Tag: Donation »

PopCap Games partook in Operation Supply Drop's end of the year 8-Bit Salute fundraiser by donating a large amount of game codes and swag for the military gaming charity, reaching over $100,000. Its donation consisted of 100 codes that unlocked every game PopCap has ever made, which is well over 60, including games like Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled. All of the donations gathered for 8-Bit Salute are being sent to soldiers currently deployed in combat zones, as well as those who are recovering in military hospitals.

For more information about the charity, visit OperationSupplyDrop.org.

m-spacemedia, makers of the unexpectedly fun Asteroid 2012 3D, have unleashed another game onto an unsuspecting App Store. This time it’s a pattern-based reactionary puzzle game. Think Simon, but with cubes. It’s a lot like that. Players will have to match the sequence of flashing cubes in order to keep going, but the patterns get faster and more complex the longer they last. Anyone familiar with the concept knows just how crazy it can get.

Floozled is available on the App Store right now for free. But more importantly, 50% of the ad revenue earned from this game as well as Asteroid 2012 Free-D and Honeyrun HD Free will be donated to the James Whale Fund. The proceeds will be donated at the end of July, with the money being used to fund kidney cancer treatment and research, so there’s still plenty of time to download and contribute by tapping on an ad or two. After that, a new charity will be chosen for August through October.

"This is an ongoing push to help raise money and awareness to smaller charities helping those when they need it most." – Mark Muller

m-spacemedia has already raised close to $50 with close to three months left. Those interested can follow the fundraiser's progress or donate directly here, and details about the charity can be found here. Anyone want to see if we see if we can add a digit or two (or more) to that number?

David from AppCubby sent us a note about his latest blog post today. This entry gives the results of his pricing experiment that we wrote about last month where he set all of his apps to be $0.99 and provided the ability for people to donate if they thought they were worth more. This update doesn't look to good for that pricing model. Unfortunately he doesn't give any real sales numbers, just aggregated results, but there are still some nuggets of good info in here:

- During the 7 days of the experiment they only got $75 in donations

- Initially, volume made up for the lost revenue from the reduced prices (probably due to the increased press, he notes)

- After that started to wain, volume still stayed way up over the previous week, but revenue started to fall below the previous weeks numbers.

- There was an increase the last day or so, as is typical, people rush to buy before the end of a sale.

It's hard to call this experiment a failure when it was so short. I'm not sure enough time was given for the donation aspect to gain a foothold. But, the result for AppCubby is that they have redoubled their efforts make the best software available and sell it at a price that is fair. All of the AppCubby apps have raised back up to $9.99 and will stay there. And we wish them all the luck in the world!

"To have people say that my products are an absolute steal at $0.99 and that I SHOULD be charging more was a wake up call. As the saying goes, if no one is complaining about your price you're charging too little."

If you're interested in the circle of hell that is app store pricing, check out the blog post, it's a good read for any developer or potential developer.

[ via The Experiment - AppCubby Blog ]