I'm finishing up a program called Corona Project Manager that I'm finding really helpful in working with Corona. Basically it allows you to keep "generic" files in their own folders, art assets in one spot, etc., and CPM pulls them all together and launches it in the simulator at the click of a button.

You can see a 3-minute video here:

http://instantvideowebpages.com/play/cpmpreview

If you're interested in beta testing that, let me know. You can send me a note at:
http://CoronaProjectManager.com

I'm wrapping up the features for the first version, but I expect to continue adding new coolness over time, so suggestions are eagerly accepted.

Thanks.

Jay

Erk, both of the contact methods on the web site were hosed. (Yes, I tested, but...it's a long and boring story).

http://CoronaProjectManager.com

Both the Notify option and Email icon (lower right) on that site work now. If you wanted to get in on the beta testing of CPM, use one of those methods to sign up. I'll reply fairly quickly so if you don't get something back, let me know.

Thanks.

Jay

PS - Added another cool feature today and am working on another right now.

Version 0.1 of Corona Project Manager has been sent to everyone who signed up, I believe. If I missed you, let me know and I'll send you a link in the morning (Alaska time).

Thanks!

Jay

Dynamic Assets is a new feature in Corona Project Manager v0.2 -- it allows you to easily swap in and out graphics, audio, and even code.

Here's a video, very short at a minute and a half, that shows how it works:

http://instantvideowebpages.com/play/?m=469

Lots of other features have been added over the last 48 hours and I still have a page or two of things I want to add, so while it rocks right now, it will rock even more as time goes by. ;)

Jay

Add a debug window (for output) and a reset button and im all for it! :)

Ahh I see, you working on basically the same app like me. How much will it be?

> Add a debug window (for output) and a reset button and im all for it!

Right now there's a view into the terminal output, but not specifically for the debugger -- which I've never used. :) I'll look into that.

What do you mean by a "reset button?"

> Ahh I see, you working on basically the same app like me. How much will it be?

Um, well, how much will *yours* be, Mike? ;)

Actually, I don't know about price yet -- I'm still throwing ideas around. I was thinking somewhere around $50,000 because then I'd only have to sell 1 copy a year to be happy, but I'm not sure if that's a viable business model.

Jay

Couple cool new features in the latest beta of Corona™ Project Manager (probably the last beta before release) -- you can see a very quick video of them here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlF9zfwvJaA

Thanks!

Jay

This looks great. Will it be free?

Not free, but pretty cheap. I'm narrowing in on a price somewhere between $50 and $75 for version 1. After that, depending on what happens, it may (probably will) increase.

But, anyone who buys during the first 30 days of launch will get a free upgrade to all minor versions as well as the next major version.

Jay

(Edit: Updated proposed pricing.)

@Whye

With TexturePacker and Zwoptex at 15-20$, Particles Candy at 40$ and invaluable helper packages for other engines (Unity3d, Cocos2d) around 5-25$ (with most of them at 5-10), IMHO a price over 20$ will be prooved a marketing mistake.

Ideally you would want >50% of Corona users to find this purchase a deal and buy the product. Having just 5% of them paying for 3x doesn't make sense money-wise.

Just my 2c...

Magenda,

I doubt there's any 3rd-party language add-on that gets 50% penetration, but I understand what you're saying. And if a lower price meant more sales, you might be right, but that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes a higher price will increase sales, partly because people really feel that they "get what they pay for."

Last month I paid $150 for a text control -- just a single control. Why? Because it gives me capabilities that I'd probably have to spend a couple weeks (or more) developing myself. It was money well-spent.

I make my living writing tools. The more features I add and the more work I put into a product, the more people will find it worth the money. If I charge $15 that means I have to sell 153 copies every month just to hit the poverty level in income. I have seen a lot of *good* tools that don't sell 153 copies in a year, let alone every month.

Plus, I'm a one-man shop. And no matter how well programmed something is, there will be customer service issues. Look at two scenarios:

Program sells 200 copies at $45 each, total of $9,000

Program sells 600 copies at $15 each, total of $9,000

Same amount of money, but unless you want to spend all your time handling customer service issues and NOT adding new features to the product, you'd better price it at $45. Or, hire someone to handle customer service, but then you spend time managing and not coding.

The programmer in me wants to price it so freaking low that everyone will want to use it.

The guy who pays the bills in me realizes there's a "sweet spot" where people find the value in the product AND it makes a reasonable return on investment.

I know this is a longer answer than you probably care about -- and you may be right, I may price the product incorrectly. But I think most people who use CPM will see the value and realize it's worth *more* to them than they paid.

Thanks for your 2c!

Jay

Edit:
PS - Particle Candy is 40€ which is just over $56 USD. So there's at least one example of a > $50 Corona tool. ;)

@Jay

I care about everything related to Corona, including your full answer :)
Will come back with feature-suggestions that could justify a higher price, for me.

Wish you the best with this and everything else you are working on!

Hi Jay,

I think the price is just right (50USD). These tools will speedup the dev process for someone and so will safe them money (time) at the end. I will charge similar. Look at how mcuh BBEdit is or TextMate. 69 USD at least.

Which dev environment do you use? XCode? I will go cross platform with my app so I can't use XCode for it.

Cheers
Michael

Jay,
Very nice work on the app. I really like your pricing argument that takes customer service into consideration. I have a tendency to charge lower prices thinking "the more sales the better", and I've never thought about how the higher sales can lead to more customer service problems - or even worse - NOT being able to provide great customer service. Take Ebay, for example, they have high prices AND terrible customer service - and they are making BILLIONS.

I am starting to agree with you justification for the higher price, and finding that "sweet spot" is key.

Another suggestion - you should put this in the Mac App Store. You may not get more sales, but it would make it super easy to manage and provide updates.

Dave

Dave,

Thanks for the comments. I'm looking at getting CPM into the Mac App Store, although since it's of interest only to Corona developers I'm not sure what kind of extra sales I'll see, but I think it's worth the effort. Plus, if it helps more people become aware of Corona SDK, we all win. :)

I've been writing and selling software for a while now and one thing that frustrates me is having a product take off to the point that doing "paperwork" type things takes time from development -- and yet sales aren't *quite* to the point where you can afford to hire someone or outsource the customer service.

You can get to "making money" pretty easily. But then there's a BIIIIIIG gap between that and paying cash for your house and cars. And getting across that gap is the hard part -- balancing customer service and development is hard to do.

But we indie developers keep going because the alternative (a job like normal people have) is way worse! :)

Jay

Thanks to the cool people at Ansca Mobile I got a Thanksgiving Day surprise -- a forum for Corona Project Manager.

http://developer.anscamobile.com/forums/corona-project-manager

I'll post updates and such over in that spot from now on. :)

Jay

Hi Whye,
Regarding the pricing I would say it’s not the problem or the question for me. Your work is great, thanks, and if the price is USD 30 or 50, it doesn’t matter for me, your price is honest (the price of a good book)!

But… your work represents a piece of what I would like to get from Corona in a more complete package. I consider your work as a piece of a SDK;
I appreciate very much Corona and the work of Ansca is great but I don’t like the idea to have a “SDK patchwork”. If I buy a car, I don’t want to buy the fourth wheel to a third party.

In another word, regarding the price: I would deal with Ansca…