I really wish apple would give developers the ability to "price guarantee" So developers could say "if the app goes on sale in the next 30 days you get a store credit of the price difference". Just as many large retailers do. I personally would buy WAY more apps, since this would stop me from price watching. Agree, disagree? Why has apple not already done this?
Well, I dont really think its completely bad idea. I dont see apple implementing this ever, but still believe this could help encourage more sales. Though I dont want them to pay me the whole difference if a game goes on sale. That would be even more discouraging for devs who are already suffering with poor sales in the first place and forced to put their games on sale for ridiculously low price of 99cents and even free. May be something like if a game goes on sale within 2-3 weeks of your purchase, you get about 50% of the difference back (assuming the difference is atleast 2 dollars) in your iTunes store credit automatically. Appstore price fluctuations is the biggest reason why most (including myself) hesitate to pay anything over 2-3 bucks even if the game is interesting and easily worth the asking price. But there are too many games out there already to keep one busy. Why should I pay 5-10 bucks only to add another game in my collection which I probably wont be playing for more than an hour before it goes on sale. There might be a few exceptions but most of them go on sale. There is no denying this reality. Now this price guarantee probably wont matter when you calculate the actual savings one would make (as it would be too little, and you'll end up spending those savings on more apps anyways) but it will encourage me to buy interesting games without worrying it'll go on sale in a week or two.
I just know I am watching about $100 worth of iPad apps waiting for the price drops. If there was a price guarantee, I would buy these apps, the developers could keep the prices fixed and I would just spend more... with the knowledge I wont feel ripped off later.
Well as a developer this is essentially why we do it (Speaking honestly). At the end of the day the App store is a very very saturated market, we need to maximise revenue to stay afloat... A lot of people are the same and hold out on a $1.99/$2.99 game until a price drop and there are obviously now apps that detect these price drops and indicate it to users... Which has lead to us as developers having 1 day/ weekend sales in order to get the exposure within these apps/ encouraging those with the "glass ceiling" price barrier of $0.99 to buy the game... For our first 3 months on the App store we did not change our prices a great deal, and our sales (though initially strong) always slumped to 0... In comparison now we change our prices semi-regularly and our revenue always increases a little during the sale period. Similarly for some reason putting apps to free causes a spike in sales at the end of the free period (I have no idea why, it seems a bit wrong that you give something away for free for a week, then as soon as you put it back to paid people buy it... but they do from past experimentation). This has lead to websites like FreeAppADay etc... As mentioned the app store is heavily saturated and these sites are a great way to get exposure... So basically to conclude it's ended up being necessary both due to consumer behaviour, and as theres just so many app's to compete with on the store...
This wouldn't be good to developers at all. They already struggle to sell 1000 copies of their games. Apple would never offer the credit themselves, so the credit would have to come from the developers (meaning, they would have to return a chunk of the little money they make).
Retarded. A sale is meant to boost sales, developers WANT you to buy an app at 5$ instead of 2$, so does apple, and honestly, its 3 dollars, i'm SO TIRED of sales gripe when these games on any other platform would be 10$ and much much more
I like the idea, but it'd just be easier to warn people on websites of upcoming sales, so that they don't buy right before a sale if they follow these gaming sites, then possibly have a sort of deal where if you buy the game before hearing about the sale, they could check that you made the purchase of the game, then send you some iTunes credit. Sure, it may be a bit of work, but that's up to the developer. Buyer beware I guess.
