Outrageous AppMobi limitation

I think the limit is a good idea to keep things off the marketplace that don't belong there. A marketplace is a public gathering held for buying and selling merchandise. That's the definition not my opinion. The so called free games you found and love have ways of making money with in app ads or thing to buy in app(they are not free). Finding popular games with reviews is easy, but when there are millions of apps that are crap, most people don't look, they buy whatever is in the top list(which are all big developer games), large developers have money for ads so they can rise above the crap pile. Just because you go and read reviews before you pick your next free game to exploit, doesn't mean the people that small time developers need to buy there app do the same thing.

I think the limit is a bad idea. I'll explain why.

If X is the percentage of good apps/games in the app-store and Y is the percentage of good apps/games in the app-store after the appMobi 5 apps limit, than I assure you X = Y.

This limit won't effect the app store. They have so many apps there that even if 10 people will purchase from appMobi that's 50 games/apps.

How will such small numbers effect anything over there?

Free apps with ads is a cool way to test apps. If you like it you simply purchase the no-ad version.

Sorry, the lower-crAps (I liked the name) argument doesn't hold and doesn't justify the 5 apps/games limit. With such argument C2 should limit the amount of apps/games too. Why flood the net with free HTML5 games? (no need to answer this silly question)

I love how elitist some people are. It's a laughable stance, actually. Who cares if the games are low quality and spam the market? The good ones are at the top, anyway. The time where anyone can develop and use the world as a test is now, but still, I read these kind of "protectionist" comments.

Funny, really.

The problem is that now there are a lot of indie developers out there, from wich YOU are part of and opted to sell their work DIRT CHEAP.

If you care about this proctection, why you want use their site? lol, nonsense...

Otherwise you, I hate waste time looking into top games (for alienated persons), preferring browse on good content by myself...

The whole X Y thing lost me. If you want to put more than 5 games on the marketplace through appmobi just pay more money. This seems like a simple solution. If you are just spamming crapps to the market and have no intent on making your money back, then simply make less games that are of higher quality. Another simple solution for you.

The more logical approach would have been as follows:

- Pay 50 per year

- No #app limitation

- If you make money we'll take a share (20%?)

I'm surprised this sounds better to you. If you release one game and it becomes extremely successful. Lets say you make $20,000. You'll have to pay $4,050 to AppMobi rather than $100.

Some of the comments on this thread are simply baffling. So just cos a game is free it means it's crap or it shouldn't be allowed into the stores? Just who the heck you people THINK you are?

You know, some people make games cos they genuinely like it, if you are pissed that a free game is taking attention from a paid game, then make better paid games. :)

The moment you get greedy is the moment you lose all creativity and taste for what you do. You needn't go too far, look at the gaming industry, all cookie cutter crap games, originality just flew out of the window and it's RARE these days, when in the old days originality and passion was what games were made of and it's what got them to where they stand now.

Onto the topic... I do think the limitation is complete crap, the price it's alright if you are serious about making money with games and have the money for it, cos let's face it, these companies can't give two craps about you or yer financial stability. So AppMobi it's pretty much only for people that have the resources, which is yer typical corporate greed. We are surrounded of it, sadly.

Bert, I tried to explain that the 5 apps limitation of appMobi won't effect the good games ratio on the app store.

There are so many games and apps these days (which is a good thing) that such limitation won't leave any mark. Native apps make almost 100% of the app store. Letting ppl upload 5 games or 50 html5 games will not count at all.

So I tried to show such reasoning for the 5 apps limitation is a very weak argument.

Trevor10, If I make $20,000 I don't mind paying 20% to the person/company which helped me get this nice income. If you wish to test me, simply bring a $20,000 project and see how I pay you 1/5. I do this with new projects I get so why not in this scenario.

If you think the 20% is too high than we can lower it. That's not the point I'm trying to make. I'm trying to show the 5 apps limitation is not the right model in this case and will scare 99% of our community.

—, I agree with every word you wrote.

So just cos a game is free it means it's crap or it shouldn't be allowed into the stores?

Funny, I went through the topic again, and nowher I've seen this idea evoked.

People talk about "crapps", about free games full of adds and f2p item stores, but not simply "free apps shouldn't be published" so have a chill pill.

The moment you get greedy

Wanting to make money out of an app you took time to make is not necesseraly greed. And today's internet and consumer's habits make it so it is believable/viable to make a living out of making games and selling them on internet. Like the way you are defending free games, accept that people may want to make a living (a couple thousand ?/$/whatever a month). There's not just the "greedy bastard big corporations" and the "nice cute game maker acting out of passion and love" only. You have to consider the whole spectrum of behaviors in between.

I'm trying to show the 5 apps limitation is not the right model in this case and will scare 99% of our community.

Well, seeing by this topic only, most of the people who talked so far seem pretty much OK with appmobi's pricing. Only a couple of people has been vehemently opposed.

Sounds to me your numbers/impression are incorrect.

I understand that in your optic of releasing free apps, appmobi's model is not the best. But from their point of view, their pricing/service including a hosting of the app, it makes sense that there is a limit to how many apps they host. Space costs !

Let's hope that in the future/long run other ways will be available to publish apps from a "free game" perspective. But honestly, I don't see reason to evilize appmobi the way you've been doing for 4 pages now.

Finaly Arima also said, this debate should be held in appmobi's forum, not in C2's. This is kind of irrelevant.

Don't understand why I'm getting the sarcasm. Freedom of speech is something we all still have.

I gave my opinion and I wish not to discuss this matter further, it won't change it.

I believe it's called capitalism. If you don't like it don't buy it. If you need it buy it. Appmobi can charge whatever they want. They have a good product, be glad they charge so little for it. Why do all of you non-elitists think everything should be free or whatever price you think. You are the consumer in this case you can choose not to buy it, that is all. You do not get to tell Appmobi how much to charge for their product. Get over it, or make your own free version of Appmobi(good luck with that, LOL)

Don't understand why I'm getting the sarcasm. Freedom of speech is something we all still have.

—: The only bit of my answer that was sarcastic was using

greedy bastard big corporations" and the "nice cute game maker acting out of passion and love"

Also notice the quotes.

It was more matter of using an image than a direct attack anyway.

If that's all you retain from my answer and feel your "freedom of speech" endangered because of that, once again, accord to others the same rights/privileges that you expect.

There seem to be two arguments going on here:

1) Is the price fair, and

2) Should 'crap' games be allowed in app stores?

#2 is really subjective and a bit offtopic IMO, but back to #1 for a moment:

Again, the focus of my points is not the price/s. It's on the 5 apps/games per year limitation.

Another way to look at it is if you have 6 games on a server, you're going to have to pay a higher rate for a higher bandwidth server. Suppose you have 5 games, each 5mb, and each being played 5000 times a month (note some games in our arcade have had 10k+ plays in their first day). That's 125 GB/mo transfer of bandwidth. Chances are you're not going to get away with a bottom-rung server for that and your fifth or sixth game is going to force you up to the next level server, which could be, say, $200 a year instead of $100 a year. Obviously nobody can host 8-12 popular games for nothing, so they have to stage it one way or another, and rather than fiddly bandwidth limitations you just get a number of apps before the next level.

Besides, how many people have already published 5 apps? If each takes you 2-3 months to finish, that's about a year's work, so you get away with the lower price for a year. So I still don't see anything wrong with it.

Ashley, Thanks for your reply. It's refreshing to get a rational answer.

I tried to show that for each paid app developers tend to release a demo/free/light version. This turns the 5 apps limit into a 2 apps/games limit. No idea how this little sentence turned into a crap/good apps ratio. I tried to show this is not relevant and won't effect the market.

I saw many times that free apps/games turned into paid apps. This is why appMobi should put a different model and I'm sure they will change it once they see a killer app getting millions of hits. With such success their model of a 5 limit apps will fail.

I also saw a claim that this discussion doesn't belong here. I tried to show that as long as C2 doesn't put all it's power only on appMobi it will be fair to people like me who doesn't like the 5 apps limit.

DirectCanvas is cool and I like the appMobi environment but if this limit will stay there all the cool c2-appMobi features are not relevant to people like me.

And one last word, I didn't like the way some people talked to other C2 members. This is not a good way of listening and talking to others. I understand the emotions but there's a way to communicate. I always prefer the "cold" approach with ideas, concepts, numbers, over the "hot" and emotional path. This is why I didn't like the "capitalism" lesson, nor the definition that free apps = crap, and other sentences I do not wish to repeat.

OK, I think this discussion has run its course. From our own experience, as a business deciding pricing schemes, it's very difficult to come up with something everyone will love, there are many tradeoffs involved, and the user's point of view is always carefully considered as well, so I'm sure appMobi thought a lot about this before arriving at where they are. However I think the best thing to do now is to lock the thread so everyone stays cool. Everyone's stated their points of view so I think this is best.