Maybe I don’t understand how things work in development but I can see how Rovio and it’s Angry Birds can afford to keep and pay a staff. But what about the heaps of devs on $.99 cents who can’t make enough profit to even keep a staff? Won’t those jobs be cut during the flight to the bottom?

I hear soooo many people complain about jobs in general being outsourced and job-loss in this country. But it seems to me (and it’s just my humble opinion) that consumer demand for free and under-a-buck stuff may be adding to that problem.

It’s not just game development that is facing this dollar store mentality, book publishers and authors are going through the same thing making the transition to Ebooks. Suddenly, consumers don’t want to pay more than 99 cents for full, downloadable books, especially on Amazon’s Kindle devices. I think you noted that it’s the same thing with music on iTunes. Consumers were saying that a song should actually cost less than $.99 cents. Then when Amazon priced Lady Gaga’s Born This Way album at 99 cents, consumers cheered & claimed every whole album should cost $.99 cents.

Something in me just KNEW iTunes buyers were going to strike actors next on their list, and sure enough Apple TV tried to get entertainment content from NBC, FOX, UNIVERSAL, to sell for $.99 cents (and of course make up the low price by selling in so-called “volume”). I’m surprised NBC went along with this. They made nothing but peanuts, and Apple users got their TV shows for pennies and ran off. It was stupid. And Apple even had the nerve to ask for a 30% cut of each show sold, knowing damn well it was them that needed those shows, not the other way around!

I know this is long and I’m sorry about that, but that’s one thing I DON’T LIKE ABOUT APPLE! They cheapen everybody else’s content to sell their devices and at the same time get consumers to believe content is worth nothing but devices are worth $400-$500! Apple didn’t do this themselves: an army of app developers, poor musicians, and down and out ebook authors yell to defend them. And of course Apple (and Amazon) have consumer backing on the low and free price points, so they’re going to defend these platforms as well.

Let the market dictate pricing? If every company did that, everything would be FREE because people would pay ZERO for everything if they could (myself included, probably). And then more jobs slashed and more people unemployed and complaining about it. It’s a circle that no one will admit to is there, or is it just me that has contemplated this?

Again, sorry this is soooo long. I just had a lot on my chest about this. Thanks for letting me post this comment!

The refund period for purchases made at the Android Market was never 30 days IIRC. I used to be 24 hours, but has recently been reduced to just 15 minutes, which happens to be 900 seconds more than you get at the iOS app store. ^_^

Personally, I find the 15 minute window good enough to test the basic functionality and performance of the app on my device, not that performance is a particular concern since I use a Nexus One. It’s the not-so-powerful Android phones where the refund window is particularly useful.

Speaking of Android, Amazon supposedly has an emulator in the works which allows you to demo an app in their App Store on a desktop in a browser running Adobe Flash.

You guys have clearly invested a lot in marketing, and it shows. Client-services companies working to develop products are in the unique position that they can self-fund projects and potentially invest heavily in them (where they’re essentially acting as their own VC)

I had much the same feeling when I saw the price point of apple’s iPad2 iMovie and Garageband apps. We’re truly seeing the impact that supply/demand manoeuvrings coupled with “big-firm development” (potentially at a loss) is having on this marketplace.

Thank you for posting on this topic and for the clarity in which it was done.

(BTW, 37signals just published the story of our app at: http://bit.ly/foorWc )