Need Amazon Ads plugin from Corona, just like AdMob!

Solar2D Monetization (in-app purchases, ads, etc.)
#1

Hi all,

I took a look at the existing Amazon Ads plugin provided by Corona’s partner Gremlin Interactive. 

I was thinking of purchasing this plugin but then immediately stopped in my tracks as soon as I saw their licensing model. You have to purchase this plugin over and over again for each app that you want to use it in. Now, I’d be perfectly happy to pay a one time flat cost, but this is just ridiculous.

I’d love to see Corona step up and offer an Amazon Ads plugin the same as they are offering an AdMob plugin. Amazon is offering some very enticing compensation for publishers… why not ad this to your nice list of existing plugins Corona?

Anybody else think this would be a good idea?

#2

I also considered the plugin - but had to dismiss it due to the per app licensing model.

I’m not saying it’s a rip-off. I totally appreciate the work that goes into developing the software.

Still, if the future of 3rd party plugins for Corona uses this model - I’m not at all happy.

Just my 2p worth.

MAS1

#3

It’s up to the each plugin-developer to decide what licensing model to implement.

At first I wasn’t a big fan of the per/app model either, but after giving it some thought it made sense. I’d say it’s most likely the only model that more or less prevents illegal distribution. One license key can only be used for n number of apps, that’s it.

And if you think about it, even at full price, $89 for 10 apps isn’t that much to pay. That’s basically $9 per app, which should easily pay for itself within the first month in ad revenue. If an app doesn’t make that much revenue, then there are more serious problems than the plugin licensing model to worry about…

#4

@ingemar,

That’s certainly a convincing argument. Perhaps I’ll take a took at that plugin after all.

Best - MAS1

Edit - I did http://gremlininteractive.com/product/amazon-ads-plugin-for-the-corona-sdk/

and it’s half price! Hopefully plugin development will be viable for Gremlin. Not much 3rd party plugin activity afaik.

#5

@ingemar, exactly my thoughts!!! Who ever thinks this is a ripoff is really not understanding the economics of coding for a living. 

If anything, my opinion is that the prices are way too low to sustain a viable business. Concern I have is that eventually folks like Gremlin will simply move on to other work that gives them better return on their investment. And we will be left with no new plugins. Think about it, ever since Gremlin and his partners came out with the 3rd party plugin market we now have access to PayPal, KIIP, Amazon Ads etc. Maybe we would get these from Corona Labs eventually or maybe not. The point is, we have these abilities which we did not have before and perhaps would never have. To me, that can’t ever be a ripoff.

Final thought, if you ever wonder if a price tag is fair, ask yourself how long it would take you to develop the same ability (assuming you know how which I don’t!). Then multiply that by the hourly rate you earn and you will end up with a worth. More than likely you will find that none of these plugins can be developed for under the cost they are being marketed for. 

Long live the 3rd Party Plugin Market!!! 

#6

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you work for Gremlin Interactive. I haven’t met many people who have wanted to buy something and said that the prices are just too darn low! lol

I understand just fine the economics of coding for a living. I’ve been doing so for many years now. If you’d like an example of a good plugin with the kind of pricing model I’m looking for, check out: http://www.x-pressive.com/ParticleCandy_Corona/download.html. I’m pretty sure they understand the economics as well.

Like I said before, I don’t mind paying for a good plugin (like particle candy), but charging people to use your plugin on a per app basis like Gremlin Interactive is doing is just a bad deal. I’m calling for a change in their pricing model, or for others to step forward and offer some competition (or Corona to just make a good version like they did with AdMob). 

#7

Bah

#8

<Off-Topic>

I still fail to see how $9/app is a bad deal :wacko:.

As en Enterprise user I had started developing my own plugin. However before I had gotten too far into that project, Gremlin announced they already had one available. Considering the time it would take to finalize development it made more financial sense to get the one from Gremlin. 

Personally I don’t think CoronaLabs should develop plugins. They should concentrate on making the core the best there is. They’ve already provided us with the plugin framework which enables us to write plugins. What’s missing is a marketplace which I hope will become available soon, because competition *is* a good thing. I just hope that it doesn’t become another race-to-the-bottom with pricing, where quality usually suffers.

I don’t understand what’s the matter with people. Why is software considered to be a rip-off when developers charge a bit more for their work? It’s like walking in to your favorite clothing store wanting to buy 10 pairs of jeans, and then yelling “rip-off” when you get to the counter and find out you have to pay the item price * 10. Software is a commodity just like anything else, and I see nothing wrong in charging for it on a per-app basis.

#9

I would say its more like somebody wants to sell you a pair of jeans, and then expect you to pay for it again every time you wear it…

If you look at similar plugin markets for other game development SDKs such as Unity, you will find they don’t charge on a per app basis. If you look at other plugins even for the Corona SDK like I linked in my previous post, you will find they don’t charge on a per app basis. So when I see Gremlin Interactive trying to do so, they are going against the market trend in hopes of making more money.

#10

Going against the trend isn’t always a bad thing…

#11

Let me ask you this then… How often do you see X-Pressive on this forum answering questions? Have you not seen numerous complaints that it takes a very long time to get email responses to support questions and issues? I own all candy products, particle, widget and text and guess what… I use none. Not saying they’re bad products but without developers long term commitment I can’t rely on these components to build my product. That’s what you get when your business model does not ensure ongoing cash flow. You inevitably find yourself having to find paying work elsewhere.

My point above regarding prices being perhaps even too low was precisely coming from this angle. I just don’t want to invest my money and time in learning how to use yet another component that will go out of support because it’s developer didn’t make enough on it and had to shift attention elsewhere to pay the bills.

Hope this helps clarify where I’m coming from. You don’t need to agree with anything we say here but I would kindly suggest you think twice before insulting another fellow dev trying to make a living by calling his offering a ripoff.

#12

There is a 50% off sale right now. We are not trying to rip anyone off here. Right now our plugins are the lowest source of income, but that isn’t the thing that bothers us, it’s the percieved lack of interest and comments like this.

Like Igemar said, with the things exposed to us by Corona, this was our only means of protecting against piracy.

We are not even going to bother auguring the toss with you on this, as others in this thread have already stated the points just as well as we could have.

However, lets do one example. Lets say for example that a plugin took the 10 hours to make per platform. So 20 hours total, you charge say 60 bucks an hour. So 20 × 60 = 1200. Are their any plugins on our site for anywhere near that? No.

Unfortunately, the haters such as yourself seem to be outweighing the people who don’t expect everything for nothing. Which is a real shame, as we have put literally hundreds upon hundreds of hours into these plugins and the infrastructure, and had big plans to make tons of plugins available to you all.

So overall I find your rip off statement very hurtful. If anything, we are the ones who have been ripped off to date, as we haven’t even begun to recoup our costs for making all of these plugins.

Also note, the Amazon ads plugin was not develeoped by Gremlin Interactive and thus, the price was not set by us.

Take this aa you will.

#13

I’m not insulting anyone - just stating my opinion I have about Gremlin’s pricing. As a customer in the plugin market, I don’t like the business model of paying per app. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

However, lets do one example. Lets say for example that a plugin took the 10 hours to make per platform. So 20 hours total, you charge say 60 bucks an hour. So 20 × 60 = 1200. Are their any plugins on our site for anywhere near that? No.

If you charged $20 flat rate for your plugin, that’s 60 sales and you’ve recouped your cost. Every sale after that is pure profit. So not sure where the 1200 dollar price tag a plugin is coming from?

Unfortunately, the haters such as yourself seem to be outweighing the people who don’t expect everything for nothing. Which is a real shame, as we have put literally hundreds upon hundreds of hours into these plugins and the infrastructure, and had big plans to make tons of plugins available to you all. 

So overall I find your rip off statement very hurtful. If anything, we are the ones who have been ripped off to date, as we haven’t even begun to recoup our costs for making all of these plugins.

For heavens sake, not sure why people are getting so upset here and taking it personal. I’m not being a hater. I’m being a CONSUMER. And as a consumer, I’m looking for the best product at the best price.

From what you said, it sounds like the “haters” are outweighting the “people who don’t expect everything for nothing.” If I can infer from this statement, it sounds like you don’t have that many sales. Which means one of two things:

  1. There is no demand for your plugin

  2. There is demand, but your pricing is wrong

I would assume that there is at least some demand for the Amazon Ads plugin, so that leaves option number 2.

Even if you charged $50, or $100 one time fee, I’d consider it. I’m not expecting everything for nothing. But I won’t pay to reuse the same thing for each and every app I make. As far as fighting piracy goes, you could still have your licensing done on a per app basis, but you don’t need to charge on a per app basis.

Thank you for offering your plugins, but I won’t be buying them based on your pricing. 

Once again, I’d love to see Corona release an Amazon Ads plugin similar to their Admob plugin, or some other companies offering some competition to square up the existing pricing. Monopolies aren’t good for consumers. Competition is great for consumers. Quality goes up, and prices go down. 

We are not even going to bother auguring the toss with you on this, as others in this thread have already stated the points just as well as we could have.

I wish you would. I’d like to have an open dialog about it.

#14

Out of interest, what would a fair price be then? Given the price it’s at now, in the sale, i doubt that anyone but amazon would offer it any cheaper. It wouldn’t be worth the effort.

This is the whole problem really, you can’t make everyone happy. If we removed the per app restriction tomorrow, then everyone would be complaining that the pice is too high still (if it’s higher than free, someone will feel they have some divine right not to pay anything) or existing customers would be unhappy or x + y.

We could even make them free, and just put a button on our site to accept donations for our efforts. I would be surprised if that monthly total raised more than a cup of coffee a month however.

At the end of the day, even if Corona were to open it’s own store, there are bound to be licensing limits imposed on things, so you might then have to pay for a plugin yearly. That would also probably be deemed unacceptable by many.

It’s a shame to see that fellow developers are now getting into the mindset of our customers, who expect everything for free. I am not specifically talking about my business here. I see it everywhere. This race to the bottom is preventing anyone without a huge bankroll from starting a business these days, which is saddening.

Edit: this isn’t aimed at you particularly either, just a general moan on how the apparent demand for plugins initially has outweighed the real demand for them (because they are paid for products)

Cheers

#15

Out of interest, what would a fair price be then? Given the price it’s at now, in the sale, i doubt that anyone but amazon would offer it any cheaper. It wouldn’t be worth the effort.

I’d happily pay $50 bucks for the Amazon Ads plugin if it did not have a per app price tag. 

This is the whole problem really, you can’t make everyone happy. If we removed the per app restriction tomorrow, then everyone would be complaining that the pice is too high still (if it’s higher than free, someone will feel they have some divine right not to pay anything) or existing customers would be unhappy or x + y. 

I wouldn’t be complaining if it was a flat fee like $50. If it was say $200 dollars then I don’t think I would buy.

I don’t know what your sales look like, so maybe I’m alone here. But if you aren’t getting sales, I’d seriously consider rethinking your pricing.

As far as setting a price in general, it has to be balanced with demand, competition, and the ability of your customer to actually make the product themselves. Every consumer is going to want the lowest price possible, even all the way down to free if they can get it. 

For example, instead of paying money to buy a plugin, I would consider just writing it myself. However, my barrier to entry is paying corona 200$ a month to get Enterprise (which I’m not willing to do at this point), and learning how to write a plugin. So here I am shopping for a plugin, but I’m also not willing to pay per app for it so now I’m stuck without the functionality I want.

For myself, I don’t see it as a race to the bottom… I see it as product placement and market demand. If nobody is willing to buy plugins, maybe there just isn’t a market for it. I don’t think that is the case here, I just think this pricing model doesn’t resonate with your potential customer base such as myself. It can be hard to find the sweet spot, but that is the challenge of business I think.

#16

Good post, much better. This is the sort of feedback we were looking for.

Lets see what we can do here. We will look into offering the plugins without enforcing an app tier. No promise’s, but we will look into it. We didn’t want to have app limits and such initially either, for the record.

Thanks for the informative feedback

#17

Just my two pennies here, but I can see a subscription plan being useful for this situation.

Pay X and get access to a plugin and support for 12 months, then after that you are free to continue using the plugin but if you want updates and support you need to pay for another 12 months.

No idea if your infrastructure supports this or not though. This seems like the sort of thing that an actual marketplace would sort out, being able to list plugins on there and have various business models available, anything from pay-what-you-want pricing to per-app and subscriptions based. All taken care of by the marketplace so individual sellers don’t have to worry about the nuts and bolts of it all.

#18

Yes I agree. 

If you think about it, selling plugins is much like selling apps. Paying $1 - $100 (or whatever price you figure out brings in the most revenue for you, price * number of units sold) for a plugin makes sense. And in this case, working 20 hours and getting a price tag like that sounds pretty darn good to me! I work hundreds of hours on my apps and have to give them away for free, which is why I’m looking for advertising plugins in the first place lol

#19

I also apologize for calling you a ‘hater’. I’m just like you guys, single guy working on a bazillion things at once trying to make a living to support my fiancee and little girl, calling me ‘evil’ just hit a sour spot :slight_smile:

No hard feelings.

#20

I’m not saying that the per-app pricing is evil, and I completely see why you would do it. I personally would have no problem paying per app. As others have said before, if your app can’t pull in the purchase price from adverts then you have bigger problems.