Good VSTs are expensive for two reasons. First, they're a lot of work to write, and only a few programmers have the necessary skills to write them. Second, the market is small. A good plugin will sell thousands, not tens of thousands of copies, so the price has to be ~$100 US or so to make it worth the devs time.
The mobile market is entirely different. Big hits like Angry Birds have pushed the prices of apps down to rock bottom. The app store is littered with comments criticizing $2 apps for being "too expensive". To compete, music apps have to be cheap too, even if they're offering a lot of functionality.
For example, a notation editor for $14:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/symphony ... 80315?mt=8#
Or the excellent SynthX, for $4.99:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/synthx/id421498091?mt=8
A VST/desktop version of these apps would be at least ten times the price. This only makes sense if these apps sell ten times as many copies. Do they? I doubt it.
the economics of mobile development
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2875 posts since 28 Jan, 2004 from Da Nang, Vietnam
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- KVRian
- 1193 posts since 6 Jul, 2005
I think that *good* music apps, aimed squarely at musicians rather than Joe Public, are such a niche product that they should cost more than Angry Bird. There has to be some realistic price set based on cost of production v units sold = profit surely?
The App store comment quality is overall a little higher than YouTube... but not by much!
The App store comment quality is overall a little higher than YouTube... but not by much!
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2875 posts since 28 Jan, 2004 from Da Nang, Vietnam
The really good music apps seem to be priced at closer to $5 - $15, but I doubt that makes up for the development costs. Something like SynthX, for example, has to be as much work for the developer as a typical $50 VST.
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- KVRian
- 975 posts since 31 Jan, 2005
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2875 posts since 28 Jan, 2004 from Da Nang, Vietnam
Very interesting. Thanks for the numbers. I've read several reports from other devs with similar figures. It really does seem to me that if you want to make writing music software more than just a fun hobby you're better off writing VSTs.
It doesn't help that, thanks to Garageband, every music app on the iPad is now going to have to struggle to justify charging more than $5 a copy.
It doesn't help that, thanks to Garageband, every music app on the iPad is now going to have to struggle to justify charging more than $5 a copy.
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- KVRian
- 975 posts since 31 Jan, 2005
