Can you make money with widgets?

Has anyone seen any articles or information about making money on Dashboard widgets?

I see some on the Apple site are listed as shareware.

What do you guys think, is there a market for shareware widget games?

Widget games could be just as robust as a GameBoy Advance game, even better with Unity. Isn't a widget worth as much as a 99cent download from iTunes?

 

IMHO ... yes. I think a well done, quality widget game could be shareware. Why not?

 

Can anyone recommend software installers that will help in the distribution of shareware?

Or describe a model of how to distribute a Unity game, or widget with a product registration key?

Edit- Looks like InstallShield is one that many people use. Are there others?

 

great minds think alike! i just bought a domain for the purpose of making $1.99 - $4.99 downloadable widget games. i'm not worrying about product keys at the moment. thinking just doing the buy and dl model - basically like cell phone games. eventually get foobared by piracy but in the meantime... 20 games x 7000 dls x $1.99 =

i'm a ways out from getting it all together but anyone interested in providing content...

petem AT oculardgi DOT com

<-- it's pete!

 

Pete send me an email and I'll register you an acount then you can log in and change the password and have it as your verry own. Just email me what user name you want. jeff

guategeek AT vinyastudios DOT org

 

Macs programs don't use and shouldn't use installers unless they are absolutely absolutely necessary. For a Widget, people would expect just a widget file compressed in a folder along with a readme or a pdf or a webloc or something. For games, dmg is arguably the prefered method of distribution. Otherwise just a compressed folder.

Don't bother with InstallShield type programs, you don't need it and the vast majority of Mac users don't like them. Drag and drop = Mac.

As for registration systems and Unity... I am not aware of a "Unity like" solution right now, but it should be possible to get something like eSellerate integrated with Unity when the sample Unity plugin gets released. Or I'd assume you could do your own with a little scripting and using some Mono stuff.

Cheers,
-Jon

 

thanks outcast... but david fixed me!

 

If most Mac stuff is drag and drop how do you counteract piracy? Of course you can't stop it. What solutions do Mac developers use now? It would suck to work really hard on something only to have people just give it away, especially a game.

Also, registration will help keep track of how many installations you have out there.

FYI- I'm talking piracy not free software. In addition to the other companies I worked for, I worked for Red Hat for a while as Senior Creative Strategist(which means I did interface design).

 

Oh, drag and drop install is not the same as free software.

People generally put the registration system inside the application. Check out Gooball, for example. (Or about any Mac shareware out there)

What did you have in mind? I'd suggest just looking around and seeing what the market is doing. This is a successful company which utilizes a friendly Mac like drag-and-drop install: http://www.omnigroup.com/

-Jon