Raven,

It all starts with the fact that iShoot is pretty darn fun. Many developers considering the Lite vs. non-Lite issue are trying to shore up app(s) that are not as fun/compelling.

Now, the benefit for iShoot is that their compelling Lite app will drive incremental downloads of the non-Lite version which creates two sources of cash flow.

Increasingly, I believe this approach will help moderate apps generate an acceptable App Store ROI by leveraging a common code base to build several to many apps.

I echo your thoughts on iFart. Glad to see it!

Sorry, but this doesn't make sense. iShoot (paid) was #1 before iShoot Lite was even on the radar. iShoot helped iShoot Lite me thinks.

Brian - I wish I had positioning data on when exactly iShoot entered the Top 5 (first non-scrollable screen) vs. when iShoot Lite did the same. I would be able to look at how each app impacted the other. If you're right in saying that iShoot was a top paid app before iShoot Lite showed up on the Free list, then this has an entirely different end result. That said, my kids tried the Lite version, then upgraded. I suspect this will be common.

Raven: Sorry to break it to you but it has been proven many times that free version does not bring in conversion > 1%. This is pretty well observed within the developer community :)

Besides, you can't have it both ways. Most would agree (and argue) that piracy should be ignored because practically every one who pirated your software was not a buyer to begin with and hence should not be considered a lost sale. Applying the same logic, most users who downloaded the free version have no intention to pay for it no matter how good the game is. While the "buyers" (those who have a tendency to pay for what they feel is worth it) will buy it regardless of a free version.

Gary, is there any data to back that up?

One of the things I hear is the desire for demo versions for non-trivial apps. "Lite" apps are a good way to address that desire within the constraints of the App Store market. Sure a very small percentage of "customers" of a free app may actually be considering purchasing. But it might be a significant number compared to the paid market.

Part of the problem some "lite" apps face is that they are novelty apps to start with. Reducing the number of options of a novelty may in many cases actually improve the product.

It seems for the "lite" apps strategy to work you have to design for a "lite" version and a paid "upsell" version. Respect your customers and deliver something of value with the "lite" version not just a crippled version of the paid version, and make it clear that the "upsell" version will deliver value.

Dan, Brian, Gary: yeah, yeah, we all know the *history*. Raven alleges a new dynamic this time (and my suspicion is, Dan named it: you have to have an app that delivers two actual, honest value levels, which is apparently two more than 90% can find). Whether that's happening in this particular case is a question that ought to be answerable from direct observation of the facts, totally aside from past experience or theory.

Raven: we *so* need external version control on the App Store, as http://change.wikia.com/ has done for President-Elect Obama's "change.gov" site. Then, we'd _know_ whether iShoot or iShoot Lite was in the top-10 first! How 'bout championing that?

Well, I can tell you this: my most successful game to date had been in the App Store for a month when we released a lite edition, and sales of the full version got an immediate, noticeable bump and stayed at the slightly higher level thereafter. The timing and duration of the increase indicates that it wasn't a coincidence, so my personal evidence tells me that lite versions can work at least sometimes. I'm talking about a small number of sales per day, and I don't have detailed stats with me, but the % increase was in the double digits.

Here are the facts. iShoot was released on Oct. 19th, and got mediocre sales, falling out of the Top 100 on its second day and staying out. iShoot Lite was released Jan 3rd and reached #1 on Jan 10th, followed by iShoot reaching #1 on Jan 11th.

iShoot Lite took my sales from 100 copies a day to 16,000 a day. I did no other marketing or updates that would have impacted sales beyond releasing the Lite version, so we have a clear-cut case of a Lite app moving a paid app from "not even on the charts" to #1.

Also: Gary, I'd love to know how it's been "proven" that free apps don't bring conversions of greater than 1%.

The iShoot Lite to iShoot conversion rate is 8%.

I think the conversation needs to steer toward which apps, or specifically which game types, would benefit from a lite version. In the case of iShoot there were obviously certain characteristics to the game that made the user want to upgrade to the full version (more complete weapon sets, tank movement).

Whether Ethan thought too much about this specific point beforehand I would like to know, but clearly it was the right combination of included and excluded features. I would argue that Ethan could have chosen a different mix of lite settings that would have made his conversions much lower. Similarly, if you can extract the main value of a game from the lite version (Labyrinth Lite comes to mind) then why would conversions rates be anything but close to 0?