[cjensen]

The Mac software scene has always had lots of indie developers. Let's look at that scene for some facts... The indies generally charge an upgrade fee for "major" versions, and give free upgrades for "minor" updates.

Most, like Wil, do the right thing. Delicious Library hasn't had a major release in years, but it is maintained.

Others (for example, in my experience "DVD Remaster Pro" and Parallels Desktop), clearly abuse the major update system as a revenue source. They release fake major releases with lots of new skin but few features every six months or a year to rake in the dough.

Honestly, it's a mess. But the solution to me is obvious: Angry Birds from Rovio. Rovio didn't just release the thing and stop. They keep adding significant features (the game is probably 10X as large as when I bought it for the iPad). Customers feed back with great reviews. Rovio is rewarded with continuing sales and stays in the top seller lists. Meanwhile, apps like "Plants v. Zombies" are static and drop off the top lists quickly after a quick burst of popularity.

[dorianj]

Angry Birds is one of the most popular applications for the iOS platform ever. It has sales in the millions, and this model isn't comprable for indie software that doesn't have that big of a potential market.

Rovio also just released Angry Birds in Space, which is a separate app, meaning they'll get new income from it. But because it's a $0.99, giving existing customers a discount isn't important.

[wil_shipley]

A game is a different animal. If you add some new levels to a game people have finished, they’ll dive back in. That’s news.

If you’re making a productivity app, and you dribble out features, the press is going to ignore you. Can you imagine anyone running a story like, “Delicious Library 2.8 is out, and it includes a pretty new way to look at tables”? It’s just not going to happen, unless your name is Apple.

The press hit we get on a major release is part of what gives us the important spike in sales. It creates “buzz.” There’s a reason why even Apple doesn’t, like, just release iOS 5 feature-by-feature – they want to spring the whole thing on the world, so they get a ton of attention.