How I learned to stop worrying and love Ldraw. (Subtitle: questions for programmers)

[Ken Drew]

I would like to point out that one reason I never ported LDView to iOS was because it would cost me $100 per year to do so, and I didn't feel that any possible revenue from the app, no matter what I charged, would ever recoup that $100 per year. (Another big reason was that I was already not spending enough time on LDView.)

At $0.99 (the lowest price a non-free iOS app can have), I would need 141 new customers per year just to break even, and given the number of downloads of the freely avaiable LDView for Windows/Mac/Linux that I have, I just didn't see that happening. And I believe that charging more would decrease the number of customers enough the lower to total revenue.

Now that BrickPad is available, and quite nice, I see even less point in an LDView for iOS release. Of course, Ken's sales figures are private, but I would be very surprised if he's making much profit.

While I won't go into specific numbers, I have easily recouped my development membership. Revenue also pays for servers and hosting. A monthly donation to ldraw.org is also planned (awaiting PayPal) which will be an undisclosed percentage of my monthly revenue. What is and will be left over is profit. Some of this profit goes to help by testing devices, which if not done in my experienced opinion, is a mistake if you are making an iOS app.

Can I quit my job? HELL no. Does it fund a portion of a LEGO hobby. Yes. Do I make a profit? Yes. Does is suck an untold amount of time away from LEGO (and family)? Yes. Would I do it again? Maybe...

And realistically, this may all change with Paul's introduction of another LDraw viewer/modeler in the App Store. It seems that Renaud's brickView didn't survive. I'm not sure of the details but it is no longer in the App Store (at least in the US store).