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macheist.com

4 pointsShooter4 comments

MacHeist groups a bunch of small Mac software publishers together, they each put one application into a discounted bundle, and then they give 25% of all sales to charity. You get to choose which of 10 charities you support (or you can split the money evenly between them.) A few of the apps are "locked" out of the bundle until sales quotas are met.

The publishers get extra exposure and incremental sales, the charities get a sizable donation, and the customers get a deal (assuming, of course, that they were going to purchase any of the software titles at full price.) It's a neat marketing scheme, especially when you factor in the "Locked" software aspect which promote a slight viral effect. I bought the bundle mainly for a new copy of Snapz Pro X, which is still locked...which is approximately 5% of the reason I'm here pimping MacHeist (I said it was viral, dammit!)

I doubt this is completely new to most people, but it may serve as a reminder to some. It may have even been posted here already...? I personally missed out on last year's bundle because I kept putting it off and then forgot about it until the promo was over. I thought I might help others avoid the same fate this year. (I bought my bundle early this year, just in case.)

The developers are probably not getting much money, if last year is any guide.

http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/iniquities_of_the_selfish

I appreciate the link wmf...I read Gruber's blog, but I missed that post.

I agree with John's premise that "Just because someone is satisfied with a bad deal doesn't mean it isn't a bad deal." I'm not, however, going to get morally outraged over another person's business decision to participate in a transaction just because a third-party doesn't think the remuneration is equitable. The indie developers that are participating obviously liked the deal they were offered well enough, right? Otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to participate. I think griping about a deal that you agreed to after the fact is unprofessional. If you were a schmuck and agreed to a bad deal, you just have to suck it up and learn from it.

I can think of one great reason I would personally consider participating in this "inequitable" arrangement if I were a Mac shareware developer: any future revenue from upgrades are not shared with MacHeist. I don't see where Gruber takes that into consideration. I had never heard of a few of these applications until MacHeist promoted them, yet I'm likely to upgrade any of the apps I actually like as they release new versions. MacHeist is a form of advertising, and all advertising is somewhat of a calculated risk...this promotion will probably pay off for some of the developers and be a waste of time for others. Either way, it's not my job to count my neighbor's coins for them.

Yeah, I'm not outraged over it either. I suspect that MacHeist and the participating developers never anticipated selling as many copies as they did, so they didn't consider that MacHeist might walk away with most of the money. Since this is the second year, developers are probably a little smarter in their negotiations. I think it's worth discussing since "how to not get ripped off while starting your business" is a popular topic here on YC.

A few developers have reported that they got virtually no upgrade sales after MacHeist/MacZot: http://reinventedsoftware.com/blog/2007/12/17/so-thats-why-i...

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