Thank you Error014.

I read the results page and a few of the linked forum posts. I found it interesting the effort that Cliff Harris put into analyzing, categorizing, and summarizing the results. I hope that the results make there way to developers beyond the indie level.

For anyone that doesn't like long posts, I will apologize now. For those that don't mind a bit of a read, here are my thoughts. I have had many discussions with people on this subject (more related to music, movies, and television content). As with the deductions that Harris made, my thoughts have revolved around three points: cost; quality; accessibility.

Cost - Market the product at a cost that is suited to the consumers. I recall a magazine article I read many years ago when I was in my teen years, claiming that the majority of disposable income is in the hands of teenagers. Although that was written over three decades ago I still believe that to be true. This same group however is timid to spend too much on one thing. I remember buying record albums and feeling really bad about spending $20, especially when there were only three or four songs that I liked. This has been somewhat resolved by companies like PureTracks that allows for the purchase of individual tracks for a reasonable cost. The danger is that distributors will increase prices defeating the benefit in this form of marketing.

Quality - Too much of the entertainment industry is driven by the volume of product moved and speed to market regardless of the value of the content. In one of the management courses I attended, we examined new product marketing. The statistics presented were that 15% of consumers will buy a product because it's 'new', 50% of consumers will migrate to a product over time with sufficient advertising (whether through media or 'word-of-mouth'), 30% may eventually buy a product when it has become established, and 5% will never buy it. The pay-back for investing quality into the product is that less money is required to promote that product to the second-tier as word-of-mouth is based on satisfaction. Potentially, a high quality product will reach 65% of the available consumers. High quality product generates consumer satisfaction. This builds a reputation or branding that will influence consumer acceptance to the next product marketed of that brand.

Accessibility - The simpler you make it for people to get something, the more likely they will get it. For me, it would be a bit of an adventure to drive to an orchard to pick a basket of apples however it's a minor task to go to my local store.

Again, sorry for the long post. I get carried away sometimes.