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Shareware Amateurs Vs. Shareware Professionals?
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamedev.net article called 'Shareware Amateurs Vs. Shareware Professionals'. The article, by shareware game developer Steve Pavlina, starts: "Why is it that some shareware developers seem to be hugely successful in financial terms, growing their sales from scratch to generate tens of thousands of dollars in income, while the vast majority struggle to generate even a handful of sales? The answer can be found by exploring the difference in mindsets between both groups."
Well...
I must say I disagree with most of the stuff presented in the article. Let's take a look at two examples.
WinZip: I bought WinZip (way back when they were NicoMak Computing) because it was a good product. It was (and I think still is) a solid product with an intuitive interface. Basically, I bought this product because it the developers knew its role. WinZip is a means to an end (unzipping files), not the end itself. Now I'm not sure, but I don't think that WinZip 1.0 had a 200-strong developer team behind it, or even what Mr. Pavlina would call a "Shareware Professional."
mIRC: (Yes, I'm a Windows user.) I purchased a license for mIRC because it's a good product, and, for my purposes, "best in show" for IRC clients.
So what's the moral of this post? People (me, my mother, joe user, whomever) buy software because (they percieve that) it's the best in it's particular field.
Not to say that Mr. Pavlina's article doesn't hit on some good points; namely, that developers need to improve their products as a whole and not just improve "what they're good at" (design, programming, what have you). But seriously, something that was lacking in this article was the fact that, if you want to make money on software, you have to actually make software that does its job well, and that the end-user can actually use.
Then again, I could be full of hot air.
An amateur is defined as someone that is either not as skilled as a professional or someone that engages in a particular activity as a hobby rather than a profession. Amateur works are frequently (but not always) constructed more poorly than professional works, but there are certainly exceptions. And in general the entire shareware market is seen as an amateurâ(TM)s field with professionals not deigning to sink so low (this is a market perspective really, not necessarily my own).
The linked to article fails to address any new or particularly interesting aspects of shareware development and as a whole contains a lot of rather flame inducing, silly, generalizations. He should have called it, "Lazy and Ignorant Shareware Authors vs Motivated and Knowledgeable Shareware Authors." Of course then there would have been little point in writing the rest of the article.
Not all amateurs are lazy and mercurial.
Not all "professionals" are smart, savvy, and dedicated.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
The answer can be found by exploring the difference in mindsets between both groups
The answer can be found by realising that some people release great software and do well, and others release crap software and do badly.
It should be noted that Mr. Pavlina only cites his own experience in the article. Since I don't have a business or economics background, I couldn't begin to agree or disagree on his points. However, his lack of comparative figures, that is, citing other shareware successes and failures based on his criteria, makes his process more of an opinion than a thesis. I'd be negligent if I based my entire shareware concept on this. However, it is thought-provoking. This looks like a great concept for an series of Slashdot interviews of shareware professionals, whom I will classify as those who sell their own shareware as their primary source of income.
This brings me to a larger point. Everyone who scratches an itch on Windows releases the corresponding tool for $25 as shareware. Then they discover that noone buys their product. Just take a look at the archiver section of TUCOWS. A million different GUI's for zip, all shareware. What exactly do the authors expect? They cannot compete with WinZip on features and generally their user interface is even worse. If I had to buy an archiver, I would buy WinZip. A $10 saving over WinZip is not going to make me buy something with no reputation whatsoever.
Most software today except games is shareware anyway. You can get time-limited demos for pretty much anything that does not come from Microsoft. So what does "shareware" offer that regular commercial software does not? All I see is having to go through 20 crappy programs on TUCOWS to find one that may be slightly useful. And then having the author abandon it a month later.
Give me proprietary software or Free Software anytime.
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When did time-limited demos and crippled products become "shareware?"
And I kind of agree with the title, too. To me, a professional is someone who not only knows a lot something, but also uses that knowledge to earn a living (e.g. a pro photographer). An amateur is a person, who does something as a hobby, as pointed out by another poster. IMHO, a shareware developer, who fits the "amateur" characteristics described by the article's author, will have a hard time earning much from their work, and most likely not enough to sustain themselves, thus falling into the amateur bin (ok ok, let's call it the "unsuccessful pro" bin, if it makes you feel better).
That issue aside, I think the author has hit a lot of nails on the head there. When I compare myself and my lofty business ideas with those of my brother-in-law, then look at where I am and where he is, there is no doubt which one of us is a pro. What amateur like me must realize is that there is a way to become pro, and Steve Pavlina outlines the stepping stones to get us on our way. Focus. Drive. Determination. Perserverance. Diversity. Research. Goals. Deadlines. Discipline. All those good things that we really don't like to do unless absolutely necessary. Try it. Find a role model. You'll see. I already have mine.
Have EVDO, will travel.
Why would the editors put this in the game section? Just because the article is on gamedev.net?
Does anybody have an educated guess about the amount of computer enthusiasts whow rite shareware versus the "professionals"?
Somehow I've never really thought of "professional" shareware developing as a means of living. I mean, if you are truly "professional", you probably write uhm.. "professional" software. Then again, it does make some sense to me. I think that this is one of the ways some former "non-professional" shareware programmers evolve into renowned, "professional" software companies.
greetings,
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I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Am I the only person who found this deeply insulting. It basically seems to say that either you are a professional marketer, or some kind of brain-dead paranoid retard... Isn't is possible to write good software and have it sell without huge amounts of thought about marketing (which is what seems to have happened with mIRC for example)
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
I don't like WinZip either, and find Aladdin's DropZip and Expander to be much more usable. In fact, I don't find WinZip to be significantly better than the free WiZ front-end to Info-ZIP. It seems to me that WinZip is a classic example of marketing over quality; somehow they've marketed to the stage where everyone "knows" that WinZip is the way to unzip zip files.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Yeah, I know, GUIs are for lazy people. The world is full of lazy people. Deal with it!
You seem all hung up on the terms amateur and professional. I took them simply to mean "amateurish" and "demonstrating mastery", and I think he did a great job of contrasting the two ends of the continuum.
I'm grateful for the advice.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."