By creating a commercial application for the webOS mobile platform, can a developer count on a serious profit? To date, the official catalog of applications for webOS looks more than modest in comparison with the catalogs of the App Store programs from Apple or the Android Market; sales of Palm devices are
decreasing , not growing.
If $ 50,000 a month from the sale of the program seems to be enough for you, then my answer is “yes.” The main thing is the correctly chosen sales model!
The focus of the
Wall Street Journal journalists was Selfaware Games, which developed
Word Ace and
Card Ace: BlackJack games. Developers receive tens of thousands of new registrations
daily (most come from Palm-based devices), which bring them more than 50 thousand dollars of monthly income.
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Very impressive results, given the fact that the App Catalog contains a little more than 2000 programs that have downloaded about 40 million times.
The main factor for success was the chosen income-generating model. Instead of taking a one-time fee for the application, developers earn money by selling in-game virtual items such as drinks or gaming chips. “The price of the application is one of the main concerns of any developer,” says one of the founders of Selfaware, Seppo Helava. People are ready to pay for the application no more than they see fit, but the developer also needs to live on something. "There is a more convenient system that can suit both," and the example of Selfaware is quite indicative.
Played a positive role and a small (in comparison with competing platforms) number of applications in the App Catalog. As a result, developers are more likely to have the user discover their application.
What are the guys from Selfaware working on now? In addition to releasing updates for existing products, they are working tirelessly on their next game. No details yet, but as Seppo declares: “Imagine the craziest of ideas, make it even more ridiculous, something like that will turn out” and continues: it will come out, people just "blow the roof."
This positive news makes us believe that the webOS platform has quite a serious potential and can become a serious environment for both large companies and individual developers. An excellent program distribution model, convenient development tools and a good chance to be found through the App Catalog mobile application should give developers a great chance. Do not forget that the most successful application developers (both paid and free) are waiting for a
million dollars from Palm.