Microsoft drops Windows Dev Center fee -- expect a crap app avalanche
Free's good, right? Who doesn’t like something gratis? Microsoft has -- sort of -- cottoned onto this idea and dropped the annual fee associated with the Windows Dev Center. The 'sort of' caveat remains because signing up for a Dev Center account is not completely free; there's still a registration fee of $19 to pay, but this is for a lifetime account -- no more annual charges. Announcing the move on the Windows blog, Todd Brix explains that "each of our 600,000+ registered developers will no longer need to pay any additional fees to maintain their account. It’s also a very good time for developers new to the platform to get a Dev Center account and start submitting apps".
Having paid the fee, developers are then free to submit apps to both the Windows Phone Store and the Windows Store. But this is not the only change that's coming to the Dev Center. In what is becoming something of a trend, Microsoft clearly pinned back its ears and made it easier to promote apps and provide offers to users. Improvements to in-app advertising means that campaigns can be more easily run on a global scale and pay outs are made faster.
There are now there different packages available -- Explorer, Expert, and Master -- and developers move through these levels as their apps gain more downloads, earn better ratings, and so on. Each level comes with its own set of benefits, from access to help from experts up to early access to SDKs.
It is, however, the dropping of annual fees that is the big news here. It's no secret that Microsoft has something of an issue when it comes to apps for Windows and Windows Phone. Both in terms of quantity and quality, apps in the respective stores have been found wanting. The dearth of modern and mobile apps is a serious problem, and it's something that Microsoft is obviously keen to address. Cutting the fees associated with developing apps for its operating systems is just the latest carrot Microsoft has to dangle in front of would be developers.
It's likely to lead to a surge in developer numbers, and probably a similar jump in apps, but there is a very real danger that it will be a case of quantity over quality. If anyone can start, and continue, to pump out apps for very little money, the chances are that they will. You know the amount of rubbish that appears in the App Store and Google Play? Expect to see an even bigger avalanche of crap apps sprouting in the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store -- even more than there currently are -- and it's going to further dilute the limited number of decent apps out there.
It's great that Microsoft is trying to lower costs and make app development more accessible, but in making things cheaper, the art of app development is also being cheapened. Of course, there will be some great apps that emerge as a result of this latest move -- but there's going to be much, much more absolute rubbish.
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