Developer Brian Robbins from Riptide Games gave a fascinating talk today about the apparent paradox of trying to make money off of a free app on Apple's App Store. Originally the App Store had only the two choices of a free or paid release. More recently, developers have a bevy of options for bringing in revenue even on free apps, including in-app ads, in-app purchases and freemium models, or even using "lite" versions of games to promote the paid versions. Robbins walked through a general overview of the models available and filled in the blanks with a lot of actual, clear numbers from
