Filed under: Software
Developers unleash exclusive offers for MacHeist participants
One of the appeals of MacHeist that a few participating developers cited for their participation is residual sales. Things like upgrade licenses, extra plugins and add-ons can all be big boosts to a 3rd party developer's revenue, and some of MacHeist's participating devs have certainly hit the ground running. Yesterday I received my confirmation emails and licenses from RealMac Software (RapidWeaver) and Dave Watanabe (NewsFire), both with exclusive offers for MacHeist customers. First, RealMac Software is offering a 10% discount on theme packs, and Dave is offering a 'lifetime upgrade' add-on for NewsFire for a mere $11. We've also known from early on that John Casasanta has had a version 4.0 upgrade just around the corner for iClip, and MacroMates had an offer on the table since day 1 of at least 60% off an upgrade license to an upcoming version 2 release of TextMate.It will be interesting to see how all this plays out for these 3rd party developers in the coming months. I know I'm already falling in love with TextMate, and even though I use WordPress, ecto and Dreamweaver for most of my website needs, RapidWeaver is tempting me with its sexy ease of use and purty themes. The 3rd party devs, it seems, have already made a revenue statistic out of me.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Wayne said 9:27AM on 12-21-2006
When you buy Newsfire directly from Dave Watanabe, you have the option to add lifetime upgrade for $9. I wonder why he decided to charge $2 more for MacHeist license holders.
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Mike said 9:44AM on 12-21-2006
Ah, the MacHeist bundle came at the perfect time for me. I'm getting my first Mac on the 25th, and having TextMate, NewsFire, and Delicious Library will just be awesome. All the other applications are bonues. :)
I'll certainly be purchase upgrades for TextMate, not sure about the others though, depends on how much use I get out of each.
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Bill I said 10:12AM on 12-21-2006
I already purchased my lifetime upgrades for NewsFire; I mean, can you really argue with lifetime upgrades for less than the cost of a single license? And when the offer comes around for TextMate2, you better believe I'll be throwing money towards Mr Odgaard.
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varun said 10:55AM on 12-21-2006
Best yet would be if Dave Watanabe would be so kind as to check his email and tell me my NewsFireRSS serial number since the people actually involved with MacHeist have taken money and washed their hands clean of any further involvement.
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Laurens said 11:06AM on 12-21-2006
Getting an email back from Dave W.? Not gonna happen. Try Googling for "watanabe (asshole|jerk|prick)"...
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Henry said 11:14AM on 12-21-2006
Varan,
Just enter the email you registered Macheist with, thats your serial number.
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Rob said 11:13AM on 12-21-2006
I can't find any info on the upgrade to TextMate 2. I got my license key from macromates but it didn't contain any info on a future upgrade nor on the macromates.com website or MacHeist.
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David Chartier said 12:04PM on 12-21-2006
#6: Rob - at the bottom of TextMate's page on MacHeist is almost an entire paragraph in bold text, explaining the upgrade path for MacHeist customers. There they mention the 'at least' discount of 60%, possibly more. No ETA on when that version lands, though it is Leopard-only, so that should offer us at least a hint.
Hope this helps.
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Danny said 12:46PM on 12-21-2006
And when you buy a Textmate license directly from macromates the v2 upgrade will bee free of charge.
But it's still not a bad deal with the macheist thing though
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raleigh said 2:25PM on 12-21-2006
I ordered a MacHeist bundle a week ago today, and have yet to receive a license for Delicious Library (the app I wanted most). I contacted MacHeist, who responded promptly saying that it must be my spam filter and to contact the developer. I doubt the spam filter is to blame, since no other license slipped through, but I contacted the developer anyway. I have yet to hear back. Anyone else have any ideas?
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varun said 2:56PM on 12-21-2006
Henry - brilliant, it worked!! Thanks!
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kuralj said 7:31PM on 12-21-2006
"Developers unleash exclusive offers for MacHeist participants"
Or, exclusive restrictions...
"Your TextMate license will be guaranteed free updates through version 1.x, and MacroMates will offer a steeply discounted upgrade path (of at least 60% off) to the upcoming, Leopard only version 2. (This license differs from a normally purchased $49 license, which includes a free 2.0 upgrade.)"
I guess it's 'Buyer Beware' because I (naturally) assumed that I'd be given the same rights with my MacHeist TextMate license as users buying via macromates.com.
I'm very disappointed to find out that my license does not entitle me to the free upgrade that direct licensees are given to TextMate 2.
That leaves my cost of buying the MacHeist bundle (after you add an upgrade to TextMate 2) at the same price as buying TextMate directly from MacroMates (It's the only real app I care about in the bundle).
Given that information, I would have opted for buying directly from MacroMates site, giving more money directly to Allan. So now, this works out worse for him and worse for me.
Next time, I think I'd like to be told at the start of the page that "MacHeist license terms differ from those of the developer", not at the end where it's easily missed.
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David Chartier said 5:40AM on 12-23-2006
#10: They *just* started sending out the emails a day or two ago, so if you haven't received it yet, you might want to try contacting them again. They're probably being flooded with correspondence, especially since the holidays are upon us, and this is quite possibly the most talked-about, successful and buzzed Mac shareware event in history - quirks are gonna happen.
#12: Some Mac notables organized a shareware event that sold $350 worth of shareware for $49 and you didn't bother to read the entire (and arguably short) page, which didn't even have any actual fine print? All text was in the same font size, and the blurb about TextMate's license was actually in bold. Besides, an upgrade to v2 for MacHeist customers will cost - at most - $20, and that's not bad at all.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but this is kind of your fault. You should have read the entire page before throwing your money down. More importantly, these developers need *some* way of actually making money off their product. When you do the fuzzy math, these guys made about $3-5/license they sold - I think they deserve *some* sort of residual revenue from this, and upgrade licenses are a great way to do it.
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