Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software
Is the real MacHeist on the developers?
We have been covering MacHeist here at TUAW because it is a heck of a good deal. A good deal for users, but what about the developers? Gus Mueller, the man behind Flying Meat software, doesn't think that MacHeist is good for developers. Why? He did the math and it turns out that each developer takes home something like $3.67 (if they split the profits evenly between the developer, the charity, and MacHeist themselves). All of this outrage (oh, and there is some adult language in that post) stems from the MacHeist team declaring this week, 'The Week of the Independent Mac Developer.'One must remember that all the devs participating in MacHeist are doing so out of their own free will, and there is that darned charitable part of the whole enterprise (it is hard to criticize someone for donating something to charity). With that said there is the little matter of 'perceived value.' If you give something away, people think it is worth nothing. Charge a little money for it, and suddenly people see the value in it (the classic case here is bottled water).
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ryan said 10:57PM on 12-11-2006
Let's keep in mind here that many of these developers are seeing money from these bundles that they wouldn't normally see from the people buying them. I only had previously purchased one of the apps in the bundle and wasn't thinking seriously about any of the others. In fact, I didn't know that many of them existed before the bundle was revealed.
Since I can get all this great software that I wouldn't normally purchase, support developers that I wouldn't normally support AND give money to charity at the same time, I see this as a win-win situation.
Also, I don't believe that selling the bundles is all about the here and now. Shareware is advertised almost entirely through word-of-mouth. People who purchase these apps in the MacHeist bundle are sure to tell their friends about them, who are then more likely to purchase said apps.
Lastly, it's been stated that at certain quotas the price will increase on the MH bundle. Only the first x amount of people will get the $50 price tag, so it's quite possible that the developers will end up getting more money than the estimate.
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Alex said 11:05PM on 12-11-2006
I think MacHeist is great for the developers. Most importantly, it is a great form of alternative advertising, but I think the real draw for developers is that this is great way to get people hooked on their products. Then, when the inevitable upgrades roll around, they will have a much larger install base that will be interested in the new features.
I believe, most, if not all, of the apps in MacHeist state the installations are good for the current version only.
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Gimp said 11:11PM on 12-11-2006
lets look at this. note thats $3.67 PER BUNDLE SOLD therefore at their current bundles sold (1700), they have made 3.67*1700=6,239$ each.
considering none of the devs would be making that much of their software, i don't think they'll be complaining.
stop saying things that are far from the truth. the devs are making a *LOT* of money off this or else they wouldn't be participating AT ALL. ffs people think about what you're saying before you post it.
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jkiley said 10:08AM on 12-12-2006
I disagree with Gus.
From what I can tell, the point of MacHeist is exposure. If you look purely at the revenue per unit, it's easy to make an argument that the devs are losing. However, that idea is based on the rather mighty assumption that the developer would have gained greater revenue by not participating. In the long run, I do not think that is true.
As I sat in the IRC channel overnight, I heard a lot of people saying that they already had a license to one program or another. Personally, I already have a license to NewsFire. For me, I was most interested in DEVONthink, iClip, and TextMate. In the past, I've looked at those apps, but I never really spent enough time to justify buying them when the demos ran out.
For a longer-term Mac user, the bundle offers a chance to change the economics for many apps that we may have looked at and passed on. For developers, this gives them a large number of copies out there for potential upgrade revenue.
For new Mac users, they get exposed to the Mac shareware community that they may not have known about before. I work in my law school's IS office, and I frequently run into new Mac users, who often have switched on our recommendation, that are unaware of the great shareware out there for the Mac. This bundle gives them a great start with Mac shareware, and, more importantly, acquaints them with some superb developers who often have other fine apps.
In the end, events like MacHeist help grow the total size of the Mac shareware market by changing the economics for existing users and acquainting new users with the quality of software that we have. To really see the value to developers, you have to look past revenue per unit to the future revenue opportunities that thousands of potential new users bring with them.
(I'm not affiliated with anyone, but I enjoyed MacHeist, bought the bundle (which I am enjoying), and have encouraged my friends to do the same.)
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Joel Heflin said 12:19AM on 12-12-2006
The developers are gonna make phat cash off of Macheist. I hate stories like this that mislead the reader. Thankfully several people have already set the record straight.
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Derek said 1:06AM on 12-12-2006
I think people really deep in the business know what they're doing. Delicious Monster is selling a program really cheap that they are going to have a new version out next year. This is just a last ditch effort for the smart businesses to get some small bit of revenue while enticing them for the next version.
Some of the participants don't seem to be in the business with good savvy experience. There are programs like the Inventive iClip which is pretty much a bad idea. That version just came out, and the guy gives updates for life. Pretty bad business move in my opinion. Note that most of these people involved are just out of high school and probably in their first years as a college student, so mommy and daddy still foot the real bills. It will be interesting to see where Macheist goes once apartment rent and that pesky debt start piling on. The truth is always somewhere in between.
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Dave! said 1:15AM on 12-12-2006
I agree with Ryan, there are apps in the bundle I wouldn't have bought otherwise, so those developers just got something from me, where before, they would have gotten nothing.
Not too mention, as Alex said, there is *great* exposure from being part of the bundle. It can lead to upgrade revenue, and some of the developers have multiple products, and this is a good "loss leader" to attract attention to their other offerings.
Finally, it is a *charity* event. I don't think the developers participating feel like they are somehow being screwed. With all due respect to Gus, these guys are drawing a whole lotta traffic, and that's worth their cut. I think Gus is the one being foolish. I'd never plunk down money for VoodooPad, but had it been part of the bundle, he'd have made money on me. Maybe he just doesn't feel he needs the exposure, that's his prerogative, but to imply there's no value in the marketing and coordination the Macheist guys are doing is disingenuous.
Besides, it's a limited time event. Does Wil Shipley need *that* much more money? I think he's doing fine, Macheist and all. :)
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HS said 3:27AM on 12-12-2006
Getting "owners" in on their apps is probbly the best thing about this for the developers.
Next version, I'll bet the percentage of people that has a legal license is more likely to purchase the new one, hence making this effort more of an investment for the future.
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mark said 5:47AM on 12-12-2006
Did you read the blog? Gus stated he was offered a flat fee of $5 for MacHeist to sell as many copies of his app in a week as possible.
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Jacques Lema said 6:51AM on 12-12-2006
Excuse me but this guy was (originally) offered 5000$ for one week of sales for his shareware app and a huge advertising boost and turned it down?
How much money per week does he make exactly ?
I don't even think the whole source-code of my app (ChocoFlop) is actually worth 5000$...
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Finney said 7:00AM on 12-12-2006
Well, let's see. $4 x 8000 bundles. $32000 ain't bad for ONE week.
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forrestRain said 8:28AM on 12-12-2006
Jacques,
Why ChocoFlop is not in MacHeist?
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Joe Coughlin said 9:23AM on 12-12-2006
In addition to the money that these developer make from people who normally wouldn't buy it let alone know about you, you also set yourself up for a much larger audience for upgrade licenses. It's the old razor blade model.
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Chris O'Rourke said 10:49AM on 12-12-2006
I think Gus is just having second thoughts about saying no and desperate for some attention. His math and his arguments are both shoddy and immaturely argued.
It certainly doesn't help him at all, that is site logo is a rip off of flickr.
P.T. Barnum once said there's no such thing as bad publicity. In this case Gus proved the exception to that rule. Indie Software needs good word of mouth. Puerile tantrum posts just look bad.
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consumer_q said 1:08PM on 12-12-2006
For what it is worth, I have bought more Mac applications through MacZot (and now MacHeist) in the last 6 months than I have in the last 2 years.
I am not sure how developers *who actualy particpated* in this type of marketing feel about how things are going, but I have been suckered into buying and have laid out much cash.
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Erik J. Barzeski said 12:37PM on 12-12-2006
"It certainly doesn't help him at all, that is site logo is a rip off of flickr."
It's a play - a sarcastic bit of parody - on the "Web 2.0" logos. He likely used the "Web 2.0 Logo Generator" http://digg.com/design/Web_2_0_Logo_Creator
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Chris O'Rourke said 1:24PM on 12-12-2006
Actually when you do parody it tends to work best when you're not jumping onto a auto generation bandwagon. That makes the joke fall flat and worse yet seem incredibly trite given his arguments.
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Bernie said 10:34AM on 12-13-2006
So I read through Gus' notes, and he keeps on saying that the fact that Devs are doing this on their free will isn't a part of his argument, but that doesn't really make any sense. He was given the opportunity to join in, and I'm pretty sure all of the other Devs did the same math that he did. So most likely they made a conscious choice to work with the MacHeist group.
When you look at it that way, isn't it possible that some developers are just nice people and want to spread the use of their software while also supporting charity? On the other hand we have developers, such as Gus here, who counts his pennies and just wants to make a profit. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but I don't think he should sit there and bash hard working developers who are charitable.
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Don Parr said 1:17PM on 12-17-2006
If you haven't read what Gus Mueller had to say for yourself, please do - I just re-read it and can say with certainty he did not "bash" hard working developer's. I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could read what Gus had to say and, by any stretch of the imagination, conclude he was "bashing" hard working developer's? All I could see he was bashing was the inequity of the MacHeist deal as it relates to Independent Software Developer's, of which Gus is a member! Another misconception was the developer's received x amount per bundle sold - they do not - they were offered a flat fee regardless the number of bundles sold. Please don't take the word of someone else as fact, read Gus's comments under "Week of the Mac Independent Developer" for yourself here: http://gusmueller.com/blog/
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Alex said 7:26PM on 12-21-2006
I agree with Jacques. Now that we all know that there was a flat fee it changes everything. Some devs were offered $5k-$10k for a fews days of an open sell. It is true that jumping into a flat fee agreement will not cash the devs a lot of money, but, do this tiny apps sell similar figures as a standard selling basis for one week? I think not. Till this day 16,821 bundles have been sold, and I bet many people went to the apps own website to know what this app are.
Frankly, I've never heard a word of 7 out of 10 of the apps in the bundle, but by dropping by into their website put them in the map of good shareware apps to look at.
Maybe $5k is not a great deal, but I hardly believe they could generate this amount of money selling their apps on their own. And of course, devs have not pay nothing for maketing issues, web banners, etc. This has been a a week of full exposure that otherwise couldn't happened. That is for true, priceless.
I did not buy the bundle, but I am considering to buy 1 or 2 apps shown in the bundle. I think many people who have missed the bundle offer, will probably buy directly to the developer, now that people know they exist!
But still you can read this link, just another point of view. http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/iniquities_of_the_selfishto
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