Top 1% of iOS Game Developers Make a Third of All Revenue

donniebaseball23 writes "The top one percent of iOS game developers earn over a third of the gaming revenue made on the App Store, according to a new survey of iOS developers. The survey, set up by Canadian indie developer Owen Goss, found that the bottom 80 percent of iOS developers are splitting a mere three percent of all App Store game revenue."

Comments

top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Hazel Bergeron]

News at 11.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Apple makes roughly a third of the revenue. The top 1% make closer to a quarter of the revenue.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[msauve]

Quick! We have to tax them, so they pay their fair share!

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[ShakaUVM]

>>If 1% making 25% isn't "large amount" then, erm, I guess you were brought up to Reaganomics.

Obviously we need to tax these "iOS fat cats" and send some of their profits to the poorer developers, eh comrade!

Developers of fart apps, rejoice! We will eliminate the iOS income inequality once and for all!

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they have to pay tax when we have chosen to build a society where money is a requirement to survive. I didn't make that choice. You pay a percentage of your income, so you really can approach unlimited profit if you want to be a rich motherfucker, and by mother I mean the country or the earth.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Surt]

Seems like it would be reasonable to charge more successful apps more for distribution.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Dr_Barnowl]

How would it be reasonable? You would effectively be punishing the success of those who made your app store a success. "Hey, screw you guys. You brought us more revenue than the rest of those schmucks, so we're gonna stick it to you real good."

It would actually be more reasonable to charge less (as a percentage) - a lot of the overhead of providing an app store is fixed cost and doesn't scale with the number of downloads you provide.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[MemoryDragon]

Well it is also the situation of production value. If you look at the app store, then you have 100 clones of one existing successful program, with myriads of developers trying to cash in on the same concept.
Those really getting money are either ones

a) with very high production value
b) with a very good concept and good implementation which has not been cloned to death

Its as easy and as hard as that. I just wonder who is constantly buying all the canabald clones all the zombie shooter clones and hidden object games which come out a dime a dozend every week?
Obviously someone must do it otherwise they would not come out anymore.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Karmashock]

I know, right... The first thing I thought when I saw this headline was the class warriors were going jump all over this...

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Anonymous Coward]

actually i believe the maker of fartapps already belongs to the top 1%

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[king neckbeard]

you forgot c) with a good marketing team or a well known brand

Also, the existence of said clones doesn't mean anybody is buying them. but rather, that some developers THINK somebody will buy them.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[maxume]

It's a threadjack complaining about the framing of the summary, not someone quibbling with you.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[iamhassi]

It would actually be more reasonable to charge less (as a percentage) - a lot of the overhead of providing an app store is fixed cost and doesn't scale with the number of downloads you provide.

That's how most places do it, the more you make the less the percentage they take is. Like Paypal, once you have over $10,000 a month in sales they lower the percentage they take from each sale. Kind of an incentive to get to that level.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[icebraining]

Unlike in real life, (most) iOS developers actually start in equal standing, so the distribution is fair.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[MemoryDragon]

Yes, and generally the situation is really bad, you really have to look hard to find real gems, like for instance Avadon.
Those games make their money, but the possible target audience have a hard time to find them. Instead you constantly either see
a) Another hidden object game
b) another physics puzzle variation of the same game
c) another even worse canabalt clone
d) another 2d zombie shooter
e) another bad tower of defense game

That does not mean iOS has not a really good games, but they are drowned in ripoff shovelware.
The same probably goes for apps as well, but I have my eye simply more on games.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[kj_kabaje]

OTOH: a new or indie developer would have a harder time making money thus stifling innovation.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[sycodon]

Surt is just advocating Obamanomics.

Come, get on board and pay "your fair share". You don't want to be the Eviiiiil rich do you?

What's up with you and the success thing anyway? Don't you believe in Social Justice?

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[PopeRatzo]

Apple makes roughly a third of the revenue.

But their the job creators!

Oh wait, wrong discussion. Excuse me...

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[AmberBlackCat]

If you're trying to compare this to the United States tax system then you're doing it wrong. You would have to start with a situation in which the 1% that is making all the money only has to share 1% of its revenue with Apple, while the 80% in the middle has to share 30% of its revenue, and the 80% is complaining that everybody should have to pay the 30%.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Moryath]

Indeed. We should kind of expect this sort of behavior.

Of course we also should expect that a small percentage of iOS developers are making a large chunk of the iOS store revenue, since there's so much goddamn shovelware clogging up the iOS store...

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Obviously we need to tax these "iOS fat cats" and send some of their profits to the poorer developers, eh comrade!

You clearly completely miss the purpose of tax. The tax must obviously go to the "poorer" non-developers.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a difficult argument to make. There are always a 1,000 "indie developers" for each successful one. The problem is that most are pumping out garbage, not that they're being scared off by high payment processing and distribution costs.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[CapnStank]

Not really? They're thriving at the rate they're charging now. Having that the "lower bound" of their costs wont push people away unless they get hung up on the figurative value of what they "could" make.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[msauve]

You could at least not be so obvious when making up numbers.

In the US, for 2008 (the last year data is available for), the top 1% of earners (those making more than $380K AGI) paid 38% of all income taxes, paying at a rate of 23%. Those in the bottom 50% of earnings (<$33K AGI), paid 2.7% of the total, at a rate of 2.6%. Those in the "UMC," making $67-114K, (between the 10 and 25th percentiles), paid 16% of the total, at a rate of 9%.

Source - http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[jmorris42]

Oh no they don't. I somehow suspect Activision has a few more development resources than some guy in his Mom's basement plinking away on an old Macbook. The great thing was that for a brief moment, just as the App Store think took flight, the guy in the basement had an advantage of faster time to market without the layers of corporate BS. But that window is now closing. Now you need marketing budgets and stuff to break through the noise of a million other apps and the advantage again swings back to the big development houses.

And even individual devels vary greatly. Equality is a myth. Equality before the law is all we should even be teaching as a goal.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[jmorris42]

Um, no. In America the top 1% pay 38% of all Income Tax and a really huge percentage of all revenue the government takes in from the other taxes that mostly hit the wealthy such as the Alternative Minimum Tax Capital Gains, Estate, etc . The top 50% supply 97% of all personal tax revenue to the Federal Governent. The bottom half pay 3%. Most in the bottom half come out ahead, even factoring in FICA due to the Earned Income Tax Credit and other income redistribution schemes.

So since you didn't know any of this I give you a pass for thinking the rich aren't paying 'their fair share.' But I must ask you, and any other Progs reading, to once and for all go on the record and tell me what you think 'their fair share' should be. Stop the talking points and demagoguery and put a real number on it. What percentage of a persons income, no matter how rich, no matter if earned or trust fund baby, OR total wealth, do you think YOU are entitled to have redistributed away from them. Or even more bluntly, what percentage of a person's labor is their own and to what extent are they your slave?

If you don't like my slavery formulation you are welcome to propose another.. if you can. Yes the State has a legit power to tax but only for the legitimate objects of government, defense, public works and infrastructure, courts, etc.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Altus]

Ah and here is the problem, we are looking at gross revenue. It is a bad thing that Activision brings in on a game than one guy working out of his home office in his spare time. Sure, sometimes that one guy makes something awesome, but then he ends up being one of the most successful games and that is great for him.

Acitivision on the other hand, might make more money selling those $5-10 games but they spent a lot more developing them and their margins might even be lower than some of the one man operations that do actually make good games.

For this to mean anything you really need to look at the net profit.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[VGPowerlord]

Given that the top selling game for iOS is "another physics puzzle variation of the same game," this is well ingrained into the mobile culture.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[cdrguru]

You have to understand that the attraction of the idea of "income redistribution" is that I should be able to get stuff because I want it.

If there are evil rich people that are oppressing the downtrodden majority, then we should simply rise up and take everything from them. It is simple - if you are rich your fair share is 100%. If you aren't rich, then your fair share is 0%. Of course, the definition of "rich" changes as needs change.

There is a little problem with this idea. Once you have enough assets you are no longer tied to a day-to-day existence at the behest of a boss. Not only can you quit your day job, but you can move to a comfortable shack in Rio for the rest of your life. We're not talking about people with a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars here, but people with not much more than a couple of million. What exactly is the cost of living in Rio today? Costa Rica? A nice quite corner of Mexico on the coast?

Make things uncomfortable enough for the "rich" and the rich will be looking elsewhere.

So it is going to take a fine balancing act to maintain the idea of the evil rich not adequately supporting the underachievers and making sure things do not go too far. Absolutely some on the left would be fine with a pogram as has happened many times in history - three prime examples are the French Revolution, the Chinese revolution and the Khmer Rouge. In all of these cases the "rich" were killed in mass numbers simply because the less fortunate thought this was their ticket to advancement.

We are certainly approaching that sort of mindset in the US today. There are those in the government that know enough to not let it get that far, but there is a huge groundswell of public opinion that would really, really like to make having lots of money be a capital offence.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[unrtst]

Um, no. In America the top 1% pay 38% of all Income Tax...

While his numbers are still very incorrect, this is a completely different ratio comparison.

You both start with top 1% of earners.

He's comparing the percentage taken from the money the 1% makes.
You're comparing the total sum of money taken from the 1% that goes to the global sum of income tax (which includes money from all other brackets).

The later comparison inflates the percentage number for the rich in this case. Assuming the previous commenter (msauve) is correct, that %38 of all income taxes is actually a rate of %28 of their income (or some bucket of money).

IMO, the truth is that it's nearly impossible to put a figure on any of it because of the large difference in wealth making, storing, hiding, investing, etc that is available to the wealthy. On the poor side, it's a fairly easy percentage to read (income in, income tax on it all, left over money out for basic needs and occasional entertainment/etc extras, with zero or less left over (debt)).

Sales tax seems like the only thing that might be able to be applied in a fixed nature and serve all classes near equally, but it will have the same problems once people start deciding what constitutes a "sale". On the low end, food and clothing may be exempt (which makes sense to me), but that opens it up to other exemptions - is buying stock a "sale"? are non-profits taxed? if a "company" buys something, is there a different tax? Plenty of loopholes will be made, and we'll be right back to where we are before we even started.

Income tax would be fair too, if "income" was defined very broadly and you got rid of all loopholes, including the current definition of "company" as its own entity.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Quirkz]

I'm not really one of the progressives you're asking the question of, but I think a likely answer is there's no real magic number because it's a complicated equation. In an ideal world income would match expenses (yeah, right, I know) and if expenses go up then they either cut other expenses or bump income, i.e. taxes. If I were in charge and desperately needed to raise taxes for more money, I'd be inclined to pick a scheme where the 15% bracket gets bumped up to 15.5%, the 25% bracket gets bumped up to 26%, and the 38% bracket gets bumped up to 40%, or something like that. Then again I'd probably run the numbers on the extra .5% on the 15's and realize it's completely inconsequential, and then the only point of keeping it would be because it's perceived as more fair if there's a little more suffering all around.

In good times with excess income I'd be inclined to drop the numbers in the same proportion, of course. But there's a pretty big hole to dig out of before we can even think about that.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[PraiseBob]

In that same chart it shows that the top 10% pay roughly 70% of the taxes. Seems like a lot... until you consider they control 80% of the wealth. The bottom 90% of people control 20% of wealth, and pay 30% of taxes.

This is why people in the bottom 90% complain.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[StikyPad]

Well, the top 1% control 42% of the wealth, so the fact that they pay only 38% of the taxes shows a significant discrepancy right there.

But they also use a disproportionate share of public services. Take Apple, with police investigations for lost prototypes. Customs inspections to find counterfeit products, which preserves brand value. Police security at private functions for wealthy Americans, and police protection during hazardous events like peaceful protests by the plebes outside of their offices. The fact that streets/roads are mostly damaged by commercial vehicles, yet are mostly funded by things like fuel taxes where everyone pays their "fair share" except the people who cost the most. And then there's the issue that wealthy people write laws like the DMCA through their corporate vehicles, and then frequently engage in expensive and time consuming litigation in public courts. And the military, where those who can afford college are officers, and those who can't fight on the front lines. But hey, at least they get tuition assistance if they make it back alive, and 100% healthcare while they're in (cause it would be sorta fucked up if they had to pay for treatment of their own bullet wounds).

But sure. Let's pretend that even a 75% tax rate would make an appreciable difference in the quality of life of the wealthiest top 1% of Americans. People who are profiting on the backs of the bottom 50% (those who have to budget to afford groceries, gas, and rent) shouldn't be punished for their success! They shouldn't be enslaved to the poor and the middle class! Because it's nothing less than punishment and enslavement when the net annual income of the wealthy goes from what the average person earns in 10 lifetimes to what they earn in 7.5 lifetimes, or even something absurd like 1 lifetime.

What percentage of a persons income, no matter how rich, no matter if earned or trust fund baby, OR total wealth, do you think YOU are entitled to have redistributed away from them[?]

100%. No matter how rich (or poor), property rights are a social contract, not a natural right. Society owns everything; people just borrow it for a while.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[C0R1D4N]

I make $30,000 and pay something like 5-6000 in income tax, another 2,000 in property tax and then I get to throw in the costs of gas tax and sales tax. You can't lump the 20-30k people in with the 0-20k who don't pay shit without totally throwing off the averages.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[scot4875]

I'll tell you what I believe, though I can't speak for all "Progs".

I believe that 'harder' work should always yield better income than less work; I believe that someone making $1.5 million/year should take home more than someone making $0.5 million/year. Nothing too radical there, I believe.

I believe that once you start getting into higher income brackets, it should be exponentially more difficult to take home even more money. Sure, you can make an extra $million/year, and a percentage of it *will* go into your pocket, but you won't be taking home all of it, or even most of it. According to you, this will make it so all the rich just give up and go homeless or move to Somalia or some other bullshit. I believe we should tax the fuck out of large estates when the person/couple who built the estate dies. I disagree that taxation equals slavery; THAT is a talking point and demagoguery.

The *reason* I want vast sums of wealth taxed out of existence is that wealth has a huge, distorting effect on a) the free market, b) the economy in general, and c) politics (which then enables further distortions on a and b). I believe that NOBODY should be able to live on compound interest for generations. I believe that there should be no entrenched entities (Rockefellers, Carnegies, Bushes, Kennedys) that are essentially guaranteed to be inter-generational major players unless somebody REALLY fucks up. If someone has to keep working to keep their wealth, I see that as a GOOD thing; not just the one-hit wonder musician that is able to live off of royalties for their entire lives, but also the trial lawyer who wins a class action lawsuit and takes home millions -- it's great that they accomplished something good, now keep doing it if you want to keep living high on the hog.

The thing you have to remember, and seem to fail to understand, is that everybody works. I know in the minds of many people, anyone that isn't making $100k/year is some sort of fucking parasite that would be better off just euthanized, but believe it or not I think that the janitor working 40 hours per week should make a wage that allows them to live a comfortable life. I believe that someone flipping burgers or working behind a cash register for 40 hours per week shouldn't be treated like some second class citizen that has to scrape by just to pay rent. I don't think that just because you didn't go to school to get a law degree or become an engineer that you should be doomed to live hand-to-mouth for your entire life. I don't think that if someone making subsistence wages decides to splurge and, say, pay for cable or a (heaven forbid!) cell phone, they should be demonized for not saving every fucking penny they have. (Which will just be depreciated to worthlessness anyway over a few years) Sure, the person who chose to go to school should be rewarded somehow -- maybe they can afford the Lexus instead of the Honda, or can buy a slightly nicer house or whatever they choose to spend their extra cash on; but NOBODY deserves to make hundreds or thousands of times what the average person does.

I believe we have *plenty* of resources in this country: we're tearing down houses because nobody can afford to live in them -- not because nobody *wants* to live in them, but because nobody can *afford* to live in them. We have plenty of food -- when was the last time you heard about a famine in the US? We have plenty of cars -- the government just bought a bunch to destroy to get people to buy new ones. We have plenty of gas -- I've never been unable to get my car filled up, and I'll bet you haven't either. We have enough manpower to get things done, there is enough concrete and asphalt to make/repair all the roads we want, we have materials to build the structures we need. We have enough resources to go around. We have enough *tangible* things that nobody should ever go hungry or not be able to make rent. What we don't have is "money," which is a completely abstract concept that we essentially use to determine who gets access to

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[AmberBlackCat]

I'm looking at http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/distribute.html

I got 30% by subtracting 70% from 100%. II suggest those with the most income pay the least taxes due to the reduction in taxes due to Capital Gains rates and people who live in the United States but run their businesses in places where the United States does not collect taxes.

Your number of "the bottom 50% of earnings" is different from what I speak of because I am talking about the middle 80%, not the bottom 50%. But a jackass will be a jackass and I don't want to waste any more time on you. I'd rather gripe with the guy who called me "he".

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[AmberBlackCat]

Is there something about me that screams "male" or is that just something people assume because I post on Slashdot sometimes? It irks me sometimes, kind of like when people assume I'm white because of the way I speak on the phone.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[KDR_11k]

However let's not ignore that among all the games that get buried there are many that are actually good. It takes more than just quality to succeed on the App Store, you also need marketing.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Duradin]

http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/heshethey/he-or-she-versus-they

Basically, "he" was male/neuter with "she" being exclusively female. If you didn't know someone's gender male pronouns were the default.

People tend to get touchy being called it and using the plural "they" to refer to a single unknown gender person isn't universally accepted, and "he or she" is unwieldy.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone who knows they have no chance of becoming rich.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget that the 0-20k people pay more than "shit", too. They only get out of the base federal (and usually state) income tax... but they still owe payroll tax, property tax (if they own a house, even a cheap house. and if they own a car - even a cheap car. car tax exemption around my area used to exempt the first $6000 in value of the car from property tax... welcome to the recession, the exemption got dropped to $500). Sales tax, gas tax, and so on. Looking up the non-income-tax payroll taxes on wiki, the 2011 rates are 4.2% for social security (due to a temporary reduction; in normal years, it's 6.2%) and 1.45% for medicare. There's no escape from those.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[AmberBlackCat]

Interesting. In my workplace, where we process tax information all day, the default is to assume a person is female until you have reason to believe it's a male. But that probably has something to do with the workplace being about 90% female.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Fned]

The top 50% supply 97% of all personal tax revenue to the Federal Governent. The bottom half pay 3%

Out of curiosity, what's the wealth distribution between the two? If you have 97% of the money, you HAVE to pay 97% of the tax. Nobody else can afford to.

You want a real number? Tax capital gains as income.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[benhattman]

What percentage of a persons income, no matter how rich, no matter if earned or trust fund baby, OR total wealth, do you think YOU are entitled to have redistributed away from them. Or even more bluntly, what percentage of a person's labor is their own and to what extent are they your slave?

If you really want a fair number, I guess it would be appropriate to divvy up a person's wealth between how much of it they earned themselves through hard work and how much of it was earned by leveraging societal constructs, no? Assuming nobody (including society at large) has ownership a patch of a land, or the resources on that land, and I go there and kill an elk with my bare hands, I can argue that nobody else should be able to take any of it from me.

But, that's not really the world we live in, is it? If your business ships products, you use the roads, rail, harbors, or air terminals that we all share. If you became wealthy by hiring good employees who were educated by a public school system, you really benefit from societies' hard work. If you were able to build appropriate plants/office space due to the fact that you live in a stable society, then you are getting rich on the backs of millions of people's hard work. So, I guess if you are wealth because you are a captain of industry, or a banker, or an entertainer, or a politician it wouldn't be out of line to tax you at near 100%, because everything you've earned is predicated on the business environment you are working within.

Put another way, if you removed 1975 Bill Gates from this earth and dropped him onto another habitable planet with no intelligence species but animals similar to those on earth, who will lose out most? I kind of think if he weren't around someone else would have built a comparably successful company (maybe better for all than MS, maybe worse). But Bill G on the other hand would be decimated.

FWIW, I don't really believe in 100% taxation. My gut tells me that somewhere around 50% is where you cross the line from potentially reasonable to exploitation. But, that's informed by my own societal pressures, so there's no really definitive way to say that's right. I guess what you'd like to see is proof about what levels of taxation make society at large wealthier. E.g. if 0% tax produces -1% GDP gains, 5% tax 1% gains, 15% tax 3% gains, 25% tax 4% gains, 35% tax 3% gains, 45% tax 2% gains, etc...then you could just look at that chart and say we should probably pick the 25% rate because that creates the most wealth. I haven't seen research for that though, but would love to if it exists.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[localman]

Actually the 30% that Apple takes is analogous to the "tax" in your analogy. They take that from everyone and use it to build the infrastructure (Xcode, iOS, AppStore, etc) that allows anyone to succeed. Should we "cut taxes", and let Xcode and iOS stagnate? And then tell developers to stop freeloading and write their own tools and infrastructure? How do you think that would play out?

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[ShakaUVM]

Actually the 30% that Apple takes is analogous to the "tax" in your analogy. They take that from everyone and use it to build the infrastructure (Xcode, iOS, AppStore, etc) that allows anyone to succeed. Should we "cut taxes", and let Xcode and iOS stagnate? And then tell developers to stop freeloading and write their own tools and infrastructure? How do you think that would play out?

Nobody ever says anything bad about building up infrastructure. It's when people engage in wealth redistribution that it it strikes a lot of us libertarians as being unfair.

If 99% of apps don't make any money, does Apple or the other developers owe them something?

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[Anonymous Coward]

>"Hey, screw you guys. You brought us more revenue than the rest of those schmucks, so we're gonna stick it to you real good."

Nice straw man argument.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[travbrad]

To even start the discussion of what the rate should be, first we need to be able to actually compare them. In other words, we need to get rid of ALL loopholes. With so many loopholes the rates are almost meaningless.

Re:top one percent of X control large amount of Y

[milkmage]

wouldn't it be true since apple takes 30% from all, so the remainder is split as mentioned?

Methodology counts in all amounts

[ThreeGigs]

Requests to take the survey were distributed via the following social networks and web sites: ...
Reddit ...

I don't think they make grains of salt large enough to compensate for that bias.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[MacTO]

Yes, there are many faults with this survey.

Yes, it would be easy to design a better survey.

On the other hand, it would not be cheap to conduct a proper survey.

So until somebody ponies up the cash to conduct a proper survey or Apple stops being so secretive about it's business, this sort of thing is the best we will have. And even with selection bias, the results are likely better than a small collection of anecdotes.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[wvmarle]

One would say there are easier methods, that are more objective. Like: take the statistics provided by the app store on number of downloads, the price of the app (if not free), and from that you have the revenue.

It's normal that the top 20% takes 80% of sales. Like 20% of the products in a typical supermarket create 80% of turnover. Though in the app market it may be even more skewed.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[stms]

Hmmm... maybe the top 1% of game developers will pony it up money for a better study.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[somersault]

With the amount of shovelware out there, why would you expect the results to be much different though? It will be the same story in almost any non-fungible market in the world.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[iamhassi]

It's normal that the top 20% takes 80% of sales. Like 20% of the products in a typical supermarket create 80% of turnover. Though in the app market it may be even more skewed.

I was thinking that too and wondering why this was a shock to anyone. Top 20% of smartphones probably make up 80% of sales, top 20% of OSes probably make 80% of sales, top $SmallNumber of $Anything probably make $LargeNumber of sales. That's just how it's going to be with everything in life, there will always be a few leaders that rise to the top while everyone else shares what the leaders can not accommodate. To the victor goes the spoils.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[Grizzley9]

One would say there are easier methods, that are more objective. Like: take the statistics provided by the app store on number of downloads, the price of the app (if not free), and from that you have the revenue.

It's normal that the top 20% takes 80% of sales. Like 20% of the products in a typical supermarket create 80% of turnover. Though in the app market it may be even more skewed.

But that is where the stats would fail. Many of the free based games are ad-supported and make money off of that. You would not be capturing that large demographic.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[Undaar]

One would say there are easier methods, that are more objective. Like: take the statistics provided by the app store on number of downloads, the price of the app (if not free), and from that you have the revenue.

The problem is that the app store does not provide any stats on the number of downloads. You can get a ranking, but that tells you nothing about download numbers. You can glean together bits of information from the occasional developer who says "my app that hit #4 had 15,000 downloads", but since no one (except Apple) knows exactly how the ranking algorithms work, even that's not accurate. Further, the number of downloads required to reach a given ranking changes daily based on the number of downloads on the whole store that day, and how many downloads a given app had on the previous day or two. Additionally, many of the top grossing games on the store use a freemium model, and that's even harder to account for, as IAP purchases don't affect rank at all (except for in the top grossing charts).

That's why this survey was important to do.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[Silas is back]

take the statistics provided by the app store on number of downloads

You cannot get that information, only the developer has access to his own download numbers. Or did you mean to infer the number of downloads from the rankings? I imagine that would be difficult, you don't know whether game on rank 1 sells twice as much as the game on rank 2 or is only slightly ahead.

Re:Methodology counts in all amounts

[adisakp]

On the other hand, it would not be cheap to conduct a proper survey.

Apple already has all the data on sales figures in a database (they need to in order to have stats like top selling app). For Apple, it'd be a cheap and simple database query to aggregate the results.

Getting Apple to release any of the sales data though is a whole different ball of wax.

It also reflects the real money distribution.

[Anonymous Coward]

It also reflects the real money distribution.

Disclaimer says it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote on the front page:

Top 1% of iOS Game Developers Make a Third of All Revenue

I guess what's most important is the disclaimer on the researchers Web site:

I make no claims as to the statistical validity of this data.

Based on this one statement, the researcher could have just hired some unemployed Enron accountants to do the study.

And based on the average pay of a typical game developer (for iOS at least), I'd think twice about investing my time and money in the programming field. Sanitary engineers make more money than programmers, so maybe people should think about engineering instead of wasting their time trying to make money for big corporations. There's no shame in shoveling shit if you can at least get a guaranteed minimum wage from it.

Re:Disclaimer says it all

[somersault]

And based on the average pay of a typical game developer (for iOS at least), I'd think twice about investing my time and money in the programming field. Sanitary engineers make more money than programmers, so maybe people should think about engineering instead of wasting their time trying to make money for big corporations. There's no shame in shoveling shit if you can at least get a guaranteed minimum wage from it.

You're clearly not a programmer.

1) Most mobile game developers aren't stupid enough to quit their day job to do it, at least until they hit the big time.

2) These people are the types who enjoy programming for its own sake. Developing games is fun (in fact developing even "boring" productivity apps can be fun, but games are more fun to test :p ). Shovelling shit isn't much fun.

3) Most of these developers are not working for "big corporations", they're self employed.

You can continue to keep your time and money to yourself. The rest of us are happy to enjoy programming even if you don't understand.

Disclaimer: I do get paid to do development, in the engineering/oil industry. No, I don't often write games. When I have I've released them for free, including the source.

Re:Disclaimer says it all

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Most mobile game developers aren't stupid enough to quit their day job to do it, at least until they hit the big time.

What's this "until"? It should read 'if' a BIG 'if' as in they have the same chance as winning the lottery.

Re:Disclaimer says it all

[somersault]

I see you aren't a programmer either. Until is a conditional too. As in

until (programmer.hobby_income >= enough_to_survive_on) or programmer.is_dead
{
          programmer.make_games_for_fun();
}

Re:Disclaimer says it all

[ThirdPrize]

I have been developing iOS stuff by myself, for a year or two now. If I'm lucky I might just cover the cost of the Apple Dev Program subscription plus web service hosting.

Seems Reasonable Given Fraction of Great Games

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy a fair number of iOS games for my children, and the solid majority of games are dreck. On the other hand, there are so many games that there are also many good and even great games. Just yesterday I downloaded a Disney game about a showering alligator which is actually pretty educational about hydraulics, obviously a large investment in time and money by Disney and worthy of earning a ton of money.

If you get into iOS game development thinking you will just automagically earn a decent living, you are mistaken. You will do well if you write exceptional products and spend as much time marketing as coding. Otherwise prepare to never lift out of obscurity.

Re:Seems Reasonable Given Fraction of Great Games

[somersault]

Disney seem to make good games. Toy Story 2 and 3 were favourites of mine especially. The earlier platform stuff like Lion King, Aladdin and Herculese were also good. They're one of the few companies that actually seems to get it right when doing a movie to game conversion..

Re:Seems Reasonable Given Fraction of Great Games

[iamhassi]

Just yesterday I downloaded a Disney game about a showering alligator which is actually pretty educational about hydraulics, obviously a large investment in time and money by Disney and worthy of earning a ton of money.

I LOVE that showering alligator game!!.... er, I mean, my children love that game!... aw crap this is /. we know no one here will ever breed.... yeah, it's me, simple 99 cent game, levels take less than 30 seconds with little thought required. Sometimes I like dumb simple games, and with 3,000+ 5-star reviews I figured what the hell why not? Think the game's called where's my water.

Need more Agile

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if they made more Agile games...

So

[Kuruk]

A third of all the kids play the top 1% of iOS games.

I play PC games. Give me a call when you make a decent one. That is what phones are for.

Re:So

[MacTO]

Of course many of those iOS games are going to be better than the PC games kids played in the 80's.

Re:So

[Kjella]

A third of all the kids play the top 1% of iOS games.

I play PC games. Give me a call when you make a decent one. That is what phones are for.

I play Angry Birds and the other 1% top games on my iPhone and just finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution on max difficulty on my PC, I don't see the big contradiction in that. The games on my phone are to pass time, I'm not expecting a huge game experience for $1 and I don't think the small screen and touch interfaces could provide one either. It's just there in my pocket every time I got 5 minutes to waste and I just grab something from the top 25 - sometimes top 100 - because they're probably decent then. Usually I go straight for the pay games with no in-game payments, because freemiums and those that try to milk you through in-game stores are plain annoying. The only frustrating thing is that Apple's icons are plain fraudulent, there are apps with in-game stores and purchases yet don't carry the "+" sign in the store like the Mighty Eagle in Angry Birds. I don't mind that they do, just be honest about it. Apple should just block any app that doesn't carry that sign from calling any purchasing API at all.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

I play PC games, PS3 games, Wii games, 3(DS) games, PSP games, AND iOS games. It's called being a gamer. A true gamer seeks out anything of quality, and if you think there is nothing of quality on iOS platforms that just means one thing: you haven't looked. I could sit here and list the literally hundreds of games on my iTouch right now, but that wouldn't do any good 'cause you're stuck in your world of bias, gaming on one platform and not caring about the others. You're limiting yourself to be a *true* casual gamer, one that only casually cares and lets your biases get in the way of the rest of the millions of gaming opportunities out there. I'll leave you with two games that are worth everyone's time that are available only on mobile platforms, two vastly different experiences, one catering to "hardcore" gamers, the other to those that just want something to play on the bus. Those two games are Infinity Blade, and Cut the Rope. If you say these are bad games you are a poor judge of quality, and if you say they are the only ones that don't suck, go search the App Store right now. I was like you, thinking mobile gaming on phones and iDevices was a bunch of crappy Angry Birds style cheap-ass games getting popular on brand recognition. Then I actually got an iTouch and looked and saw a whole new world open up to me. Do yourself a favor and stop being so ignorant and closed-minded. It's true in life and it's true in gaming.

Re:So

[somersault]

I'll assume you meant "home computer games" rather than PC games, since PCs were more used for business than games in the 80s.. so not exactly a fair comparison.

When you start to take into account late 80s and 90s home computer/console games, modern day phone gaming is blown away. In fact forget late 80s and 90s - I'd seriously rather play text-based adventures over the mobile games I've played so far. I was born in 1983 in case you're wondering.

80s/90s style point'n'click adventure games are perfect for touchscreen devices. They're one genre where tablets would have a chance to really shine. I see Tales Of Monkey Island was released for iOS, that's a start. Would have been nice if they released for Android too, though I already completed it on PS3.

These days I mostly play first/third person shooters and racing games btw, I'm not just an story-based-adventure junky. But I think that shooters and racing games using tilt suck. Racing games are best with either a proper fixed-in-place steering wheel, or a joystick. Tilting is lame.

Re:So

[MysteriousPreacher]

I play PC games. Give me a call when you make a decent one. That is what phones are for.

Bull! PCs are for balancing check books and storing recipes. Buy Pong or head to your local arcade if you want games.

Re:So

[maxume]

I'm pretty sure PC stopped referring to a single platform sometime since 1985.

Re:So

[icebraining]

80s/90s style point'n'click adventure games are perfect for touchscreen devices. They're one genre where tablets would have a chance to really shine. I see Tales Of Monkey Island was released for iOS, that's a start. Would have been nice if they released for Android too, though I already completed it on PS3.

Apparently the ScummVM was also ported, so there should be a nice bunch of games ready to be played. Beneath a Steel Sky should work nicely.

Re:So

[jedidiah]

Were you computing then? Then STFU.

An Atari user would be insulted by the idea. An Atari user is being insulted by the idea.

Try 1995 and you might be onto something. Although by then other platforms were close to dying out completely (including MacOS too).

Re:So

[jeremyp]

A PC is a "personal computer". Back in the early 80's, we had a PC: it was a Commodore Pet.

Anyhow, I have a Commodore 64 emulator on my iPod. It probably has to be throttled to run at the right speed and the games on it, some of which I remember, are really poor by today's iOS standards.

Re:So

[iamhassi]

Bull! PCs are for balancing check books and storing recipes. Buy Pong or head to your local arcade if you want games.

wow! Lol I had forgotten that's what they would advertise home computers for in the 80s. Man that takes me back... and to all of you not over 40, in the early and mid 80s most ads would show the main benefit of a $3,000 (closer to $6k in today's money) home computer is that it can balance the check book or (to get wives interested) store cooking recipes. Wow we have come a long way.

Re:So

[maxume]

I didn't say in 1985, I said sometime since then. An example of sometime since 1985 would be 1995.

Thanks for the bile.

Re:So

[Jappus]

wow! Lol I had forgotten that's what they would advertise home computers for in the 80s. Man that takes me back... and to all of you not over 40, in the early and mid 80s most ads would show the main benefit of a $3,000 (closer to $6k in today's money) home computer is that it can balance the check book or (to get wives interested) store cooking recipes. Wow we have come a long way.

Actually, as far as storing recipes is concerned, Apple is still using exactly the same advertisement for the iPad. So much for coming a long way and that "nothing will ever be the same again"! (Or whatever slogan they use in the USA, as I'm hailing in from Germany and am currently too lazy to check.)

Re:So

[somersault]

1995 is after the 80s though. I was saying that in the 80s there wasn't a big IBM PC gaming scene compared to all these other home computers.

Re:So

[somersault]

Beneath A Steel Skye was actually released as an app for the iPad (my flatmate has it). The rest will be available on ScummVM yes, but I think more developers should make new point'n'click style games for all these touchscreen devices. I found this while Googling earlier. Flash does make sense for 2D point'n'click games, though I'd imagine ScummVM makes things even easier since it's specifically designed for them.

Re:So

[somersault]

I'm quite aware that all home computers, phones, graphic calculators, etc could be referred to as "personal computers", and I know that makes sense, but it's simply not common usage. PC has meant "IBM PC compatible/derivative" for a long time. Witness the "I'm a Mac / and I'm a PC" adverts. Even in my Mac and Amiga days, I didn't refer to them as PCs. I referred to them as Macs and Amigas, or computers.

Re:So

[maxume]

Sure, but deleting that entire paragraph doesn't really change your comment; my point was more that there was no need for an aside pointing out that you were assuming that MacTO was using present day usage.

Re:So

[hansamurai]

It's hilarious how Slashdot used to be a gathering place for people actually interested in technology, now it's been reduced to this.

Re:So

[Duradin]

Let's see, we've got Apple involved, so that's doubleplus good right there. Toss in cellphones and non-massive-desktop-based gaming and you've got the trifecta of the two minutes of hate.

Re:So

[rogueippacket]

Having your recipes on a large, portable, touch interface is light-years ahead of a laptop or PC in the kitchen. Not to mention the apps which demonstrate proper technique and ingredients, the iPad is actually a great culinary companion.

Re:So

[jedidiah]

I still don't refer to the other platforms as PCs for the same reasons I wouldn't have in 1985.

If PC has become a generic term it's because the market really only allowed one option to survive.

Re:So

[operagost]

In the 1980s, PCs were sold to balance the books, store recipes, write letters, tutor schoolchildren, and play games. Today, PCs are sold to watch porn, watch porn, watch porn, watch porn and play games.

Re:So

[rwa2]

What a kitchen PC might have looked like "light years" ago:
http://hairball.mine.nu/~rwa2/pictures/Hairball_Incarnate/tn/20050601_070657.med.jpg

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because a touchscreen is SOOO helpful when your hands are full of flour ... or wet from separating hamburger ... etc.

Re:So

[iamhassi]

In the 1980s, PCs were sold to balance the books, store recipes, write letters, tutor schoolchildren, and play games. Today, PCs are sold to watch porn, watch porn, watch porn, watch porn and play games.

No! PCs are sold to watch porn, update facebook, check email, watch cat videos, and watch porn

Is anyone actually surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like life as we know it in every other field. Did someone think this market was somehow outside of the realm of the rules for the "free" market?

Solution?

[Tailhook]

App tax! Make the top third pay their fair share.

Re:Solution?

[bit trollent]

Every app developer pays Apple 30%.

That's alot more than can be said about our federal tax laws which are more like a record of bribery and scams than a rational tax code.

Google dodges taxes using techniques known as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich" to reduce its tax rate to 2.4 percent.

citation provided

Re:Solution?

[Surt]

Seems like it would be fairer. Why should the bottom dwellers who are hardly deriving any of the benefit of Apple's distribution network have to pay the same percentage as a wildly successful app that tops all the searches?

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, like the way servers (waiters) will pool their tips? Look, that might be a good idea if Apple wants an ecosystem developers are attracted to live in: the possibility of making it big and spreading the tips, or, more likely, making it moderately and receiving a bit of tips.

I would say that is not a bad goal for America to have.

And before you say that the tip analogy is flawed because it is "extra", realize that in a lot of places the actual wage a server (waiter) earns might as well be $0, it is so low (less than a couple bucks an hour).

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beautiful.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google dodges taxes using techniques known as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich"

Well-known positions in the kama sutra

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that those rich people you want to tax more, will just make more trust funds, move more offshore, and make more corporate expenses?

Stop punishing the TINY businesses that get lumped into the same tax brackets you jackass. 3% gross cost me healthcare.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes sense, they could use the money they save on marketing or making an app that doesn't suck.

Re:Solution?

[ScentCone]

more than can be said about our federal tax laws which are more like a record of bribery and scams

It's true. The left has used bribery (in the form of letting half of the people in the country PAY NO INCOME TAXES) to buy votes, requiring instead only a small minority to do all of that, instead. That is indeed irrational. The half of the population that is exempt from income taxes still get to vote and tax other people, but they don't have to materially participate in providing the funds they're telling other people how to raise (from someone else!) and spend. Well, other than recieving it in the form of "rebates" on incomes taxes they don't even pay. Half of the country. Half.

Re:Solution?

[ScentCone]

Why should the bottom dwellers who are hardly deriving any of the benefit of Apple's distribution network have to pay the same percentage as a wildly successful app that tops all the searches?

Right! Punish the successful people, and reward those who are less creative, less innovative, and who didn't have as compelling an idea and see it through to completion. That is a terrific model, and we should use it nation-wide. You'll definitely get more innovation and creativity and economic activity if you punish it - works every time!

Ugh. Are you listening to yourself?

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I suspect you think people who don't work at all should not vote? No income = no vote? And you don't think I pay enough taxes elsewhere? You're really ignorant about the whole taxation system, aren't you? Sorry you're stuck with a job. Sucks to be you. I still probably pay more taxes than you you do.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Half pay no federal income tax, they pay all the other taxes we moan about daily.

Isn't the problem that the people not paying the federal income tax are earning such low wages that it's economically impossible for them to do so?

Also, do you offer up to pay taxes that don't apply to you on the basis that some people do have to pay that tax?

Taxes are unfair for the under, lower and middle classes but not for the reasons you point out.

Re:Solution?

[aicrules]

Came to the comments for this story knowing that the topic would be turned into a debate about "income gaps" and "fair share taxes". This is actually a great example of how flat rate pay for use "tax" works. 30% flat tax rate (no deductions, credits, etc...) for EVERYONE though would probably sink the U.S. in less than a year though. It is not surprising to me at all that their are so many numbnuts on here that think it makes sense to forcibly remove EARNED income from self-made successful people to subsidize those who pretend like their doing the same thing but clearly just not being recognized for it.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course if you don't like it... there's always the wonderful free market in Somalia*.

*Those that can't follow a joke would do well to remember the days when 'lefties' were told to go to Russia/Cuba/China.

Also I'd really like to see the sources of this information - as I understood it only those on extremely low income avoided paying income tax in the US? If over 50% of your country is on extremely low income, then you've got much bigger problems than them not paying tax....

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

The left has used bribery? Ignoring the vast multitude of tax expenditures that affect not the bottom 50% but rather the wealthy and the large corporations, you decide to focus on those who you accuse of not paying, but what you don't realize is...they don't have that much money to contribute...though in fact, they do pay numerous other taxes. At least you aren't engaging in that particular bit of hyperbole, to accuse them of paying no taxes.

But really, let's say that the bottom 50% are getting huge tax benefits. How do they compare to what those at the top 1% get? Top 5%? Top 10%? Get some real numbers, not just your phantoms which you assuredly got from the right-wing distortion media.

Reality is not quite what you think.

Re:Solution?

[blueg3]

They must have shitty accountants if there are reasonable tax avoidance measures that they could be taking advantage of but choose not to because the tax rate isn't higher.

Re:Solution?

[NeutronCowboy]

Well, other than recieving it in the form of "rebates" on incomes taxes they don't even pay. Half of the country. Half.

That's because they don't have any disposable income. Do you know what $40k buys you as a lifestyle in Silicon Valley? A studio in the cheapest apartment complex, healthcare, a car, food, a smidgen of retirement savings and a little emergency fund - and that's it. The people who earn 20K are operating at subsistence level and survive on ramen noodles. These are the people for whom $10 is a week's worth of food.

That's why they don't pay taxes. Because any money they'd pay in taxes would have to go right back to them in terms of food stamps, emergency room medical care and other emergencies that will happen and which they can't prepare for.

I'll leave the history lesson for later about what happens to countries to where the elite fails to take of a large and growing underclass. The last 6 months alone should have been educational in that.

Re:Solution?

[carpefishus]

I have to agree. It is so unfair that those greedy talented developers don't share with the less fortunate.

Re:Solution?

[NeutronCowboy]

Nope, that's not why there's is a certain segment of the population that doesn't pay taxes. The reason is that all of society operates better if everyone can fully participate, and that the elite across the world has learned over the last 300 years that you don't want poor people wondering why the hell they have to hand over 30%
of their loaf of bread, while the elite merely decides to cut back from 3 summer houses to 2.

income from self-made successful people

Ah, right. I believe that's the protestant fundamentalist in many Americans thinking that being rich is a sign of being blessed by God. You vastly overestimate the importance of God or of your own work in how much money you have.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so odd when I read things like this. Because that bottom half, the ones paying little to no tax, are the ones driving the economy. Thirty percent tax on $200,000 leaves you a good $140,000 to somehow scrape by on, but 30% of $49,000, the average for an American household, means they have about $34,300 to support the 2.6 people per household. Where I live in Indianapolis, a rather affordable city, this would put someone right in line with the "living wage," basically, subsistence-level living. If everyone was taxed the same amount, the millions of people in this country in poverty will be too poor to work. They won't have money for housing, transportation or food. Meanwhile, the top earners will continue to spend most of their money on things produced outside the OUS. Of course, they'll have to, since the bulk of the demand for US products will be completely destroyed because the majority of Americans will be able to afford little more than subsistence living. Just like right now, it will feed itself as less demand means less jobs, which means less demand...

But I understand the problem. Senators earning millions and owning multiple properties think they're middle class. There is such a distorted view from the top of the ladder; they can't even see the actual middle anymore.

Re:Solution?

[Antisyzygy]

Sounds like multiple partner positions.

Re:Solution?

[Surt]

Maybe people think that because the evidence (in the US, at least) shows it to be true. Being wealthy is 90% birthright in the USA (that is nearly all the rich were born that way, social mobility into the upper class is very, very low).

Re:Solution?

[HungWeiLo]

Half of America doesn't pay FEDERAL income tax. Not all taxes.

Remember there's also payroll, social security, and Medicare taxes. Not to mention excises taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc. You'll pay more than half of these even if you're collecting unemployment.

Not paying any taxes - that's a pretty neat trick for anyone in any tax bracket. Can't believe people still trot out this meme and crying for all "freeloaders" to be beheaded in a public square.

Re:Solution?

[aicrules]

So because someone passes on their wealth to their children, someone who doesn't work should get part of that? Sorry, no good.

Re:Solution?

[operagost]

That's funny; I didn't see him mention God. So you think success is all luck? Actually, I'm not going to bother making sense of what you said. Just go back into your basement and slack off, since you don't seem to think effort matters.

Re:Solution?

[NeutronCowboy]

Snicker. You don't know your history, you don't understand what it takes to be successful, lack reading comprehension, refuse to think, and are thick with irony.

Yep, standard pretend libertarian.

Re:Solution?

[ScentCone]

I'm sorry you are unable to read the words typed above. Perhaps I can spend some extra time working today to fund a program that will involve several federal employees and managers looking after a tutor for you on that front.

Re:Solution?

[Surt]

Society exists to prevent the poor from having to murder the rich to get a fair distribution of resources. If government doesn't do that job, the poor will.

Our society was noticeably better off when the marginal tax rate was higher.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Society exists to prevent the poor from having to murder the rich to get a fair distribution of resources

No, society exists to protect you from being robbed while you go about creating resources/prosperity. Like so many people who have it exactly wrong, you think that there is only so much prosperity, and it's up to you do decide who should get which piece. The problem is that if you were right, we'd be dividing ever-smaller pieces of the same economic pie that existed decades, or centuries before.

But that's demonstrably not the case, and you know it - which means that your world view is based around making slaves out of the most productive people in order to gain power by playing the middle man as you dole out their work to those don't produce anything. Nice racket you want to run, there. You're no alone, of course. You're also not alone in deliberately ignoring how that scheme has (in addition to being morally odious) never worked and can't, by definition.

 

Our society was noticeably better off when the marginal tax rate was higher.

You're confusing that "better" period with their having been less in the way of an entitlement society. Our society was better when entire generations weren't raised thinking that someone else owes them a living.

Re:Solution?

[Surt]

I'm afraid you're confusing reality for some kind of Randian fantasy land. Generations are more independent now, not less so.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Intervention to keep the playing field fair and equal! Why should these few capitalists profit at the expense of all the other hard working people?

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we have to start talking about app justice....

Re:Solution?

[Jerry]

So. It's legal, otherwise the Feds would prosecute. It is unethical.

Microsoft developed its software in Redmond, WA, but its sales offices are in Reno, NV, which has no sales tax. A couple years ago Ballmer derided Oregonians for not "paying their fair share of taxes". That's legal too, but also unethical.

If one is a "sin" the other is as well, if your "Social Justice" means anything.

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

and it is fair to tax a family of four to the point where they starve to death?
a system where everybody pays the same income tax rate no matter what would be devestating to low income families and young people starting out, the ones least likely to make enough money to pay their rent or put food on the table.

a graduated income tax rate helps social mobility and allows us to make up for the fact that the minimum wage is a joke and if it was adjusted for what is a reasonable cost of living once income tax was taken into account, then the right would bitch about how minimum wages are pricing Americans out of the job (which they are complaining about now in spite of the american minimum wage being one of the lowest out there after adjusted for GDP).

The folks who want to do away with graduated income tax AND a minimum wage are going to destroy every safeguard that was put in place to prevent the sort of thing that causes in the best case economic meltdown (great depression) or businessmen and politicians getting their heads chopped off in the streets because half the country can't feed their families (french revolution).

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

The top third, and the bottom third.. Pay the same rate...

Re:Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference being the top 1% of app developers are actually developing apps, not off investment income rather than contributing usefully to society. Even then, you gotta figure that 1% having 33% of the money is still "fairer" than the U.S. economy, where the top 1% has over 40% of the money.

Extra! Extra!

[EdZ]

80% of IOS (and android) games/apps are rubbish and nobody wants to waste money on them.
In other news, the sky is blue and water is wet.

Re:Extra! Extra!

[binkzz]

I agree. I think 80% is a low estimate. A lot of games on android are copies of existing games with changed graphics. Some companies churn out the same game several times a day with slightly altered graphics in the hope of catching more revenue. It's awful.

Re:Extra! Extra!

[Darfeld]

maybe, but it works...well enough. When you just have to reskin a game, production's costs go down that much. And you don't have to sell the reskin as well as the first version for it to be profitable.

Re:Extra! Extra!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that that make lots of shit is a more reliable income than make something that's good.

Every time a gamer or reviewer says, "Well make a better game then." they show their ignorance of the business.

Re:Extra! Extra!

[slapout]

Unless it's raining and then the sky is wet and the water is blue.

Re:Extra! Extra!

[benhattman]

can I get a 97%?

Sound familiar?

[Anonymous Coward]

That top 1% should be punished for the gifts they've lucked into and be forced to redistribute their wealth to the other 99%. It's just not fair.

Re:Sound familiar?

[Anonymous Coward]

They already do, Apple takes a share of their profits and uses it to support the infrastructure that benefits all iOS developers. Sound familiar?

This isn't too different from traditional software

[rolfwind]

In videogames, developers have long depended on the hits for both profit and paying for the other titles. Each title is a calculated gamble, and if you lose, well, you just move on to the next one.

It's sad for the small developer who puts heart, soul, and savings into a single title, but they should be told that going in, they only have a 1 in 5 chance of just breaking even, let alone squeezing out a profit for all their trouble.

That probably makes sense....

[robbak]

If the top one percent paid 34.33...%, the bottom 80% could probably take home 100%.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a good idea.. it would not promote innovation - good apps are not rewarded for been good apps.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[Anonymous Coward]

The reward would be that they are taking home a lion's share of the profits from the app store.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[ScentCone]

Why should 80% of the people pay no income taxes on their income? Isn't it bad enough that half the people in the country currently pay no income taxes on their income, but still get to vote on how much to tax the small minority of people who actually pay the bill? What kind of civil society is that? It's one thing to have a really bad year and end up paying no income taxes. It's another thing to make a permanent structural system in which one half of the country gets to place a tax on the other half (mostly on a small percentage of the other half) while skipping out on it themselves.

By the way: if you taxed everyone that makes $1 million a year at a rate of 100% (confiscating ALL of their income) it wouldn't even close the federal budget deficit through April of a given year. In other words, your conjecture about the top 1% and 34.33% tax rate is wildly, wildly off base. And yet it's notions like that that are used to fuel "raise the taxes on those Eeeeevil rich people" nonsense. If you really think that you can make the budget work without debt, and send some number of people in the country home without paying any taxes, then you need to include people making $37k in your list of Eeeeevil people that need to be more heavily taxed. You know, those rich people making $37k a year an up.

See? When you say that someone else should pay the taxes, not you, be careful what you wish for. Do the math, and find that you're likely on that list yourself.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was referring to Apple's "tax" of a flat rate 30%. That by raising the "tax" to 34.33% on the best selling apps, then the back room developers that only sell a couple of hundred $ worth could take home 100% of their revenue (minus real taxes).

But perhaps you should stop reading a tech website and start reading a economics / politics website as you obviously have some issues you want to discuss.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[ScentCone]

The world view he's expressing applies in both arenas, hence my comment.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[Anonymous Coward]

Faulty minor premise.
The bottom 50% that pay no taxes do not have a voice or get a vote already.
Why should they pay taxes if only rich people get a say in running this country?

Re:That probably makes sense....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I've heard many, many variations on the "half of all people/households pay no taxes" line, and this is the first that actually might be true! After all, children pay no income tax, nor do the spouses of those who file as "head of household". Good work, complaining about stay-at-home mothers!

If you are so concerned about tax fairness, why don't you mention that there are hedge fund managers who receive more than a *billion* dollars a year, but only have to pay 15% income tax on that amount? Or that the tax rates for people who work for a living are much higher than those for those who merely sit around collecting dividends on their stocks? Investment income is taxed at just 15% (unless you invest stupidly) and is effectively even lower, after all.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[clifyt]

"Why should 80% of the people pay no income taxes on their income?"

Because they end up paying taxes regardless. income is only one tax...we have multiple taxible sources to equilize the process.

The poor tend to spend their money on essentials. These get taxed...the things that aren't essential get taxed much higher -- booze, cigs...

However, you can't make it ONLY sales tax, because quite a few of us go out of our way to buy things that aren't taxed for one reason or another. The more money you make, the easier it is to do this...I buy a LOT of shit overseas...and the few times I am required to declare its value...well...lets just say there isn't an appraiser there to say if it is right or not.

Beyond that, a lot of services are not taxed / taxible. The more money you have, the less likely you need STUFF and the more likely you want specific services. Sure, you will have the stuff, but you won't be like the poor white trash that buy a big screen and it breaks, and repeats the cycle ever year not realizing if they had the money in the first place, they could have just bought something decent and kept it for much longer and actually saved money on the deal...more 'poor' people have more stuff than I do...but mine lasts a hell of a lot longer and the TCO is far less. But you need the initial money sitting around to do this.

And then you get into the idea of the rich screaming about wanting only income tax...when 90% of what they bring home isn't income but something else. They may actually have $1M in stock, but they don't want to be judged on this until they cash it in because it might not be worth that much when they do.

I do think the tax laws need to be simplified...but the idea that some people are not paying taxes is ridiculous. Are they paying their fair share? Who knows...I've always felt that those that could afford to burden the load more should...but thats just my Christian nature...

Re:That probably makes sense....

[goldspider]

"The poor tend to spend their money on essentials."

Like cigarettes and booze.

Before you jump down my throat, I know that not ALL poor people smoke or drink. But I think it's fairly safe to assume that taxes on things like alcohol and cigarettes disproportionately affect the poor.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[operagost]

The poor tend to spend their money on essentials. These get taxed

If you live in a state that actually taxes food and clothing, you need to fix it in the state. Stop trying to "eat the rich" at the federal level. Oh, and rent is not taxed anywhere.

Are they paying their fair share? Who knows

I've seen articles in just the last week showing that the wealthy still pay a much bigger share. Why? Because geniuses already imposed "special" taxes on things that the wealthy buy, like luxury taxes. How much is "enough"? How is paying a higher percentage than another person "fair"? Would you accept it if you worked in sales, sold twice what your coworker did, and your boss only gave you 5% commission while your coworker got 10% because it would be more "fair"?

Re:That probably makes sense....

[operagost]

There's a state tax on the poor that every politician loves: the lottery.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[Anonymous Coward]

"The bottom 50% that pay no taxes" -- misconception. The statistic is that 46% owed no income taxes.

Some small portion of those are millionaires playing tax avoidance games, but most of the rest are unemployed or employed at minimum wage -- i.e. barely scraping by. If they're employed, they're still paying payroll taxes (well, technically the employer pays those, but I usually see people saying that the employee would be paid more if there were no payroll taxes).

As for your question, the answer is: Because the rich people want them to pay taxes.

Re:That probably makes sense....

[bubblejet]

>> If you live in a state that actually taxes food and clothing, you need to fix it in the state.

You should also include vehicle taxes and fees (such as tolls, state gas tax, DMV fees, excise taxes on cars, sales tax on cars, etc.) since in most parts of the country it's impossible to hold a job without having a car. Even then, there are still federal taxes on essentials, such as the federal gas tax and taxes on utilities.

>> Oh, and rent is not taxed anywhere.

But landlords do pay property taxes, and when property taxes go up, so does rent. People who rent also don't benefit from tax rebates or "homestead" exemptions.

One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[shish]

Speaking as an android user who only ever sees iphones in the hands of friends, does it have any apps other than Angry Birds? :-P

(I really am curious -- I'd put money on that being the top selling app, and I can't think of anything else that seems anywhere near as popular)

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[Surt]

I'm pretty sure I saw someone using it for pseudo-gps navigation once.

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[Anonymous Coward]

Other popular apps apparently include phone calls, SMS, a picture gallery and an Internet browser. To be fair, I don't know how many people has ever seen me using real apps on my Android phone. I use some app but usually not when speaking with friends.

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[jo_ham]

It is wildly popular - you only have to look at Apple's in-store lists where you can list the top 20 apps by revenue - a year or so after TomTom satnav came out it was holding second place as the highest revenue generator (it sold for £60 initially in the UK store) with the number one being Angry Birds (at £0.59).

I think pretty much everyone buys it, because it is a very fun game that is easy to pick up and put down - it's pretty much the sweet spot for a mobile game. Certainly other games have managed that, but none have been quite as successful as Angry Birds.

As of today, in the UK store Angry Birds is number 4:

1. Fifa 12 (EA)
2. WhatsApp Messenger (WhatsApp inc) [cross platform messenger system for iOS/Android/BB]
3. Where's My Water (Disney)
4. Angry Birds
5. Flick Champions
6. World of Goo HD

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as an iPhone user do Android phones even have apps? I've never seen anyone use apps on their android, whenever friends show me their Android phones they're too busy waxing on about the 52" screen or 100mp camera or whatever while I'm showing them trinity blade or order and chaos. Seriously someone should make apps for android, I bet it could run something simple like pong, or at least some of them could, I forgot how fragmented android phones are, only a few are decent and the rest don't have enough processing power for Hello World. Good thing iPhones aren't like that, my 2009 3GS still runs all the latest games, no 2009 Android phone could say that.

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[MemoryDragon]

Actually there is a load of really good games on iOS much more than on Android, and generally the games are way more polished. The problem simply is that they are drowned in a myriad of shovelware and ripoffs of other games.
I have about 40-50 games I consider to be really good on the Ipad, but once I am done with this list the new interesting stuff to be found becomes thin.
About 1-2 games per month slighly catch my attention and about 1 every three months I consider worth to be bought.

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as an Android user, you have friends?

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a load... all the "good games" for iOS are on android also and android has a lot of games that the iPhone doesn't since Indie devs don't have to pony up cash and use OSX to write android games.

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[MemoryDragon]

I rather doubt you find the telltale stuff, or for instance avadon on android. I have both systems and consider the game selection on android less polished, sure you have angry birds and co, but the more interesting stuff from better indy developers cannot be found there. Also i have yet to find a steaming solution as well executed and polished as airvideo.

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[Tharsman]

Current top app is Where's My Water (iPhone app store.)

Re:One percent? I was expecting one, period...

[shish]

Indeed; I might not be able to afford an overpriced phone, so I have to settle for having a personality instead, but it still seems to get the job done :-)

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[joh]

In videogames, developers have long depended on the hits for both profit and paying for the other titles. Each title is a calculated gamble, and if you lose, well, you just move on to the next one.

It's sad for the small developer who puts heart, soul, and savings into a single title, but they should be told that going in, they only have a 1 in 5 chance of just breaking even, let alone squeezing out a profit for all their trouble.

But this is not exactly a random gamble, you know. While you surely need some luck, someone putting his heart and soul and knowledge into an iOS app/game has a much better chance to get some decent earnings out of it than the average clueless programmer. There are lots and lots of apps and games that nobody buys because they very plainly aren't worth a penny. And the apps that sell really well usually deserve it.

As far as software titles go, iOS easily is the most level playing field in existence yet.

Heartless Billionaire One-Percenter

[zackly]

*Admires Grover Norquist and Steve Jobs portraits on mantle*

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[somersault]

I don't think the odds are 1 in 5 for individual developers considering how much crap is out there. The odds are dependent on how good they make the game. It's still possible for a good game to be overlooked, but considering how awful most mobile games are, I don't think it's very likely that it would be as long as a little time and effort is spent polishing it.

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[MrAngryForNoReason]

iOS easily is the most level playing field in existence yet.

Except the App store is the only playing field of iOS and it isn't as level as you seem to think. Apps that get promoted by Apple within the store get a massive increase in sales, often propelling them into the top 10 / top 50. Top 10 / top 50 apps are naturally bought a lot more than others so they tend to stay in the top charts. Apps that don't get promotion by Apple languish in the depths of the App Store.

This wouldn't be such an issue if the App Store was organised better with better categories, or filters instead of having to endlessly hit "show me more" to get another screen of icons with no real info about what the game is. At the moment the order of apps is based on a combination of sales and star rating which wouldn't be so bad if the star ratings weren't so misleading (obligatory xkcd).

Re:So, just like real life then...

[Karmashock]

So... in your view successful iOS apps should be taxed and their proceeds spread around to less successful apps... so black people can eat?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say... so I'm guessing. But due understand you're talking nonsense. This thread is about how most iOS apps don't sell and only a handful are successful. That's all it's about. If you want to get get political about it... that's fine... but you'll basically be declaring yourself to be a nutcase.

From the comments on that page

[goose-incarnated]

All the commentators seem to be saying the saying the same thing - "YAY! If I work harder I'll be in the top 20%" :-)

Hilarious.

Re:From the comments on that page

[Anonymous Coward]

In the back of their minds, everyone knows that they are unlikely to to make the top 20%, even with their hard work. But, the possibility exists. There is a chance. Somebody has to be in the top 20% and it could be me.

It's about the opportunity. Now if you remove that opportunity, whats the point. Why work, much less work harder, if there will be no opportunity for success. Additionally, why work harder to achieve the top 20% when, if you get there, it will be stripped from you by the government/rabble?

Re:From the comments on that page

[dkleinsc]

That's exactly what the officials at the rat race are trying to get all the contestants to think. What the contestants fail to notice is that if you win the rat race, all you get is to be chief rat for a little while.

For example, if everybody works harder and tries to come up with great apps, then more apps will sell, so Apple's 30% becomes a bigger chunk of change, all without Apple having to lift a finger.

Re:From the comments on that page

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally, why work harder to achieve the top 20% when, if you get there, it will be stripped from you by the government/rabble

Because while the anti-taxers are throwing their petulant little temper tantrums, someone else is doing the $10 worth of work for $7 gain. Meanwhile, yet someone else is doing the $2000000 worth of work for $1200000 gain and getting rich.

Actually, I suspect that the vast majority of the whiners complaining that they refuse to work any harder because they won't get rich fast enough are actually working as hard as they can to get rich as fast as they can, and that they're just lying about acting like little whiny malfeasant toddlers.

Re:From the comments on that page

[SteeldrivingJon]

", all without Apple having to lift a finger."

Well, apart from hosting the app. And handling the purchase transactions. And serving the ads, if you use those. And the work involved in each of these increases as your sales increase, while *you the developer* earn money from each additional sale without lifting a finger.

You're mistaken

[shunnicutt]

Actually, the plus symbol has nothing to do with in-app purchases. It denotes universal apps -- apps which will run on the iPhone or iPod Touch as well as the iPad.

Re:You're mistaken

[macrom]

Actually, that's not entirely correct either, as iPhone and iPod Touch apps will run on iPad without a special version. The plus denotes that the developer has bundled the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad-specific version together. Example: if Angry Birds didn't have a separate iPad app that was customized to the iPad's device metrics and UX but rather bundled in as a single install, you would see the plus icon meaning that you get both the "normal" and the "HD" version. If you only have Angry Birds for iPhone/iPod Touch, you can still run that on your iPad. You just won't get the "native" iPad experience.

I don't know where this idea that "plus means in-app purchase" got started, but the entire Internet community seems to believe in this misconception.

Re:So, just like real life then...

[iamhassi]

He's AC, they rarely say anything worth mentioning. Best to ignore all AC posts, makes life simpler and more enjoyable.

My kingdom for a mod point

[Overzeetop]

More to the point, app developers pay 30% on their GROSS RECEIPTS. If the US switched to a gross receipts tax rather than an income (personal) or profit (corporate) tax, many of the loopholes and dodges would disappear entirely and a flat rate would likely be in the single-digit percentages.

Re:My kingdom for a mod point

[Anonymous Coward]

This would cause a huge increase in the price of many manufactured goods, as few industries have margins of over 30%.

Re:My kingdom for a mod point

[Anonymous Coward]

So it is somehow not possible to create dodges and loopholes around taxes on GROSS RECEIPTS!!!1?

I suspect it is possible. Thus, your claim that switching from income taxes to taxes on gross receipts will somehow eliminate dodges and loopholes is a fiction that dwells inside your head, only.

Eliminating the dodges must be a concern of its own. The dodges won't go away as consequence of some other change, because exemptions can be created around any given tax scheme. The laws must have as a basis the principle that flat, broad based, simple tax rates are the optimum.

The only candidate that offers anything like that is Herman Cain with his '999' scheme. He offered it during the latest 'debate' and, according to Zogby, he went from obscurity to leading the pack among Republican primary voters. That should tell you where the common Republican voter is today; they believe our tax system is a scam, a playground for lawyers and special interests. They're right.

Re:My kingdom for a mod point

[Overzeetop]

No, Cain has bastardized a gross receipts tax into a tax dodge for businesses and the wealthy.

Taxing net income and payroll needs to be eliminated. By definition, both of those allow gaming of the system to carve out what isn't "income" or offsets to your "income."

Gross receipts shortcuts those end-runs: it doesn't matter what you spend your money on, or how you got your money. The government takes a percentage off the top, not off the bottom. And no sales tax. Why put that overhead on businesses? It's much easier to simply have the businesses bundle that tax into the price of the goods, because it's a GROSS point. Simple math.

People on the bottom of Hermain Cain's tax plan pay 18% of every dollar - they're double taxed. 9% off of what you earn, then 9% again when you spend it! If you're wealthy and make money off cap gains, you don't pay the first 9%. If you spend money on business stuff, you don't pay taxes on it, AND you aren't paying the 9% you're currently paying in payroll taxes. Of course businesses like it. And the idiots who can't do 9% of a number in their head are going to get screwed...which is most of the population.

This certainly shouldn't surprise anyone

[jonnythan]

This is not at all unusual. The best 1% of people at something are enormously better at that something than the average. This applies to virtually everything. The top 1% of NFL players make a large portion of overall money, and the only reason it's not higher is because of salary caps. The top 1% of money-makers in the US earn something like 15% of all the money.

Re:This certainly shouldn't surprise anyone

[timeOday]

Actually, taking everything does not necessarily mean somebody is enormously better. It can also mean somebody is just a tiny bit better, consistently, in a winner-takes-all situation.

Imagine you hire 20 guys to dig ditches and pay them by the foot. It will be rare for anybody to out-earn anybody else by more than a factor of about two. Now imagine you have a contest to see which of the 20 guys can dig the fastest, and give him all the earnings. That doesn't mean he's suddenly infinitely better than the others, just that he's at least a little better. (You'll also notice the guys now spend a lot of effort trying to slow each other down, and give up if they fall behind, so less digging gets done overall).

Re:This certainly shouldn't surprise anyone

[SteeldrivingJon]

"The top 1% of money-makers in the US earn something like 15% of all the money."

18%

Stratified Elite or Meritocracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, those with all the capital are exploiting the others. We need to redistribute the wealth to all app developers by nationalizing the App Store. Viva la Fart App.

Re:So, just like real life then...

[GameboyRMH]

A brilliant system, all the lower 99%ers will be looking at the top guys, spending money on app developer subscriptions and saying "with enough hard work, I can be just like them!" - which is actually true with software sales, unlike real life, so I guess there's nothing wrong about it apart from the illusion of a more even wealth spread.

Statstically meaningless, but likely correct

[laird]

The methodology he used (asking people to volunteer to take the survey) means that, as he quite rightly says, the results aren't statistically valid. So they certainly don't prove anything. In particular, broadcasting a survey and asking people to take it doesn't ensure that the people that take the survey are representative of the developer population - they could (for example) be more likely to be non-commercial developers, because the commercial developers might not be allowed by their employers to share informatiom like this. And so on.

That being said, it's not all all surprising that a tiny percentage of 'hits' would be responsible for the mzjority of the revenue, as that's true in many businesses. For example, in music the top 2% of music makes enough money to pay for the other 98% that loses money. Book publishers similarly lose money on most books, paid for by the 'hits'. Pharmaceutical companies lose money on almost all of their research, but the 'hits' pay for everything. VC's lose money on the large majority of their startups, and the 'wins' pay for everything. Most videogames lose money, paid for by the big hits. I think that it's a natural dynamic in any creative field where you're creating something new, rather than a commoditized business - you are taking a risk, and most of the time it doesn't pay off, but when it does it's huge, making the risk worthwhile. And in all of those markets it's something like 1-2% of hits that generate all of the real money.

There's also a dynamic in the market that once something 'breaks out' it accellerates. For example, when an album 'breaks out' by hitting a certain success level that gets it attention, it starts getting more promotion, it shows up in best seller lists, etc., giving it wider exposure and thus more sales. And in the iTunes store, when something starts doing well it gets better placement, reviewers write about it, etc., all of which drive up sales.

So between the two, you end up with a huge pool of new games/songs/... trying to make it, and the occasional breakout that moves up to the top tier and becomes a hit. It makes it all exciting!

Why is this news?

[misterye]

Compared to the console and PC gaming world I would imagine the disparity there to be even greater than this. EA, Take Two Interactive, Nintendo, Capcom, Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, Sega, Sony, etc are likely the top 0.01% when it comes to developers and probably take in almost all the (it's too damned early for me to actually do the research, sorry). The important difference here is that in iOS, as of now, the top 1% is only taking in 30% and that those developers are made up of a far greater number of indie studios.

Re:Why is this news?

[misterye]

Numbers: check http://www.softwaretop100.org/top-25-gaming-companies-2010 for the rankings of the top 25 by revenue. We see Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, Sony, and the rest of the top 10 make up over half of the estimated global game revenue. 10 companies out of hundreds? thousands? who knows? The iOS market will probably move more and more towards this as the big publishers like EA continue to press their marketing advantage to sell their games, but the nice thing is there is always an opportunity for the little guy with the killer game to sell just as many copies as EA.

Re:So, just like real life then...

[sycodon]

To Quote Yoda, "That, is why you fail."

What that meant

[ALimoges]

"Angy Birds Game Developers make a Thirs of All Revenue".

Re:What that meant

[Synerg1y]

What kills me is angry bird like games have been made in flash since windows 95... WTF is so special about this one??

I'd love to hear the psychology behind it lol, I think it's an ok game for entertainment, but I swear I played this in middle school. I would love to see some higher end graphics games on all platforms, a 1080p screen should be able to do more!

In the meantime, in case you don't have angry birds or your phone handy,

http://www.officegamespot.com/flashgames/crush-the-castle.htm

is along the lines of the line of flash games, angry birds copied.

Well

[Wovel]

How does that differ from regular software development. I suspect that the numbers are worse in general.

We can't have this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Those people have all the profits? That's not fair, they should have to share those profits with everyone else. It's totally not fair for a few percent of developers to horde all the wealth while other developers can just barely get by...

That's how pretty much EVERYTHING is, right?

[sootman]

Top 1% of almost anything makes 1/3 of the income in that field.

Capitalist scum

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets protest or somehow redistribute it.

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[funkmotor]

Couldn't agree more. It is very difficult to just browse through looking for something you might like. There are only very catchall categories, more sub-categories should be introduced - for example Games - Strategy - Turn Based - Squad Tactics. For a company who is held up as a design and ease of use hero iTunes is really difficult to find anything other than what they are shovelling at you as featured or if you know about it already. I was browsing books in iTunes on my laptop today and all the book titles we truncated because they were too long to fit above the little icons. How about displaying them as a list?!

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[Anonymous Coward]

iOS easily is the most level playing field in existence yet.

Except the App store is the only playing field of iOS and it isn't as level as you seem to think.

He didn't say he thought it was level. He said it was the most level playing field yet. Even considering all the issues you see, he is right.

What other platform has low transaction costs, software that a large number of people want, and rankings that make it possible to filter out the crap?

The web has low transaction costs, but no way to find good software. Most web apps are not as capable as their non-web alternatives.

Buying boxed in the store will get you quality software, but the transaction costs (market the software, ship in a box) are outrageous.

Open source repos have free as in price software, but most people do not have the patience to install debian and deal with its lack of polish.

Sounds normal like the US economu.

[lordmage]

The top 1% have 40% of the wealth in the US, hey.. the top 1% of the developers of iOS are getting a Bum deal, they are 7 percent behind the times!!

garbage in / garbage out

[RocketSW]

Not surprising. I bet that the bottom 80% of AppStore developers are the same people who are releasing the garbage that is currently drowning out the (relatively) few number of well executed apps available. At least 80% of the AppStore content consists of copycat apps and pure trash. Think Angry Avians, DoodleHop, and iFlatulate.

Garbage In / Garbage Out. It's as simple as that.

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap

[jmorris42]

Sturgeon's Law at work. 90% of everything is crap. The 10% that isn't crap is where most of the money goes and the few big budget well designed titles are pulling in most of that while the $0.99 apps, even if they sell well probably won't make it into that upper crust. But requiring a lot less developer time a simple yet interesting $0.99 app is probably more profitable.

This same process is at work everywhere. A small percentage of movies take home most of the box office and DVD revenue. A couple of pop stars (with no more tangible talent than a thousand others) end up with most of the fame and money. A few athletes take home zillions, a few more make a few million and thousands and thousands never make the big leagues at all. It is the way of things. We libertarians and conservatives understand this, progressives see a problem to be fixed.

Re:Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap

[Hazel Bergeron]

(with no more tangible talent than a thousand others) end up with most of the fame and money. [...] We libertarians and conservatives understand this, progressives see a problem to be fixed.

Are you saying that there is no problem? Or that you don't want to fix it?

Re:Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap

[conspirator23]

We libertarians and conservatives understand this, progressives see a problem to be fixed.

Bzzt. You use the word "progressive" far too broadly. Socialists (whether secular or religious in nature) are serious about re-engineering the economic rules of order with the goal of bending the natural curve of wealth distribution. We could argue the relative merits of trying to do that, but that's not really why I'm here.

There are a lot of people, like myself, who self-identify as being on the "left" but aren't socialists. The problem with laissez-faire capitalism is what happens with that minority percentage at the top. Once there, they regularly engage in two behaviors that I believe needs to be controlled:

1. Many engage in their own re-engineering effort, designed to lock themselves (and their progeny) into position at the top and deny the social and economic mobility that a free market economy is supposd to enable.

2. Some enjoy pissing on the heads of those further down the curve for their own entertainment.

Libertarians suffer the same delusions that all flavors of anarchists experience, the notion that any central authority is inherently worse than letting human nature run it's course. It's just wrong. There will always be a certain % of humanity that are unredeemable assholes. It is in the best interests of everybody else that we negotiate a consensus framework of socioeconomic limitations to keep those bastards in check.

Tea Party Aversion to Simple Math

[soloport]

The math works like this...

Apple: Government
Top 1%: "Job creators"
Bottom 80%: The poor saps

Apple takes 33% from 100% of all developers.

USA: Government
Top 1%: "Job creators"
Bottom 80%: The "poor" ([rolls eyes] have you visited Bolivia? Somalia? Haiti?)

USA takes 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% from citizens -- generally, depending on income level.

The highest tax brackets have been in decline since 2000:
1993–2000: 39.6%
2001: 39.1%
2002: 38.6%
2003–2007: 35%

Coincidently, so have incomes for the bottom 80% of US citizens (especially if one considers cost increases e.g. health care, interest rates on personal credit).

Re:Tea Party Aversion to Simple Math

[Dragon Bait]

Yeah, because the Y2K bubble, 9/11, and the two and half useless wars didn't have any effect on the economy. It must all be the tax rate. Thank you for clearing that up for us.

Re:Tea Party Aversion to Simple Math

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did GP say it's all the tax? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because GP didn't mention those events doesn't mean he/she's saying those events didn't have anything to do with it.

Besides, mentioning those events won't do much good, since we can't exactly travel back in the time and prevent/undo those events.

Re:Tea Party Aversion to Simple Math

[localman]

You've got it backwards. The only fools saying "it's all about tax rate" are the ones opposing taxes. Certainly taxes have an effect, but it is only the simpletons in the conservative camp that think the formula is as simple as lower taxes = more jobs.

The tax rate declining with wages and jobs proves one thing: cutting taxes alone will not create jobs, much to the chagrin of every Republican candidate at the moment.

A good reason to choose Blackberry

[narcc]

It's funny, 13% of blackberry developers pull in over 100k through app world. In general, Blackberry developers earn more than their iOS and Android counterparts

Remember, RIM had 42% of the US smartphone market as late as April 2010, and they out-sold Apple until early 2011 -- they have a massive install base (as large or possibly still larger than Apple). You'd be foolish, as a developer, to ignore the platform right now. There is, apparently, a good bit of money to be made.

It's funny how perceptions always seem to outweigh hard data.

Re:A good reason to choose Blackberry

[ultramk]

Part of the reason for that is that 13% of Blackberry developers would fit inside a medium-sized fright elevator. (I kid, that's a little less 6,000 developers, assuming 1 developer per app. Actual number probably much less, considering successful developers often have several apps.)

Considering that the installed base for iOS is around 250 million users and growing, and the installed base for Blackberry is around 50 million users and rapidly shrinking... it's hardly difficult to see why people are choosing to put their efforts towards the best opportunity for future growth.

Seriously, though. A developer making a decision about where to invest time and resources has to look at not only current and former size of the market, but also growth trends. Anyone looking at the Blackberry market right now who isn't forecasting imminent doom simply isn't paying attention. Why put 6 months of time and resources into a platform made by company that looks like it's about to fold?

Similarly, there are more developers on iOS than Android right now simply because although the Android platform is showing excellent growth, the people in that market don't seem to be as willing to actually pay for apps as iOS users. Developers (unless it's just a hobby), tend to gravitate to where the money is.

Re:A good reason to choose Blackberry

[narcc]

Considering that the installed base for iOS is around 250 million users and growing, and the installed base for Blackberry is around 50 million users and rapidly shrinking... it's hardly difficult to see why people are choosing to put their efforts towards the best opportunity for future growth.

Well, that's not quite right. While RIM is losing market share in the US, it's still gaining users overall, not losing them (though they are down in the US -- they still have more US users than Apple had in Feb. 2011)

50 million is a gross underestimate, just as is 250 million is a gross overestimate. The number of devices sold does not equal the number of users! (a fact you remembered for RIM, and forgot for Apple!)

BBM alone has 45 million active users (and growing) Remembering that RIM outsold Apple until 2011, your figures would suggest that Apple gained 200 million new users in 2011 alone. Unlikely, as Apple shipped 14.1 million iphones *world wide* in Q4 2010 -- I think your figures may be a bit off!

Besides, we're talking US numbers here, and it's really the only market that RIM is struggling in. According to ComScore (May, 2011), Apple had 20.43 million US users and RIM had 18.97 Million. Not a huge difference, is there?

The point, of course, is that number of users isn't a factor between RIM and Apple as their so close. From a developers perspective, they're basically equally sized markets, though RIM offers their apps more visibility and can command a higher price.

Which was my point -- it's incredibly stupid to ignore Blackberry as a platform. When you look at the data, it's abundantly clear that there's lot's of money sitting on the table.

Re:A good reason to choose Blackberry

[ultramk]

Sorry if my numbers are off, I tried to Google the most current ones, but getting apples-to-apples is very tricky.

Aside from that, you don't feel that the current upheaval at RIM is honestly worrying?

Re:A good reason to choose Blackberry

[narcc]

I''m not particularly bothered by it. RIM's slide can be explained by it's severe lack of new phones over the past two years -- and even then, they did surprisingly well against some fierce competition, even with outdated hardware.

Remember, their only really suffering in the US market right now, they have no debt, and they're growing overall world-wide.

Their new phones are competitive, particularly the Bold 9900. They look to be shortening their release cycle, a very good thing, as allowing more than a year between updates to their core products (sometimes longer) was keeping them too far behind. We'll be seeing a steady release of new handsets in 2012 as they roll-out their new QNX phones. If they can keep that up, I don't see any reason that their slide will continue. We'll know more when we have their Q4 results, which I expect to be MUCH better than their Q2 which everyone expected to be as bad or worse than what was reported.

RIM seems to (finally) be "getting it". While we may not see them back in the #1 spot, it doesn't look like their in any serious trouble.

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[Tharsman]

Although the App Store can certainly be better, its still way more fair than any game distribution platform out there.

Try to sit down over the weekend, make a game, and get it published in the PS3, Wii, or XBox Live online stores. Heck, try to do that with Steam or Impulse. The consoles are goint to ignore you and 99% chances are the PC stores will politely reject you. Steam and Impulse promote almost everything they get but they do so because they also heavily filter what they accept to only things they would feel proud promoting.

There is always the Android app store, but most that audience does not want to spend money and you must already carry some popularity and momentum to attract the attention of those that are willing to do so, so iOS App Store comes on top by being a platform that actually places you in front of a paying target market.

I look forward to the Kindle Fire. Although the Amazon App Store for Android sucks for developers at the moment (due to them reserving the right to change prices without your consent) It still seems like a platform that may be as "open" (relative to other game platforms) as the iOS App Store and also have an audience that likes to spend money.

Yes, I would love to see some improvements in the categorization, and definitively a removal of the Top 25 button that is dead center of the screen. Yes, Apple promotes some games over others, but if you look at the list (categories, sort by release date), and then head to the "Featured New arrivals" section you may notice eveything that seems to have any effort put into it gets highlighted in the weekly featured new section.

Even if Apple does not perceive your game to be a quality product, once in the iOS App Store, you can try your luck and spend some moeny advertizing your game. Distribute flyiers if you want, web site banners are not the only way to promote software. Xerox or print a bunch of promotional material and put that in every clipboard you find at your local university campus, for example.

Problem with most iOS (and Android actually) devs is they make something over the weekend, toss it in the appstore or marketplace and sit back waiting for money to roll in. It is the developer's responsability to let the people know the game is there, or yo think Walmart bothers telling people Colgate is good for their teeth? Store's jobs are to stock up, not to market. Any marketing you get out of plain visibility is just a bonus and should not be your only marketing strategy.

in other words

[burris]

In other words, games don't make much money compared to virtual Skinner boxes that let you pay a modest sum to get your shot of dopamine if you get tired of pressing the lever.

And of that third ...

[daveywest]

Rovio accounts for 98% of it.

/obvious

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[MrAngryForNoReason]

Problem with most iOS (and Android actually) devs is they make something over the weekend, toss it in the appstore or marketplace and sit back waiting for money to roll in.

I think it is a commonly held misconception that most iOS devs are bedroom hobbiests who throw something together in a couple of days and punt it on to the App store in the hope of making a few quid. Practically all iOS games that anyone has heard of are made by professional development companies with a significant budget.

For instance people seem to think Angry Birds was this out of the blue success. Actually it was produced with a budget of 100,000 euros a full development team and was the 52nd game they had produced.

Protest!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it time to protest the economic inequality of app developers? The top 20% clearly have an unfair advantage. We need to close this gap now!

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[Tharsman]

They also signed up with a "publisher" (Chillingo) who did most the marketting legwork in exchange of about 50% of the profits (post Apple's cut.)

And this is different from...

[Anonymous Coward]

a traditional economy how?

Ok?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is different from income in general how?

Still better than wealth distribution in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

As of 2007, the top 1% of the US controlled over 40% of the wealth, and you can be sure it's a larger chunk now:

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

The real story is why we haven't done something about this yet...

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[radish]

You can put pretty much anything you want on Xbox Live with their Indie Games area. Of course, whether anyone will play it is a whole other matter - but you can certainly write an app and put it in the marketplace just as easily as with iOS.

Re:This isn't too different from traditional softw

[Tharsman]

Not as easily. I heard a few stories (sorry dont have any to share right now since I stopped paying attention a LONG time ago) about trolling and abuse of the "democratic" moderation the indie program uses. Games may be blocked, or devs with big lists of facebook friends may get your game horrible ratings as you dont need to actually own the game to rate it. You are also restricted how to develop (even Apple and it's closed garden allow you to use native code or third party game engines, while you are forced to use XNA in the XBox.)

Microsoft also hides this xbox live section in a way that you must be basically looking for it. You are, clearly labeled as a third class citizen and dont allow to share space with the big games. Meanwhile Apple and Google don't play favorites in their stores. EA's games are just as visible as John Smith's games.

I'll give you that its better than, let's say the Wii, and in some ways it's a better bone toss than what Steam and Impulse do, but it's far from being "the most level playing field in existance yet."

I Have the Answer

[roman_mir]

Just a day ago I wrote this question and the ansewr in a thread, but I give an explanation as to why the progressives cannot answer this question.

Here it is again:

I see all this people in this thread (and if you look at my comments page, you'll see just how many people are replying, so it's hard), and they would never be able to answer a fairly simple question, which I do have an answer for.

Here is the question:

What's 'fair'? What is the number that you believe people must pay into the system via taxes? (I of-course am completely against all income, corporate, payroll and investment taxes). What's the number?

They will never be able to say what it is.

I know why they can't say it. It's because they don't know what the cost will be, but the one thing is for sure: cost will be going up. There is just NO WAY for cost to go down. The way that gov't deals with the cost and run-away pyramid scheme is by increasing the revenue through higher taxes and lower benefits (the way Reagan did it for SS).

So taxes are sure to go up, not just in absolute numbers but percentage wise. Benefits are sure to go down.

But in the inflationary system and government ran medical system this means that you can NEVER put a finger on the number that you want to collect from people, because you in fact will ALWAYS have to increase that number in a government system. Of-course inflation by gov't is some of it (costs going up), but most of it is gov't ran medical care and insurance, just because it's gov't.

Some people make very little money, maybe 12K USD / year. Well, in extreme cases that's how much ONE DAY of hospital stay may cost in USA!

So that's interesting. Imagine that health care costs go up to 100K/day for some cases. What if they go up to 500K/day?

What is the appropriate taxation then to provide medical care through gov't system and is it even possible?

Well, that would be the reason why nobody will answer the question of: what's fair.

--

Of-course those who actually own businesses and create jobs (cliche, but then again, poor people don't create jobs), those who do create jobs already do more than their fair share before they pay 1 cent in taxes. That's because they increase the wealth of the society by increasing economic production output and they provide jobs, and salaried people pay taxes and they don't have to ask for gov't assistance, etc.

Sure, there are people who are feeding at the gov't trough - certain Wall Str. bankers benefit from the collapse by getting hundreds of millions in bonuses - well that just another reason to stop the government from economic participation. It doesn't know what it's doing by bailing out banks. It doesn't know what kind of damage it's causing by messing with the economy this way and by propping up zombie banks at the expense of everybody.

Re:I Have the Answer

[fferreres]

>Of-course those who actually own businesses and create jobs (cliche, but then again, poor people don't create jobs), those who do create jobs already do more than their fair share before they pay 1 cent in taxes.

Don't you see it's designed that way? Look at all the regulations, requirements, laws, jurisdictions, international treaties, federal, state, municipal/county and the many other different taxes and contexts, how the financial sector works (you have money, you get loans at 3%, you don't you get it at 20%), economies of scale (you have lots of money, you buy discounted wholesale, you don't you pay premium retail), lobby, protection, safeguards, visas, etc.

I don't have anything against being rich. But today, staying rich is much easier than becoming rich, and people that can't become rich, can't compete, and thus can't employ. So the SOLUTION is not to protect the rich, it's to make it easier to become rich, and make it easier to become poor. It's called fairness and mobility.

Re:I Have the Answer

[roman_mir]

Yeah, the government designed it in such a way as to profit from both ends of the stick. On one hand it's profiting from the specific monopolies they create, because they get their money for elections and their jobs once they are done with government there. On the other hand they are using the populist moves that in reality hurt the individuals, especially middle/lower income people, but they gain large constituency this way, because poor people who government gives hand outs to are an easy to get voting block. Just talk about all the crutches you give them and they'll vote for you. Promise them better crutches, chrome plated crutches and they'll cheerfully vote for you.

Just make sure they never figure out that you broke their legs. So ensure that the education system never brings this point across.

Re:I Have the Answer

[fferreres]

I think there's a simple solution. Make the wealthy responsible for employment. If employment goes below certain threshold, you start taxing their wealth progressively to the amount of risk they take.

I don't know the exact way, but the more you hoard and the safer you play it, the more you are accountable for.
Eg.1. Take less risks (more liquid position, lower beta positions) such as "hold more cash", "hold more gold", hold more AAA bonds, and you are taxed very swiftly. Invest in start ups, venture capital, etc. and you'll get a larger break. Same with companies.
Eg. 2. Invest in foreign assets, or have wealth that is concentrated abroad, you are taxed more. If they want to go live somewhere else, they lose all the protection the country provides.

Re:I Have the Answer

[roman_mir]

I think there's a simple solution. Make the wealthy responsible for employment. If employment goes below certain threshold, you start taxing their wealth progressively to the amount of risk they take.

- so you just want people to hide their money? Henry Ford hired enough workers to keep the assembly lines going, but he definitely could use thousands more people if he did NOT build the assembly lines.

Of-course he was producing the cheapest, highest quality cars in the world, benefiting the market by providing that type of wealth, and cars are wealth.

The point is that in normal free market you don't need any more incentives for rich to want get richer, they already do. Also the poor want to get rich and the middle class want to get rich, everybody wants to get rich. So in a normal free market economy, where you don't punish people for hiring, there will be more work.

Just left Zurich yesterday and came to Germany, listen, there is only 4% unemployment in Switzerland. It's because there is very little real labor regulations there and the taxes... well, let's put it this way - if you have to pay something and you disagree, you can actually negotiate as to how much you pay this year with your canton, and tax evasion is not an actual criminal offense. REAL unemployment is about 4%, it's very low. That's of-course before they decided to turn Franc into Euro, we'll see what happens now (I bet unemployment will go up and Swiss will not be happy about it.)

Now let's look at what you are proposing:

Take less risks (more liquid position, lower beta positions) such as "hold more cash", "hold more gold", hold more AAA bonds, and you are taxed very swiftly. Invest in start ups, venture capital, etc. and you'll get a larger break. Same with companies.

- so you want to tax the pensioners the hardest then?

How are you going to tax my gold, by the way? I hold the metal, you don't even know how much. Get in line, you won't be able to tax real assets and it makes no sense for me to hold gold if there are better opportunities. Get me a working economy, I'll invest more into production capacity rather than into inflation hedges.

Eg. 2. Invest in foreign assets, or have wealth that is concentrated abroad, you are taxed more. If they want to go live somewhere else, they lose all the protection the country provides.

- how are they going to be taxed more if they are not bringing the money in? People DO leave, I left.

---

Your solutions are no solutions. They are more of government type regulations, but that's just going to modify human behavior and you will always get the opposite results of what you are trying to achieve with that. It's like trying to create a perfect DRM - IT IS GOING TO FAIL. It's because people with money want to make money, but if you punish them for it and create environment that is punishing them for having money and making money, it's in their best interest to find ways around that, and that's good. That's good.

I don't want people, who have money to waste it by giving it to governments, so governments can grow and bail out their preferred monopolies, like AIG, GS, JP Morgan, etc. It makes no sense.

The REAL solution is to get the government in line, to return to individual liberties, allow people to do whatever in business, as long as it does not violate 2 things:
1. Criminal law.
2. Contract law.

Make sure that States do not create barriers to entry. Stop subsidizing monopolies. Stop printing money. Stop setting false money prices (interest rates). Stop regulating industries out of competition. Stop regulating labor out of work.

It's all about modification of human behavior, and as long as government does not stand on the way, people will be hiring people to make money on their ideas and projects.

Once government gets in the way, a lot of the effort goes not into useful market solutions that create wealth, but instead it creates make-shift work for some, like lawyers and tax-accountants, and the economy suffers, because the efforts are not to create products but instead the efforts are spent to avoid government PUNISHMENT for work.

Re:I Have the Answer

[fferreres]

All the assumptions are wrong. There is no free market.

>Once government gets in the way

They are already in the way.

> So you just want people to hide their money?

The opposite. That's why I mentioned liquidity as a criteria. Hiding it under the bed is 100% liquidity. There's no such thing as hidden. You either spend it, invest it or save it. The mattress is the worst way to save, as for reactivating the economy depends ENTIRELY on the government spending for them, and that means either more debt or more taxes.

>Henry Ford hired enough workers to keep the assembly lines going, but he definitely could use thousands more people if he did NOT build the assembly lines.

I think I explained my point wrongly. Hiring for no sense is something governments like doing as it gets them votes, and no benefit to society (and some transfer that sometimes sets a bad precedent).

What I meant by create employment is really that they need to spend it, even to the point of becoming a bit less wealthy, or invest them at a risk. Do so, before the Government taxes them more. Today, we have companies that are solid and are becoming weaker just because they face raising interest rates. And at the same time, we (almost) have the lowest rates ever for Federal funds and bonds.

If you have too much money (personal wealth) and neither spend it, nor invest it (the less liquid the more useful), you should pay a lot more taxes. Society doesn't need you!

Ford did something very different. They created an incentive for everyone to work more. Everyone aspired a car. Cars became affordable. Cars became an american standard. I was reading the other day an anecdote of how Ford thought. He asked their engineers to invent a single block with 8 cillinders. Was told it was impossible. Told the engineers to figure it out by themselves. After a year, they came back, with no good news. He told them to keep thinking about it and to get it done. They did it. That was investing. And it paid not just for him, but for everyone. Imagine investments in making houses 50% cheaper to build. Imagine planes 705 more efficient and cheaper to construct. Imagine cheap electricity from fusion or other revolution in eolic or solar panels (or whatever). Imagine no gas needed after a new cell battery.

All this would affect the status quo. Today, we are fostering monopolies like the telcos, cartels like oil, syndicates like education, etc. They just destroy value, there is little innovation, and all our salaries buy so much less than many cannot even afford to pay a home loan.

That's why I say, stop protecting monopolies, safe bets, very liquid assets and even more extremely liquid assets (like cash equivalents, or using the mattress), especially if in the very wealthy populations.

Re:I Have the Answer

[roman_mir]

All the assumptions are wrong. There is no free market.

- correct. There is no free market, however there are degrees of freedom to consider and also what needs to be understood is that the market rules never actually stop working.

So even when the market is being manipulated by a third party (government), the rules of market continue working. It's like breathing - you need air and your body tries to inhale, but if there is third party between you and air - water, then you still continue to breath it. So the function of breathing continues to work for some time, of-course the water will flood the lungs and then function will cease, but that's not precisely what happens in case of market. Market functions never cease, they continue responding to the external stimuli by working out the answers. Of-course the outcomes of the answers may not be what people LIKE but the outcomes are consistent.

My point is that market provides consistent outcomes to inputs, this doesn't stop just because a third party is destroying normal market feedback mechanisms.

They are already in the way.

- yes, but again, this is about degrees of being in the way. So while in USA the degree of entanglement of government is very high, it's much lower in Switzerland, it's lower than that in Singapore and it's lower than that in Hong Kong and lower than that in mainland China.

The opposite. That's why I mentioned liquidity as a criteria. Hiding it under the bed is 100% liquidity.

- sure, except that the definition of money needs to be cleared. Gold is money. Fiat is paper that many people consider to be worthless. Many people will lose their shirt being in t-bills/bonds/USD.

There's no such thing as hidden.

- what does that mean, no such thing as hidden? You assume too much.

You either spend it, invest it or save it.

- even when you spend it or invest it, it can be hidden.

The mattress is the worst way to save, as for reactivating the economy depends ENTIRELY on the government spending for them, and that means either more debt or more taxes.

- no no no, no amount of spending by government can EVER reactive the economy :)

That's where we do differ - I do not accept that there is ANY amount of spending that government can be involved in that will actually do anything to improve the economy. This has been tried a number of times, total command economy doesn't produce anything useful at all and it always leads to an economic collapse due to impossibility of actually consuming anything, the demand is huge, it's total. But there is nothing produced and nobody wants your fake money.

Government cannot create economy. Government can appear and become bigger and bigger in a strong economy, but it cannot create one. Economies are created completely privately always. There are individuals that want to live better, but they must produce to do that. Government can only TAKE from economy to spend on programs (hopefully on very small number of agreed upon programs, such as border protection, criminal/contract law and such.)

What I meant by create employment is really that they need to spend it, even to the point of becoming a bit less wealthy, or invest them at a risk.

- government is standing in the way, always trying to remove risk. The problem is that it can never actually remove risk, but it tries and that's what creates the imbalances, as the market never stops working, the imbalances grow and eventually economy is lopsided, credit is somewhere it shouldn't be in, it's all mis-allocated, debts are held by people/corporations/governments that cannot pay it back.

It's all happening because gov't is standing there, saying: you don't have to worry, we are going to protect you.

This is FDIC, FHA, Freddie/Fannie, SS, Medicare, minimum wag

Too many apps

[Anonymous Coward]

There are actually lots of nice apps that in the early days of the app store would havecdone quite well for their developer.

But now days there are way too many apps and it is almost impossible to get noticed unless you have a publisher or are vey very lucky....

From on of the 99% ....

SEI

what do you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

just because you can build an app doesn't mean that it is good, or worth money. The PC software market is the same, who makes money on PC software? the top few percent, the rest are just there to practice programming, or fill niche markets. Been there, done that, got the CD.

In the spirit of fairness...

[drik00]

There should be a system that takes a progressively higher percentage of the revenue from the successful apps and distributes that revenue to the apps that aren't as successful. It's not like a app's quality or usability should affect how much revenue it is allowed to keep. Those poor little guys who make the apps with just grainy pictures of Japanese teens in scanty cosplay outfits are the victims, and the big, fat cat developers who can spend time and invest resources into making something people actually want are simply guilty of greed.

Yes, I'm trollling, but it's true.

Discoverability (or lack of it)

[Toddlerbob]

Speaking as someone who very casually uses an ipod touch, which I obtained on a special deal, and bought mainly because I just wanted to know what the device was like:

It's not easy to browse for apps or discover new ones. Sure, you can search, but search for what? I'm more likely to discover new apps when they're described on forums and bulletin boards than I am from cruising the Apple Store. Yeah, you can easily find the most popular ones in a list, but then, that's the point, isn't it? Once you're on that list, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay there, and remaining one of the small percent who gain the lion's percent of the income.

Well, I'm not wild about the device, anyway. Can't even simply transfer pictures to it without it reducing the resolution.

It's the Pareto Principle... so what?

[mark-t]

Really... when is it *NOT* the case that a majority of a resource is utilized by a minority of its utilizers?

Same old same old

[minstrelmike]

I think that's what is called the economics of the entertainment industry. Movies, books, actors, bands, songwriters. Choose an entertainment profession and the top earners are earning most of the money in the entire industry. It's the economics of the network effect of popularity.

Obviously...

[Anonymous Coward]

This calls for a redistribution of wealth program from Apple.

Much better than general economy then

[iamacat]

If richest 1% of americans only made 1/3 of the income, we would be looking at our country in a very different light. We must congratulate Apple on given new opportunities to indie developers.