2 years and they are still going strong! EDIT #2: And really they should only be allowed to do a intro price to encourage people to buy... If after a long time they can reduce the price or do a sale and by a long time I mean not 2 days after release.
Well then your beef is with the Apple store itself and its policies. They allow the devs to set their prices, change them, increase, decrease, set release dates, everything pretty much after approval. So unless Apple wanted to police more then this is what you get.
This is a tad ridiculous. Apps drop in price all the time. There's no way to know when it's going to go down. Yes, sometimes you get screwed, that's just the way it goes. You didn't pay "good money", you likely paid five dollars ($2 for Tilt to Live, $1 for Bit Pilot, $2 for SkullPogo) and then the apps went free. It's not like you paid fifteen bucks for each app and it goes free an hour later. Look, I know you're frustrated, but there's nothing to be done about it. Developers need to make money to live and to make money they need to publicize their app. For the future I would recommend taking a look at some of the app bargain sites out there, there are some really good ones. As for the marketing value of free apps, the value comes from people talking about the app. You make an app free, and it gets discussed on blogs and forums, and then more and more people are interested. This is the point where many developers go wrong. I see how an app is "free for a day", get bummed because I think I missed it, and 9/10 times it's still free even past the 24 hour time limit. I don't really think it's helpful to keep it free for an extra amount of time, as you might as well make a new marketing campaign. Anyway, if done right, then people like me are going to miss the free period. It's now when you make the app cost something, but not much, like a dollar. Even though they missed the event they can still buy it for less and will be motivated to. In addition, you'll get good karma with the customers. They'll tell their friends about the event and the friends will later buy the app. Note: I'm not a developer but it makes sense to me.
I feel like every five minutes someone makes a thread complaining about...anything. My advice: Cry about it somewhere else.
Ya know what I dont like your tone. Im gonna make a thread about me not liking your attitude. Hmph that will show you!!
Why don't some of you measure the value of your games by the weight of time that you spent playing them, instead of the monetary amount by which they dropped? I'm sure anyone who played and loved Tilt To Live has no regrets dishing out two dollars for it. It's a different story if you buy an app and don't like it, only to see it go free later on - THAT I can understand. But i'm sure most of us who buy games here (usually) make informed decisions about investing in them... (right)?
