commerce

[honkFactory]

Howd',
I have a couple of questions. I have written a pidling little program and I would like to try and hock it via the internet. It is obj-C cocoa based and I have a couple of questions.

1) Let's say I want to cripple it so that it will not run say 10 days after installation or 5 continuous hours of use or whatever. How do I do this in such a way as the user will not be able to defeat the crippling just by deleting and reinstalling my program?

2) In your opinion what is the best way to collect registration fees? Elegant integration of the registration system into the program and low fees are important. What systems have you used that work well?

thanks
A.W.

[diordna]

This should go in the business forum, whatever its name is. However, I will answer your first question. I can't answer the second because I've never sold any software. To cripple it, just make a preferences file in ~/Library/Preferences. Better yet, make multiple files and check them against each other to make sure the user didn't delete the preferences file as well.

[NCarter]

There was a thread about this (http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3133) a while ago.

Personally, I hate programs with hassle you for money incessantly. You have to balance the usefulness of the program with the amount of annoyance you inflict, and if your program is truly piddling few people will want to pay for it. You might in fact get more customers by not burdening them with a crippleware scheme.

What kind of program is it?

[honkFactory]

Somebody once did a test to see what if people would register full versions or software more or less than crippleware. When an individual downloaded the software they either got the full version or the crippleware with equal probability. The crippleware was downloaded 5 time more frequently (if i remember correctly). I believe this is pretty standard. Having just graduated from college I know for a fact that nobody my age registers anything unless they have too. (I have even heard college students try to argue that it is not immoral to steal software/music. They always sound like asses though.)

The program is a calculator with some unique feature that would be very hand for chemists/scientist. I intend to sell it for next to nothing (<5$).

[David]

I would probably just make it wait ten seconds on startup or something.

[reubert]

I've made an alpha version of a game that has a function in it that uses NSCalendarDate to cripple it after 30 days. Basically it says if(currentdate > expireDate){ hideInterface; dontUpdateView; }

anyone can get around this by reseting the date on their system, but I don't think people like doing that, it screws with other things, and if they can afford to pay, it's less hassle to just pay the $5.

edit - oh and from what I've read on this forum, eSellerate is really good for collecting shareware fees. Thats what I plan on using.

[honkFactory]

David - I hate the delay on startup method. When I put out a piece of software I am saying "Here is my software. Try it out. If it provides enough value to you, buy it. If not, don't - but you can't have it for free."
I don't think you should try to annoy our potential customers into buying your product. A delay is not substantively different than having you program turn up the system volume all the and emiting an annoying sound. The only difference is in the degrees of annoyance.

reubert - What happens if they delete and then reinstall your software?

[KenD]

Originally posted by honkFactory
David - I hate the delay on startup method.

That's the whole point with it. Buy it and you have no delay. If you intend to buy the software a delay in an unregisterd version should not be an issue to you.

The fact is that if there's nothing to push the user to buy it most people won't.

KenD

[NCarter]

Rather than time bomb the application or annoy the user by harassing or delaying them, why not offer extra features to those who pay?

[kelvin]

Faviconic has been downloaded almost 1100 times now. Total registration funds: $13 ($8+$5). And this is valueware good enough to rank on tucows. People don't even want to spend $1 for a registration.

I say make it turn completely off after expiring.
</disillusionment>

[honkFactory]

NCarter,
Excellent suggestion. I would like to see a study were registration rate of these four options are compared.
1) No crippling, rely on honesty of customer
2) 15 day trial period before program locks user out.
3) 15 second delay before unregistered program will run.
4) Unregistered program lacks certain features.
Are there any other possibilities that I am missing? #4 might not be aplicable to all programs but I like it.

[honkFactory]

Another area that deserves study is how people respond to variable priced programs. What I mean by this is simply give a potential customer the option to register within a certain price range. What would the registration rates for a prorgam be if the user could register with a payment anywhere in range from $5 to $25 dollars? What would the average registration be? And the standard deviation of registrations? How would this compare to registration of the same product if user where only given the choice to register with a fixed $15 payment? I would like to see stats on that.

[NCarter]

Originally posted by honkFactory
4) Unregistered program lacks certain features.

There's a marketing issue here: how successful this will be depends upon how you word it. You're not limiting the features of the unregistered version, you're "offering the registered user extra features". It amounts to the same thing, but it makes potential customers feel better about spending their money!

[Leisure Suit Lurie]

Originally posted by honkFactory
What would the registration rates for a prorgam be if the user could register with a payment anywhere in range from $5 to $25 dollars?

Why in God's name would I spend $25, if I can get it for $5?:???:

[Jake]

Originally posted by honkFactory
What would the registration rates for a prorgam be if the user could register with a payment anywhere in range from $5 to $25 dollars? I would like to see stats on that.

I did that for my game, here are the stats :).

registers(1) = 5
registers(2) = 10
registers(3) = 10
registers(4) = 5
registers(5) = 5
registers(6) = 3
registers(7) = 5
registers(8) = 1
registers(9) = 1
registers(10) = 10
registers(11) = 8
registers(12) = 10
registers(13) = 20
registers(14) = 5
registers(15) = 10
registers(16) = 10
registers(17) = 6
registers(18) = 10
registers(19) = 5
registers(20) = 7
registers(21) = 5
registers(22) = 10
registers(23) = 3
registers(24) = 5
registers(25) = 10
registers(26) = 3
registers(27) = 5
registers(28) = 5
registers(29) = 7.5
registers(30) = 10
registers(31) = 5
registers(32) = 10
registers(33) = 10
registers(34) = 10
registers(35) = 5
registers(36) = 3
registers(37) = 6
registers(38) = 10
registers(39) = 6
registers(40) = 8
registers(41) = 9
registers(42) = 6
registers(43) = 6
registers(44) = 4
registers(45) = 10
registers(46) = 20
registers(47) = 6.5
registers(48) = 6
registers(49) = 1

49 registrations at an average of 7.16 dollar average (I didn't bother to add a standard deviation, if someone wants to go right ahead).

2 $20.00 dollar registrations, one was from Steve Woz himself :):wow:

[Jake]

Oh, and I forgot to explain the 1 dollar registration. Chances are if someone is that cheap to only pay 1 dollar, they wouldn't have paid 5 anyways, so its better to get 1 dollar than 0.

[honkFactory]

Jake - Very interesting. Was $20 the limit or could they have gone higher if they wanted to? What was the product?

[reubert]

NSCalendarDate *startDate = [NSCalendarDate dateWithYear:2003
month:8 day:2 hour:6 minute:37 second:0
timeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneWithAbbreviation:@"EST"]];
NSCalendarDate *currentDate = [NSCalendarDate calendarDate];

int days;
[currentDate years:NULL months:NULL days:&days hours:NULL
minutes:NULL seconds:NULL sinceDate:startDate];

if(days > 30)
expired = TRUE;
else
expired = FALSE;

This is the code, it seems to work, although It's not actually 30 days past the 2nd of August yet so I can't be sure ;) But as you can see, reinstalling the software will make no difference as it just checks whether the current system date is 30 days later than the 2nd of august. In your case, I suppose you would need to set this date the first time the app is launched and then store the date in the registration info which is hidden somewhere on the users system.

[OneSadCookie]

Incidentally, this is as easily circumventable as iConquer's joke of a timeout scheme (3 GDB commands). Not, I suspect, that you care, but the OP might...

[Jake]

Originally posted by honkFactory
Jake - Very interesting. Was $20 the limit or could they have gone higher if they wanted to? What was the product?

They could have gone higher, there is no limit. I basically used a Donation item from paypal. The product was my game Escape. I have noticed people either hate my game, or love it, because I get a bunch of bad reviews, but obviously some people like it :).

[honkFactory]

Jake
49*$7.16 ain't too shaby. How long did it take to collect those funds>

[Jake]

Originally posted by honkFactory
Jake
49*$7.16 ain't too shaby. How long did it take to collect those funds>

Most were in January through July, I learned that a good trick is to update often, if someone finds a small bug, fix it and sent it to versiontracker again :)

[hams]

i think this may be mentioned elsewhere on the site,
but a good thing to checkout is www.dexterity.com.

Then go to the "For Developers" section. Steve Pavlina has lots of good information on running a shareware buisness
as well as finding ways to improve registration rates.

kevin

[Bachus]

Originally posted by hams
i think this may be mentioned elsewhere on the site,
but a good thing to checkout is www.dexterity.com.

Then go to the "For Developers" section. Steve Pavlina has lots of good information on running a shareware buisness
as well as finding ways to improve registration rates.


Indeed. The articles at dexterity.com should be every shareware developer's bible. It's too bad they can't use all those smarts to hire decent artists for their games...