I Am Rich : In Memoriam
Turns out by the wonder of some people knowing things, we can finally find out how many people actually bought ‘I Am Rich‘ from the iTunes App Store.
8.
8 people spent $999.99 on an app which performed no function other than reassuring them of their fantastic wealth. Six Americans, followed by a German and a French guy. That is not counting the two counts of 1-click fools who “bought it by accident” and were refunded their money by Apple.
That adds up to around $5,600 for developer Armin Heinrich and over two grand for Apple, as they split profits 70/30. Sounds steep, but iTunes is arguably the sexiest and most popular online purchasing network around, and it is a far better deal than a lot of game publishers give!
Now that it has been removed from the App Store, unfortunately even if you had the money to waste you can’t. Never fear, see the vid below for what you’re not missing out on. This copy of I Am Rich was acquired by more nefarious means, but still illustrates the whole pointless exercise.
Spot the spelling mistake! We’d want a refund from that kind of sloppiness alone.
Armin doesn’t see the problem in an LA Times interview, arguing that it was a valid and useful product on the Store. “I’ve got e-mails from customers telling me that they really love the app,” adding that they had “no trouble spending the money,” he said.
Fair enough. Aren’t many other products insanely inflated purely to take advantage of the whims of the wealthy? Why not software?
With Apple only to happy to proclaim over 60 million downloads and $30 million in revenue from the App Store in the first month, someone is making serious money of these things. I Am Rich was famous enough to even get a mention from Jobs during this announcement, saying its removal was the result of a “judgement call” on their part.
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