Report: iPhone app pulls in $1 million in first six weeks
Apparently you can make a lot of money with an iPhone application. According to TechCrunch, Social Gaming Network's (SGN) Fleet Air Superiority Training F.A.S.T. dogfight game "pulled in over $1 million in download fees alone in the first six weeks it was available."
F.A.S.T was originally priced at $9.99 but SGN has varied the pricing as part of their launch plan. It currently sells for $1.99 and is said to be bringing in as much as $60,000 per day.
As I wrote earlier in the week about Flash games, quality matters. SGN's initial games were OK if not great, but F.A.S.T and Vampire vs. Werewolves are significantly more complex and entertaining.
It's not clear that F.A.S.T can maintain this trajectory or how much of a lifetime any iPhone application has. But, there is something to be said for the strategy of building an engine that allows for more games to be built and for licensing the technology to others.
Still, with more than $100 million invested in iPhone start-ups, there are going to have to be a lot more companies developing high-quality games and a lot more iPhone users (which means multiple carriers) to prove the market anywhere near $1 billion and prove to be a good return on venture capital.
This also brings up some interesting questions about how microtransactions and virtual goods play into premium games (i.e. those that you pay more than $1.99 for) versus free to play social games. There's not enough in the competitive market yet to see a trend, but I suspect we'll see a further movement toward cheap barrier to entry and a heavier reliance on alternative means of revenue generation.
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Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @daveofdoom. 
Developers will have to be a little creative with this sort of stuff.
I'm not particularly surprised that customers have downloaded the games in high quantity. It's not Apple pushing this stuff. The developers write the apps and people decide for themselves what they want to download. After all, how much "business", "work", or "chores" do you need to get done when you're walking around?
Also, a given business app will have limited appeal to a small segment of the users. A game or something like a social networking app will have broad appeal to the entire spectrum of users.
Lastly, if you work a standard 40-hr. workweek, that's really just a quarter of your waking hours. Your personal time is far more than your work time.
It's interesting that the ant-mac crowd is dissing the iPhone platform for having so many apps when they use the same argument as an example of Windows superiority.
There are some very useful apps for the iPhone/iPod. Not only do they change the way people think about mobile productivity... they are at a quality (GUI and functionality) that is unmatched. You can't say that about Windows.
The "iPhone Generation" learned all they know from the fat cats in the financial industry and their sycophants.. sit around, shuffle some paper, play with your toys, and 'voila'! you get a big honkin' paycheck! Besides, it certainly wasn't just them who voted Obama in... it was the vast MAJORITY of voters who were sick and tired of the disastrous way things have been run for the better part of the last decade. If O's actions pay off (and I sure hope they do) than maybe we're on the road to a stabler system. If not.... time to give the job to someone else. It's that simple.
Don't forget the huge difference between how Microsoft handles programs/developers compared to the extra hoops you'd have to deal with when working with apple. Why would I want to give 30% of my product's profits to a dump of a company?
Mr. Rosenberg, you forgot iPod Touch. It's not just iPhones that people are buying games for. With the combo of iPhone and iPhone Touch, the billion $ mark is a little more within reach.
If you look at the demographic figures I quoted below, when Steve Jobs said that the iPod touch was "training wheels for the iPhone", he was basically right. The iPod touch sports a *much* younger demographic. Presumably, once these kids graduate from college and get jobs where they can afford a $100/mo. 2-year cellular contract, they'll switch to the iPhone.
- by cvaldes1831 July 25, 2009 10:38 AM PDT
- 26% of iPhone users are between 13-24. 58% are between 25-49. The remaining 16% are 50+.
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- by Cookinham July 25, 2009 12:03 PM PDT
- I am 64 and have been using an iPod Touch since it was introduced. I like to play games. I use a Google Phone as my verbbal device. I sure get tired of all the stereotypes.
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- by cvaldes1831 July 25, 2009 12:14 PM PDT
- Read the report. I don't know where you are getting this "stereotypes" thing: those are statistics from adMob and Comscore.
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- by Cookinham July 25, 2009 1:11 PM PDT
- You are right. I guess what I mean is it is lonely to be over 60 and like this cool stuff. I have to text with my son's friends. But you are right and maybe I am defensive.
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- by cvaldes1831 July 25, 2009 4:55 PM PDT
- I'm sorry to hear that none of your peers enjoy dabbling with gadgets. As you have discovered, it can be really fun.
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(23 Comments)The iPod touch has a much younger demographic with a whopping 69% of users between 13-24. 24% of users are between 25-49 and barely anybody over 50 uses the iPod touch (7%).
Source: adMob & Comscore, June 2009
http://digital-stats.blogspot.com/2009/06/ipod-touch-and-iphone-demographics.html
Assuming that there are 30 million iPhones and 15 million iPod touches, for the entire platform (iPhone + iPod touch), roughly 38% of all users are between 13-24 and 47% are between 25-49. So yeah, there are a lot of users in the school-age demographic.
No one said that *nobody over 50* uses the iPod touch. It's just that there are relatively few. If there are 15 million iPod touches out there, that means there are at least 1 million users over the age of 50. We can do math, trust us.
Stop getting all defensive.
Perhaps you can search for computer user groups in your area. I live in Silicon Valley, so there are a fair number of older computer scientists. Heck, the guy who founded Netscape and accelerated the popularity of the Internet, Jim Clark, is right about your age.
I don't know where you live, but there are older technologists around. Good luck with your search.