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First-Day Mac App Store Sales Results: 'Chopper 2' Grosses Nearly $30,000

Friday January 7, 2011 8:27 am PST by Eric Slivka
Beyond Apple's announcement this morning revealing total downloads of over one million on the Mac App Store's first day of business, we've been curious about the performance of individual applications debuting with the store's launch and have followed up with a couple of developers to get a sense of how things are going.


At the high end of the scale, we spoke with David Frampton of Majic Jungle Software, the developer responsible for Chopper 2, which currently ranks #2 on the "Top Paid" chart behind Angry Birds. Chopper 2 is currently priced at $0.99, 80% off of its planned stable pricing, in order to make a splash with the Mac App Store's debut.

Riding the momentum of discounted pricing and an established fan base from the original Chopper for Mac and successful Chopper and Chopper 2 games for iOS, Frampton tells us that Chopper 2 for Mac saw nearly 30,000 copies purchased through the Mac App Store yesterday. Accounting for Apple's 30% cut of Mac App Store revenue means that Majic Jungle Software brought in a little over $20,000 yesterday.

Chopper 2's performance is obviously not the norm for most developers, however, so we took a look at a few apps from other developers lower down on the charts, as documented in a thread in the Unity forums. Out of approximately 220 paid games currently available on the Mac App Store, here are some first day sales units and revenues, as well as ranks on Apple's "Top Grossing" list for games:

- 4x4 Offroad Racing ($3.99): 93 units sold for a total of $371, ranked #76
- Bubble Bang ($2.99): 17 units sold for a total of $51, ranked #150
- Light Quest ($9.99): 3 units sold for a total of $30, ranked #173
- Bubblez ($2.99): 7 units sold for a total of $21, unranked (not in top 180)

As we noted yesterday, we've been curious about whether the Mac App Store will experience a similar "race to the bottom" in pricing as seen on the iOS App Store. And in the store's second day of business, we're already seeing developers cut prices on some of these low-performing applications in an attempt to stimulate sales, as Chimp Studios reports that it has slashed the price of Light Quest from $9.99 to $4.99 in hopes of generating interest as the market begins to take shape.

In considering the performance of the Mac App Store, it is important to keep in mind that Apple maintains a Mac OS X installed base of about 50 million, with not all machines running Mac OS Snow Leopard and even many Snow Leopard users undoubtedly yet to install the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update required for Mac App Store compatibility. In contrast, Apple's iOS App Store is well-entrenched with a two-and-a-half year history and over 125 million devices sold.

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