Macworld 2009: Spawn 2 and the economics of the App Store

Spawn Illuminati version 2 just hit the App Store (iTunes link). If you haven't seen it, it's an amazing time-killer which allows user interaction with something akin to a screensaver on your iPhone. It's a little hard to explain, which is why we have video. You can also check out some user-contributed screenshots on the developer's Flickr page.

An interesting aspect of the Spawn story is the author's success with pricing it above the .99 "sweet spot" after mediocre success at that standard price. The second video is a snippet of Spawn's developer Nikolai riffing about App Store economics. Spawn is currently back to .99USD in the App Store, but only for a limited time. Read on for a demo and some pricing opinions from an experienced App Store developer.

Spawn 2 Demo

Nikolai on App Store pricing