Normalkid:Arnold Kim

I found a question/response thread on Hacker News to be quite interesting. The question was “how did your life change after FU money”. FU money being a term for enough money that you have complete freedom to not work.

Paul Graham’s response I felt particularly rang true, and is something to think about. Paul Graham earned his FU money from cofounding Viaweb which later sold to Yahoo.

One thing you learn when you get rich, though, is how few of your problems were caused by not being rich. When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what’s stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard.

It sort of goes with the whole cliche that money can’t buy happiness, but it also provides some good insight for people who might see their job as an excuse not to do whatever they really want to do.

Now, it also reminded me of TED talk by Dan Gilbert on Happiness which I thought was particularly revealing. I’ve linked to the relevant moment here (14minutes, 22seconds in).

Gilbert describes a study which proves that “choice” is actually detrimental to happiness. And what provides more choice or freedom than a huge windfall (“FU money” so to speak).

Gilbert describes a study at a university. Students take a photography class and at the end have 2 framed photos of their favorite work. They are split into two groups. 1) Pick a photo, and you’re stuck with it 2) Pick a photo, but if you change your mind you can swap it out for the other one within 4 days.

Turns out the people who have a choice about their photo are less satisfied with their photo even after the 4 days is up. By simply having that choice, they are ultimately less “happy”. So, people tend to be happier when they have no choice presented to them.

I feel like this applies to those who find themselves with complete freedom in their lives. Choice means you have to actively make a decision, and generates questions of doubt about decisions you make. In many ways, not having the decision is a simpler, albeit naive existence.

Now you may ask me if I’m happy. While I didn’t have a huge windfall, I do earn enough that I don’t have to work at a real job. So, I am doing what I choose to do, not what I have to. As a matter of fact, I am very happy, but I did think about these very issues alot when I first earned my freedom. Issues that I’d never really thought of before.

Apple’s announcement that they are going to start letting free applications sell in-app content seemed to be a big one. Even game changing.

But, the more I think about it, the more I think there will be great hesitation for many developers (and I’m thinking mostly of game developers) to make the plunge.

Now, some apps clearly benefit from this. Comics for example is a comic book reader that sells more downloadable comics. It was $0.99 before today because they had to be. But now, they are free and will make their money on selling individual comics. Same with book readers, or other similar models. Even a game like Tap Tap Revenge 3 would benefit…. though sitting at the #1 spot at $0.99 makes me think they aren’t going to change their price anytime soon.

So are game developers suddenly going to release free games with add-on purchases? I don’t think so, and here’s why.

Lite versions aren’t always in your best interest.

I know customers want there to be a lite version of every game that exists… but, depending on the game itself, a lite version is not in the best interest of the developer. Lite versions can hurt the sales of a full version. This can be for a number of reasons, primarily that people simply didn’t like the game as much as they thought they would. For this sub-section of games, Lite’s hurt.

Now, if you release a Lite game and find it’s hurting sales. The easy solution? Pull the Lite game. But if your Lite is your Full version too, well, there’s not as much you can do about it, nor will you even likely know it’s a problem.

Lite Versions are a Good Second Push

Most games don’t come with a Lite version on Day #1. This isn’t an accident. Your game is going to get the most press on the day it launches, and you want people to buy it sight unseen.

So, instead, you wait until the game has lost momentum, and release a Lite version then — hoping for a second push up the charts.

Here’s the slow decline in ranking of Gameloft’s Modern Combat: Sandstorm game:

When did they release a Lite version? Yep. 7 days ago. Exactly when their game fell off the top 100 paid apps (dark blue line).

No Promo Codes for in-app purchases

Apple offers free promo codes for people to download full versions of apps. This is the primary tool developers have to promote their games with review sites and forums. Without these, it’s going to be harder to convince people to try your game.

Now, I don’t personally care. At TouchArcade, we pretty much buy every game we consider, but for a small time developer, looking to get the word out, this will be a major handicap.

Charts Matter

The next thing is that the Top 100 lists matter. They drive a ton of sales. Are you better off competing for a spot on the top 100 Free apps or the top 100 paid apps? I’m not sure what the answer is, but top 100 free requires some insane volume of downloads. Most people have focused on the marketing to the Top 100 paid. I’m not sure what drives sales into the Top 100 free, and most developers probably don’t either.

This also makes it strange to release both Full and Lite + DLC versions, in that you are splitting your sales across two apps. Maybe it’s not going to be a big deal, but this is uncharted waters.

Now, Apple has gotten Ngmoco to take the plunge and offer Rolando 2 as a free + DLC game. And a game like Eliminate is a natural fit for this plan.

But, unless there are some real success stories from smaller devs, I’m not sure how much this will affect most developer’s short term plans.

A couple of months ago I mentioned a husband and wife team that made up Imangi Studios who I met at GDC. Keith had quit his full time job a year prior while his wife Natalia had just given notice in April to go full time on their small but growing iPhone app business. In my post I mentioned that I thought it was great they were going into it full time and that the potential benefits outweighed the risks.

Well, it’s only 3 months later, and they have a top 10 iPhone app (and climbing) with Harbor Master [$0.99]. The game is currently sitting in the #6 spot of all paid iPhone apps. Now, I haven’t seen top 10 sales numbers lately, but I’ve heard the numbers have been increasing, so I’d guess they may be up to 10,000 (~$7000) downloads a day. The game seems to have sold well from the start, but Apple’s also currently featuring Harbor Master in their “What’s Hot” listing. Of course, those listings tend to only last a week or so, but from what I’ve seen games that really take off with the exposure don’t tend to drop off sharply when the listing goes away.

Hopefully, their success will sustain, but even if only for a short time, they’ve certainly proven that they have made the right decision. I don’t know the details of their development cycle and marketing, but would Harbor Master‘s success have happened the same way if Natalia hadn’t quit her day job to devote her time to Imangi? I’d wager not.