MacHeist Software Bundle Ending This Weekend

[x86isslow]

Personally, I think MacHeist was a waste of time for anyone but a high school or College kid.

If a company wants to do a real promotion to drive attention to the software, there are other ways to do it.

Do you ever wonder why ads for Tonka trucks don't just have adults in them? Real promotions take the age of the people they're selling towards into consideration.

It may seem like a waste of time to you, and that's fine, but most college students don't have lots of money to buy software. Most college students are also caught up in a culture of piracy, due to the RIAA-i2Hub war et al. By offering this type of promotion to college students, they are introducing the concept of being honest to a group of kids who have no conception of it.

Think of it this way- Apple made iTunes Store big with a huge free-songs-with-a-Pepsi campaign. Now those people are acclimated to the idea of buying music on iTS.
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Personally, I'm thankful I have a job. I'd hate to ever be in a position where I am pirating other people's work, but I know there are a ton of my fellow college students for whom that is not possible.

 

[Flowbee]

Looks like they hit the "$100,000 for charity" mark tonight. Unlocking TextMate earlier today finally persuaded me to buy. I'm really liking DEVONthink. I had never even heard of it before MacHeist.

 

[Bonte]

I'm just a buying customer and i love the Heist program, there were 4-5 apps that i would have bought if they were 5-9 dollars each but this sounded like a good overall deal and went for it. In all honesty i have to say the Pangea game was the decision maker.

I truly believe $5,- is a good and fair price for 90% of the current shareware and indie applications for the Mac, we just need a strong centralized marketplace like iTunes to offer the products. I know only Apple can make this work so i hope they'll broaden their view to other digital content, the iPod games are a good first step so i'm optimistic. Isn't it strange that everybody wants to sell iPod games for $5 but asks $20 for the mac version of the same game?

If Apple wants to take this next step then i also think its inevitable that osX will be opened up for general PC hardware, no question about that.

 

[Chosenbydestiny]

Hmm, we do have a weekend to try them out before we decide the bundle is really for us. Appeal aside, it all comes down to how much the individual needs these features.

 

[Hattig]

Looks like they'll raise over $125,000 for charity by the time the promotion is over.

That means they'll have taken in revenue of around $500,000!

They paid around $70k for the right to distribute the applications for a week. Then there's other costs on top. However it looks like they have pocketed over $250k for their promotion work.

Can't help but think the developers would have liked a flat fee + 1-2% of revenue over the plain flat fee. But as has been pointed out, they were free to accept or not accept the offer given. Still, it's given the developers a nice bonus for Christmas!

 

[Bonte]

Now the devs know more and can demand more the next time around or a fair percentage, MacHeist did a good job.

 

[Evangelion]

So, what is the issue here exactly? Some developers are complaining that their apps are being bundled with other apps and sold for quite a low price. What exactly is the problem here? I assume that the developer still get the money they are supposed to be getting. Or did MacHeist tell them that "So, you are selling your software for 99 bucks? Well, we will sell it as a part of a bundle that costs 49 bucks. Of course, since the price is so low, we can only give you few bucks for the software. Don't like it? Well, there's nothing you can do about it".

Since MacHeist can't do that (if they could, I could start selling copies of Aperture for 10 bucks, and give Apple 2 bucks while keeping rest to myself), what is the problem here? Could anyone englighten me?

And if some developer does not like the scheme, surely they are not forced to take part in it?

 

[Bonte]

They agreed to sell there app for a fixed amount between 5 and 15.000 dollar (so we beleve) for 1 week of sales and an unlimited number of copy's. Some of the devs that didn't join are ranting that MacHeist got to much profit out of it especially considering MacHeist advertised this as "week of the indie developer" or something. I do have to say that these blogs reminded me to buy the bundle, otherwise i would have forgotten it.

 

[Doctor Q]

Could anyone englighten me?

Most opinions I've seen are on the favorable side - it's just a business deal that the parties involved agreed to. The complaint some have voiced is that MacHeist is promoting the package with an implication that they are doing it for "the benefit of the little guy" (independent software vendors) when they simply made a business deal that was likely to, and has, benefited them at least as much as the vendors. Not a huge controversy, just a point that some have made and wanted to discuss.

 

[Hattig]

I must admit I have spent a couple of hours playing the Enigmo 2 game tonight, so that's an unexpected bonus given there's a whole lot more levels to go. It's a bit like the old classic "Bill's Tomato Game', except it is in space (irrelevant apart from the gravity reversers and 3D). The camera is a bit sensitive to control though.

 

[kalisphoenix]

Anything bringing in more DEVONthink users is great. I wouldn't worry about their support costs, because the forums over there are really pretty groovy (especially Bill DeVille, who is a genius).

I don't see them as getting screwed by this because they only licensed DEVONthink Personal, not Pro. And Personal is nothing compared to Pro, imho.

 

[bousozoku]

Anything bringing in more DEVONthink users is great. I wouldn't worry about their support costs, because the forums over there are really pretty groovy (especially Bill DeVille, who is a genius).

I don't see them as getting screwed by this because they only licensed DEVONthink Personal, not Pro. And Personal is nothing compared to Pro, imho.

I'm still not sure what to think of the software. It seems like the electronic equivalent of a junk drawer. You have all sorts of things in it you seldom use but need to know where they are.

 

[Flowbee]

Looks like it'll end up near 200,000 for charity... Pretty impressive. Over 15,000 bundles sold with 4 hours to go. I've already sent NewsFire another $10 for the lifetime upgrades license, so at least one developer has made a couple of extra dollars.

 

[GFLPraxis]

Argh! I was busy all weekend, and I tried to buy it Sunday night, but they ended it early for some reason.

 

[x86isslow]

Looks like it'll end up near 200,000 for charity... Pretty impressive. Over 15,000 bundles sold with 4 hours to go. I've already sent NewsFire another $10 for the lifetime upgrades license, so at least one developer has made a couple of extra dollars.

Hey, yah, I did that too. Lifetime upgrades = one less thing I have to think about.

 

[jeremy.king]

I bought it, I thought it was a good deal.

And to think, even at 3% as some have estimated - Every developer is now $20K+ richer and have a nice pool of 16,821 mac users to advertise via word of mouth!