IPhone Game iShoot earns the Developer $600K in a month

[hbien]

I wonder if he gets a lot of support email.

Anyone on HN have an iPhone app out there with a low price point? It already takes a lot of time working on a desktop app and answering support emails. I'm wondering if it takes even more time with a low price product and tons of customers.

[there]

do iphone developers care about support? it's not like anyone can try the program without buying it or ask for a refund. worst case someone leaves a one-star rating saying "this program sux!" which no one reads anyway.

[tienshiao]

I used to sell a PalmOS app for the Treo.

My app for the iPhone is much different, but I find the support to units sold ratio to be much better. It's probably something like 1% of the users need support.

[transburgh]

I have a $0.99 app and we built in email support. If a user has a concern or issue they can email me directly.

[breck]

One thing I don't understand:

> After getting off his shift as an engineer at Sun Microsystems, he worked on iShoot eight hours a day, cradling his 1-year-old son in one hand and coding with the other. He didn't have the money to buy books to learn how to write an iPhone app, so he taught himself by reading websites.

I think there's one or 2 main books on writing iPhone apps(both by OReilly) and they're like $35 at Borders(so probably cheaper online). If you're an engineer at Sun, and spending 8 hours a day on this app, how could $35 be stopping you from buying a book?

[bd]

There is more info in the original Wired article. The author responded in comments:

"As for how I was broke while making a great salary working at Sun, it was primarily due to medical bills after a my family had series of emergency room visits, a couple of emergency surgeries, and we spent a year taking care of and financially supporting a mentally ill relative. Sun had also discontinued all bonuses due to the financial climate, which didn't help."

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/shoot-is-iphone.html#c...

[nazgulnarsil]

so...does anyone else see the smart phone as a reboot for consoles? all these games doing well are the kind of games that could have been run on an NES. As we get more and more powerful smart phones will we see the same things?

[payne92]

Not sure if it's a reboot for newer consoles, but it's definitely the replacement for the Nintendo DS, PSP, etc.

[breck]

Like this game--iShoot, is basically ScorchedEarth which came out for DOS in like 1994 (or that's when I first played it anyway).

It is fun though--I bought one.

[jmtame]

i'm going to say that the app looks harder to build than it appears. i haven't messed much with open gl or any low-level stuff, but based on what i've heard/seen, it's pretty complex to build graphics/animation-driven apps.

[cellis]

Good for him. It sounds like he really had a rough go of it before he released iShoot. Stories like this always inspire me.

[mattmaroon]

What's interesting is this is one of the top iPhone games, if not the top. Compare it to one of the top Facebook games. Mob Wars makes 2x that much money every single month, and unlike iShoot, it won't fall off of the store and into oblivion very soon. It probably took far less work to launch too.

[Klonoar]

You've gotta be kidding me.

I'd totally build one of these things if Apple would ever actually respond to me. It's been almost a month - anyone else experience this kind of delay?

[azsromej]

To an extent the delay seems related to program complexity. I released a utility app (http://rankforest.com/ranktouch) that was approved after 5 days.

[hboon]

This kind of delay? 3 months. The wait was excruciating.

[critic]

But now, everyone will start making "Lite" versions of their apps, and the same trick will not work as well as it did for this guy.

[skawaii]

Making a "lite" version is the same thing as making a demo, which has been around for decades. I don't think this is a cat that just got out of the bag, or anything.