JonPM - we don’t. It’s purely a licensing restriction (as opposed to a technical one). But it is a fairly standard thing to have a licensing agreement with those terms. Unity has very similar terms for its “free” tier.
maybe next year I will giveup Pro account to Starter, I think I will not using store and plugin, I don’t mind the splash screen, it’s no big deal with it…
this changing is not fair to Pro license member!
Is that fair to the existing Pro License owner???
Raymondcheng - I don’t think I understand your question.
And also note: we are not forcing a splash screen. All products, including Starter, can have a custom splash screen.
I know I posted this on the other page just now, but I wanted to make sure my question is answered. I was wondering how corona was going to handle educational liscenses now? Are they the same price or have they gone up? Can I renew it for $250 in a year if I’m still in college? Thanks.
cjc83486 - EDU pricing has not changed. You can see more info here:
Thanks! I looked there, but I didn’t know if it was updated. Do you know if EDU will stay at $250 after May 1st?
Yes - we are keeping the EDU price at $249. That is not changing.
Is Corona EDU pricing available to high school students or only college students? Also, does an EDU license restrict commercial use of the SDK?
It’s available to both high-school and college students. And the subscription is exactly the same, no restrictions for edu.
Now that is pretty awesome!
I’m sure you thought over the numbers with the team. Not sure if you have to answer to a higher power, such as investors.
I would have opted for Starter Kit with Corona splash screen or positionable watermark upon first load for free, $99/year for the Starter Kit with no splash screen/watermark, $399/year for the Pro , and $999/year for the Enterprise. I so much want Corona to continue to grow in both the SDK and its developer userbase, so giving the Starter Kit for free without having any sort of nod to how that app was made won’t help us (meaning Corona ), only the developer who might not care for in-app purchases, analytics, or plug-ins.
I came from iTorque 2D and GameSalad. Around the time I stopped using GS , I saw them going “free” as well, with very limited options and their “pro” package was at $299. Their free version doesn’t require a splash screen, but - if I may be frank - the entire platform is quite limited overall as to what can be done, compared to Corona. Even with just our Starter Kit , one can create full-blown apps and games that have camera / microphone (working?) access, Game Center support, Android publishing, social networking integration, and full-on internet, local network, and multiplayer capability - whether its Corona Cloud , NoobHub , AutoLAN , PubNub , and HTTP post/get, FTP access, handling RSS feeds, 2D skeletal animation with Spine and Spriter , and many more of which are free or premium Lua modules that people have posted - and I know I’m missing a lot more of the top of my head… but, that’s a lot to give away for free without anything in return, and hoping they’ll edge up (a big edge up!) to Pro.
Even if Joe Schmo created a fantastic app with the Corona Starter Kit and put it out there for free or $0.99 and it’s a hit, you’ll have tens of thousands, if not millions, using a known Corona app, and that could pick up additional subscriptions when people realize what they could really do inside Corona. Consequently, I remember the time when people saw the GameSalad splash screen upon launch of a new download, it was immediately trashed by game website blogs and in App Store reviews. That’s because the developers using GS couldn’t do anything more than “taptard” games. But, such is so not the case with Corona apps. You really can create professional and even native-looking apps and games, and no one might ever suspect it wasn’t written in native Objective-C or Java.
Now, that $599/year for Pro might be quite a lean over the mark for Indies who want to dabble in the additional features and have access to plug-ins. I will anticipate that Gluon plugins that Enterprise developers create for the community will more likely be sold rather than given, and I’m not sure if Gluon plug-ins prices will be one-offs or subscription prices in and of themselves. So, with every Gluon plugin they want, they’ll already be inching closer to the Enterprise mark ever so quickly. Having the Pro closer to the middle at $399-499/year will make it more palatable. As I stated in previous threads, I have no stomach right now to grasp Objective-C, so I’ll probably never bother with buying Enterprise , but you can be sure I’ll be getting every worthy Corona Gluon plugin available.
People might not like this particular idea, but I’d even go so far as to break it down and return the option of one platform for free/$99/$249/year for Starter with Splash / Starter / Pro for iOS / OS X (wink wink), free/$199/$349/year for Starter with Splash / Starter / Pro for Android (let’s be honest it, it’s harder for Corona Labs and us to develop with all of Android’s stupid fragmentation), and $499/year for Pro for all platforms.
That’s my 2 cents.
As an app developer who had 3 games in the App Store made with Corona, I would like to share my experience…
My first app was put in the Apple Store at 99¢. A few hundred sold but that was about it. I made an Android version and I sold about 20! So I decided to scrap Android development and stick with only Apple.
As a new developer, I only got that one app out in the year. So I paid Corona $350 and Apple $100 and never made back my initial investment.
My next app was put in the Apple Store at $1.99. I sold about 80 or so. Dropped to 99¢ and sold a bit more. Dropped to free and I got 10-20 downloads a day. I added RevMob and made some money with that. So now I paid Corona $150 for the Indie Dev License and Apple $100. To me, that was acceptable. I didn’t make much if anything but I learned quite a bit.
My 3rd game was done with In-App Purchases because I feel this is about the ONLY way an indie developer is going to make money. It might have worked, but Apple removed my game because they felt the content wasn’t suitable (which is a whole other story). The game was ROIDS, a somewhat gross take on Asteroids but by no means profane.
So based on my experience, I only want to develop for iOS. Even charging 99¢ will prevent people from buying an unknown developer’s app. Free 2 Play is the new standard and just for that one feature, I now will have to pay $349 and then $600. As an individual developer, I cannot afford it. Corona is effectively pricing people like me out of the market.
I wish I could just pay you $150 for the IAP functionality. In the comments of the blog, David Rangel stated IAP is “…a reasonable way for us to separate true hobbyists from more advanced developers”. I would argue it is the ONLY way for a small developer to make any substantial money at all. I was able to implement it and I am by no means an advanced programmer. I just knew I’d better learn it or stop making apps because I would make no money.
Many Corona devs create apps that give a little and then use IAP to open up the full app. Take away this feature and nobody can “try it before buying it”. Also, I believe the current model that works is to make the game free and allow your users to spend money inside the app if they want to. Whether that be for power ups, saving time leveling up a character, new costumes/characters, etc.
Basically, to compete in this market you need IAP. Without that one thing, even Corona for free is worthless. Spend months developing an app, put it at 99¢ and watch nobody buy it. Again, if I could pay for that one feature I would… this is a HUGE feature to take away.
I am very impressed with all the updates lately: Cloud, iAds, Widget 2.0, Plugins… It has literally everything for an indie developer and the programming language is easy and straight forward. I don’t think I could have ever gotten the drive to start my game without Corona.
The difference from Starter to Pro is going to be:
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Monetization (IAP)
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Plugins
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Daily Builds
I would like to buy Pro just for IAP, so it would be cool to buy each part by separate.
For example:
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$200 to be able of use monetization (IAP) with the free version.
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$200 to be able of use plugins with the free version.
- $200 to access daily builds with the free version.
My point of view is that users just want to pay for what they are going to use! 
Basically, to compete in this market you need IAP. Without that one thing, even Corona for free is worthless.
Here are a few little stats I’ve just looked at:
- 64/100 apps in the UK paid charts games
- 24/100 apps in the UK paid charts are game by indie developers.
When 1/4 of games in the paid charts are by indies, I wouldn’t call Corona starter worthless. I know many other developers will both agree and disagree, we all have different philosophies at the end of the day.
I remember hearing about Roids though, shame Apple pulled it 
If your so sure that IAP’s will bring in the success you think it will, i’m sure the $600 (or currently $349) is worth it. However if it isn’t, you haven’t lost anything by being on the free plan?
Another point - I can think of a lot of indies that have been very successful with just ads or up front payment. Specifically Joe Kauffman comes to mind. He has no ads and no IAP in his apps, but he has sold millions of downloads.
Yes, many of the bigger studios have moved to IAPs. But doing IAPs effectively requires a lot of iteration and optimization. Not many true indies (1-2 person teams) do it well. And if they do it well, then they have a good chance of being successful.
I don’t think is good for Indies. I just learned IAP and was going to have a pay wall on my upcoming iOS game. Just got it implemented yesterday as a matter of fact. Was planning on buying the indie license for $199 when I was ready to publish. Now I have 25 days to come up with $350 for a license(which I dont have) or else I will have to pay $600 to publish my iOS game. I wish there was more of a heads up on this I really feel like I’m getting screwed.
Hi CraftyDeano, you are correct that I should not say “worthless”. I definitely take that back.
To answer your question, If I WAS sure IAP would bring me success, I would happily dish out $600. However, I am not sure at all.
That’s why I’m saddened by Corona’s decision. At $200, I’ll take the gamble. At $349 or $600, I probably cannot afford to gamble and lose.
What I do know is at 99¢ I was getting 0 downloads. The same app moved to free got 10 – 20 downloads per day. IAP could potentially help me make money from those free downloads.
The same app moved to free got 10 – 20 downloads per day. IAP could potentially help me make money from those free downloads.
The conversion rate for users to IAP purchases are very very low.
My first app, granted it is a very rough app, I done little to no promotion on it and its only goal was for me to showcase my first app in the iOS app store and get experience of itunes connect, etc. Anyway, its Decider (link in my sig) and gets around 10 downloads a day. Currently 1744 downloads since September.
- How much ad revenue has it made? Less than $5 a month via RevMob
- How many IAP’s were purchased to remove Ad’s? 5 (and one of them was a mate!)
My other app Joke Shake was free + IAP for extra joke packs for a 3 months. I had around 1500 downloads in 3 months
any people have purchased the remove ad IAP? 5 (and one of them was a friend!)
- How much ad revenue did it make? around $20 via RevMob
- How many iAP’s were purchased? 19 (4 of them was a mate, 2 were me)
After 3 months and no real return, I changed Joke Shake from free to paid with everything unlocked. It made $15 in 3 weeks. A lot less downloads but the same money in a much shorter period.
If you get around 500 downloads p/m I would estimate less than 10 IAP’s in the monthly period.
Of course it depends on the game and what the IAPs are used for, how well they are implemented and relied on (currency, vs level unlocks, vs ad removal, etc…)
If your apps have not done too well on your sales expectations, without causing offence, maybe it was the app quality, features, app store optimisation or (lack of?) marketing/PR to blame? I’ve learnt in the past year that creating an app is easy. Creating a pristine app that is fully optimised and marketed/PR’ed well is not.
With every app I have released (I’m currently on my 4th on iOS, 5th & 6th are due to be released very very soon) I have had more downloads than the previous and more revenue in sales & ad’s in the free/lite versions
I’ll end this post with a few words wise man once told me, 'if you’re good at something, never do it for free’.
Dean is right. Even very successful apps, that are very highly optimized (e.g., something like Clash of Clans) see single digit IAP conversion rates. So if you are seeing very few downloads, IAP will not be the best way to make money on them.
I don’t say this at all to discourage you. This whole app business is a long process and the vast majority of developers take some time to ramp up to where they are seeing a good number of downloads and revenue. There is no silver bullet to monetization - with ads people complain about low fill rates/eCPMS, with up front cost people complain about low purchases and with IAP people complain about low conversion rates. We think Starter is a great way for indies to get a good app published and hopefully monetized as they build up their audience and then move to Pro.