better than shutting down is to do to your users what google did to you, with an explanation of why you have to suddenly charge them
On Sep 2, 11:15 am, polyclefsoftware <dja...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm an indie Android app developer, and in early 2010 I decided to work on a > multiplayer crossword board game ala Scrabble or Words With Friends, since > no such game existed yet on the platform. I worked with a friend who handled > the server side. We decided it would be cool to use Java GAE as the back end > for the game. The app, called WordWise, was the first game of its type to > the Android Market. We also developed an iPhone version and were the first > iPhone-Android cross-platform game of this type to market. For about a year, > the game did reasonably well financially. Not WWF success, but enough to > help me continue to work as an indie app developer. > > In February of this year, Words With Friends released their Android version > and our revenue cratered. We use a mixed model of free with ads (including > Google AdSense/AdMob) and paid. Revenue dropped off a cliff in February, but > were still eked out a modest profit from the game. Under the current GAE > pricing scheme, our server costs are $30-50/mo. The app now generates about > $150/mo. in revenue. At its peak it was generating thousands of dollars per > month in revenue, but those days are gone. > > However, we still have a dedicated user base. The app still has over 200K > active installs. Under the new GAE pricing scheme, our server costs are > going up about 7x. Right now we're essentially breaking even, but > maintaining the environment for current users who continue to enjoy playing > the game. Under the new scheme, we're going to have to shut everything down. > We can break even, but we can't run at a loss. Under the new scheme we'd be > paying $200-300/mo. in fees, while the app only generates about half that in > revenue. > > I'm going to get a lot of angry emails, and since I publish a substantial > catalog of other apps and games, this will likely hurt my reputation and > potentially impact revenue across the board, but what else am I supposed to > do? > > I've been a huge advocate of Google and its products. One of the reasons we > chose GAE, despite its quirks, was that it seemed like a perfect fit with > indie Android gaming. Every Android phone requires a Google account, which > could be used for authentication to the GAE server. This policy change by > Google is effectively killing our game and nullifying any chances of us > using it in the future. Despite the announcement at I/O, I still perceived > GAE as a platform suitable for a wide range of developers, from indies like > me up to large-scale businesses. It's very clear now that's not the case. > I've always had a perception that Google cared about the indie developer > community, but I'm honestly baffled by this move. > > Yes, Google is a for-profit company, but since their inception, their > strategy has often been to offer great free products, initially at as > loss-leaders, to encourage adoption. They are then able to integrate their > core business, advertising, into those products, and upsell premium versions > for enterprise. Are Google reps seriously suggesting that new products such > as Google+ are generating direct revenue right now? By pricing out > hobbyists, indies, and other small companies from GAE, the initial revenue > lost will likely not even be noticed by Google. However, you will have lost > an enormous amount of good will and street cred among the developer > community. > > You could have handled this in a much more sensible way. Why not grandfather > in apps under the old pricing platform that have been on the platform for > something like at least six months? You're citing apps that have enormous > traffic, but what this new policy is going to do is effectively squash a > bunch of smaller apps. Why not keep apps under the old pricing scheme if > they qualify as "non-enterprise", with moderate-to-low usage? You're telling > me Google wouldn't be willing to absorb the negligible cost of providing > infrastructure to smaller projects in order to encourage adoption and > continue to foster good will among the dev community? And you could still > hike up the costs on the big apps, though something tells me even that's > going to backfire. > > As someone else said, Google lost a lot of cool over this. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
