Majority of App Developers Make Less Than $500 a Month

[zakislam]

75% of the the developers, however, have another job.

Majority of App Developers Make Less Than $500 a Month : Read more

 

[eklipz330]

not surprised at all. and i don't think it'll ever change. if anything, it will become more diluted

 

[halcyon]

...and its readily apparent in offerings we see.

 

[alidan]

make something usefull and not a fart noise app, and you will probably make more money.

make a simple but addictive game, and there you go, self sustaining wealth for life.
and the game isnt hard, you could make a flash in the pan game, and it would still net you probably 100k before its forgotten at 1$ a pop.

really wish i had programming skills, as i have ideas, and i know i could be big, but i got no talent and no money to fund talent.

 

[amuffin]

Because the money has already been taken.

The problem is with these app stores, is there are too many apps.

Maybe you could have made money about 2-3 years ago. Now, it's just flooded.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Yeah, the article is kind of misleading. Obviously Rovio isn't worth $5.5 billion from app sales :lol:

 

[Filiprino]

There are too many poor apps out there.

 

[p05esto]

There's too much crap out there, far too many apps that no one needs. You're almost wasting your time developing apps. It's like hitting the lottery if your app is any good and gets attention.

 

[killerclick]

And most drug dealers live with their mothers. It's winner-take-all world and it doesn't pay to be adequate at anything.

 

[helltag]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]make something usefull and not a fart noise app, and you will probably make more money. make a simple but addictive game, and there you go, self sustaining wealth for life.[/citation]

hah! If only that was the case! It's very much about marketing too, something that if you don't have experience in and can't afford you need to crash and burn multiple times. My last game was on iPhone and was simple and addictive (search "Laundry Rush"), even hit the number 1 spot in Hong Kong and success in dozens of other countries when free for a week. Friends and co-workers were addicted to it, always coming in and telling me each day their new score. I was seeing a girl at the time who we would go back to her place and she would play the game for hours straight while I chilled on the couch and worked on future patches.

It barely cracked 4 figures over 6 months, by which time about a year of my life had gone into it. Not as much as the game before that, 3 years and a lot less success (and it's pretty bad imo, I did the graphics myself). The artist and I clashed and went our own ways and I set the game free which was in conflict with the artist, I actually find joy in people playing my games and when free it was getting over 30k downloads a day compared to a couple bucks a day.

I've finally started work on my follow up, which friends have already fallen in love with, and I'm hoping I'll be more prepared with this one and manage to get some hype going prior to release. But it's never about quality unfortunately, of course I'm biased though

 

[Thomas Creel]

The rating system needs to be reworked in the iOS store, every app needs one professional rating. I am tired of dl'ing a boring app that had great promises.

I think it just needs a bit more regulation is all.

 

[fuxxnuts]

Stylemalls10: Please tell me more! Sounds really really interesting. how do I take advantage of such a deal?

 

[fuxxnuts]

(For those who might not get it ... stylemalls10 is clearly some spam bot... for the love of god please do not click on their link -_-")

 

[Guest]

The note about Rovio definitely was misleading since majority of their income comes from merchandise and marketing deals. They recently even made a deal with Paulig (the largest coffee supplier here in Finland that also operates in most of the northern Europe) and released a espresso and a drip roast of Angry Birds coffees.

 

[Guest]

Rovio is pulling more than $15,ooo,ooo per month currently.

Mostly coming from "free, ad supported" versions.

 

[xero141]

One POV: The figure is also watered-down a bit by the number of app developers in India, Philippines, Pakistan, China, and other countries where making $500US a month goes a very long way. I have many friends who have degrees in computer science or IT or mobile programming who work for companies (local and multi-national) that pay the equivalent of $300 per month in the Philippines.

Another POV: 352 developers. That isn't exactly a good number.

 

[geost91gr]

Just one thing: Allow more payment options. Most people are not willing to get credit cards, especially now.

 

[gogogadgetliver]

It reminds me a bit of the video game industry during the Atari 2600 days about the time the E.T. game released. The industry like imploded due to too much cheap crap and not enough consumer dollars.

250k apps? You couldn't touch them all in your lifetime.

Crossing fingers that the Windows 8 store keeps the quality higher.