It doesn't, App Store is all about impulse purchases. Anything remotely casual should be .99c or free, use ingame purchases to capture extra value. If the game plays half decent and is shiny(has non-amateur art), it should have a pop up sometime ingame reminding players to review and it will have no problem getting a 4-5 star rating. All of which doesn't actually matter if you get right because you still need a hook or angles that gets people playing YOUR game instead of the 1000s of other similairly polished and entertaining games(many of which are going to be better known, by virtue of branding/bigger marketing budget/connections/whatever)

>It doesn't, App Store is all about impulse purchases.

Lots of quality apps with normal prices have proven otherwise. So anybody should take your advice with a sack of salt.

It is what it is. I've had an app in the top 100 paid for the past couple years and that's how I interpret the market. The vast majority of money spent on the App Store is impulse buys, not researched decisions.

As a game developer what you describe is painful. Your description should serve as a warning to anyone trying to get into mobile games.

If you race to the bottom, you will sell your soul to do so.

I disagree with the cheap / free and then 'capture extra value' model, purely because I personally hate games that do that. That's not to say that it doesn't make good business sense, just that I wouldn't enjoy making those kinds of games. If it was my livelihood perhaps I'd feel differently, but I'm very happy being in a situation where I can make exactly what I want, for the market I want! (full disclosure: I'm the guy that wrote the blog post).

What you've said regarding pricing & the freemium model is entirely correct. But this race-to-the-bottom that everyone has been forced into annoys me to no end.

Personally I'd much rather pay $5 or even $10 for a good game if it's going to give me a few hours of entertainment.

Unfortunately there's so much crap on the app store that it's a big risk paying that much for something unless you know (based on reviews/recommendations etc) that it's good.

Another positive thing about pricing it above the .99 min is that if you do, you can't have sales or reduce the price of your game. Starting at 1.99 gives you some freedom to bend your price a bit.