> -----Original Message-----
> On
> Behalf Of Brenda
> Sent: 28 April 2002 00:54
> To: Palm Developer Forum
> Subject: Re: Shareware can make enough money?
> To me, to have a control we needed to have no restrictions
> whatesoever, including no nag screens, on the shareware
> version. Otherwise we are not comparing crippleware to
> shareware, we are comparing crippleware to "nagware". Some
> "features" are still being blocked.. even if it is just the
> annoyance of a nag screen.
>
> Brenda
>
Hi,
Just thought I'd stick my oar in with some data which perhaps is even
closer to what you're after. Based on my experience from our PC stuff,
our Palm software is all of the nag-ware, or limited in some other way.
In my PC game, Bzzz!, which was first written and released about 8
years or so ago, the first version was fully functional and had no
disabled features.
It was on sale like this for around 4 months, and the total sales were
about 8 in this time.
I changed it to have features that were not available unless
registered, and re-released it. It remained on sale in this form for
about another 6 months, and the total sales were in the order of 30-40 (
IIRC )
We then upgraded to a nicer set of graphics, and added some features.
It remained on sale like this for another year (ish), achieving around
10 sales per month.
We then added a 'nag screen' like feature to the front, with a
countdown, and saying that it was unregistered, and registering would
remove the nag and unlock extra features. Sales from this point remained
at about 20-30 per month for the next few years.
(Sales have dropped off again, but for a product I haven't touched in 3
years, its still bringing in an easy $150 or so per month.)
We haven't tried too any real shareware for any of our Palm stuff. I'm
still not sure we've found the perfect balance between allowing use and
nagging to optimise sales (and that's what its about...) but I'm 100%
sure that I wouldn't have been able to go full-time at Astraware if we
were following the true shareware way...
Regards,
Howard.
(Perhaps this thread better taken over to the PEF ?)
--
Howard Tomlinson - CEO, Astraware - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.astraware.com/
--
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