Has the iPhone App Market already crashed?

I think Eric touches on an important point: getting the word out. Right now, I hear so many developers scrambling to distribute promo codes and hoping to somehow make the top 25. But if you want to make money on your iPhone app - and essentially create some type of business out of it - there really needs to be some concentrated effort on marketing and business development. Start with the basics: build some type of web presence, create the best app demo you can, invest in some design and branding. The numbers are simply against you unless you stand out. And if you can't do those things yourself with some kind of skill (and most of us can't) then I really think you have to barter, hire, partner with people who can. You should at least *try* to get your app noticed and shared. There are resources to help you do that.

An app can make lots of money if you get the word out. It takes lots and lots of marketing and luck. Making the app is like 10% of the whole process these days. It`s not like when the App Store first launched, that`s for sure. the 90/10 rule is in full effect.

I paid the $99　to join with the hope of selling thousands of apps and quitting my day job...lol

My app has roughly averaged about 1.5 a day, and it`s priced at $1.99. It`s only been on sale for a couple months and I am happy with the sales, considering it`s was my first "real" program. I am pretty sure I will break even for the cost of the membership and my time invested. One great thing about the app store is that once your app is in there, it`s open 24/7 and 365 days a week! The potential is awesome, if you can get the word out and you make a great app!

The best part about being a member is that any time I want to make a little program for myself I can just throw it on my device, and use it. I wish that part was free of course but hey Apple is a business and they are pro`s at making money.

I think dev's will make free apps, sit back and wait for ad dollars. This will diminish the quality of apps of the small dev. and the big boys will continue to rule EA, GL, etc...

That is like saying the movie industry has crashed as there is no way to make money renting a video for $1 a day. Big games spread their development costs among several platforms. Little games cost almost nothing to make. Look at games like Trism that took one programer one month of work and I'm sure has sold over a million copies by now. Or look at Tapulous, before being bought out, the company was grossing $50,000 dollars a month....per employee!
The fact is if you couldn't make it selling games on the appstore for $1 there wouldn't be games on the appstore for $1.

The App store was once a gold rush. Now it's a business place like any other. Laws of competition apply just like everywhere else. Only the fittest will survive. "Sure, the App Store's not very friendly to big budget producers". I imagine gameloft comes under this category, and I'm pretty sure they make a lot of money. Quality product plus great marketing almost always equals success.

What's the fuzz about? That the biggest gold rush in the App store is over and that not every developer makes billions of money is no news.

The BigPoint CEO is simply trying to cover that his company (which makes browser games) missed the opportunity to get a foot into a new market.

Doodle God, an iPhone game, is only 99 cents, but it's been downloaded more than 2 million times!

You want to tell me they haven't made any money on that??

dunno if it's 'crashed' or not, but i get much less excited by new apps than i did a few years ago. nowadays every once in a while a keeper is released, but for the most part i'm blah except for the really good ones.

but really it's just simple over-saturation. i remember the mac dark ages when windows people would argue about more software out there and i thought 'really? because you use 15 different word processor executables a day?'

(see: fart apps, big banks, etc... =P)

They need to two stores:
- one with all the crap applications, where Apple has a less strict policy. Apps are free or 79 cents.
- one with premium applications, with a stricter policy (in terms of quality), where customers know they will find applications that either do something useful and/or are designed by professionals. Apps can be free or up to 99 dollars but at least customers will know they are not ripped off when purchasing. Now, there are plenty of apps out there that are not worth their money.