Update:
I think maybe I gave the wrong impression with this post originally. So let me clarify. 
I am happy, myself with Illumination’s pricing. And there are many, many people using Illumination that are also happy with it. So this isn’t about earning more revenue.
This is purely about making sure that Illumination is available to as wide of an audience as possible (while still funding active development). I firmly believe this is an important piece of software, and very much want people to be able to experience it.
Based on what I’ve received so far (and thank you to the swarm of people instant messaging and emailing me right now with your thoughts), we’ve got a few ideas on how to better serve educational institutions and the like.
To sum up:
The price is, absolutely, remaining the same. $49.95. And that price will give you a free upgrade to version 2.0 (and potentially quite far beyond — but our roadmap is currently focused on 2.0 right now).
Thanks everyone for the feedback!
And, of course, you can buy Illumination from the Radical Breeze Online Store.
June 3rd, 2010 - 10:09 pm
To be honest, I think that $50 is fine for that piece of software. For me to buy it in the UK its £33. Lowering it to $25 or less would just make it seem like its not worth having, I suggest having it at $40, and leaving it there, that way, its not too cheap, but it doesn’t look too expensive for the software that it is.
Also, having someone like Bryan supporting and making the software, I’d pay upward of £100 for the software, because I know he’d reply to issues, and he makes good stuff!
June 3rd, 2010 - 10:13 pm
For regular development, I’d say the regular price is fine.
For educational purposes, I’d go with $19.95 or $29.95.
For non-commercial open source development, I’d say go with free, similar to how REAL Studio and Microsoft do it.
And “Set your own price” offers are great PR boosters. Perhaps with release of 2.0 you could do something like that.
But, that’s my opinion.
June 3rd, 2010 - 10:15 pm
I think the price should reflect functionality. Although the tool is super cool, it seems like it has a ways to go to with new versions released almost daily. On the store page, it appears that the $50 only includes the current version. I would be more likely to pay a higher price earlier on if I knew I’d be able to use future upgrades. Or give early buyers lifetime to fund the project until its at the $50 value level as a must have dev tool.
June 3rd, 2010 - 10:23 pm
I think for non-commercial, hobbyist, experimenters etc. the price should be $20-$25. My reasoning is that this is a completely new product, and a different “kind” of software development product. You need to get many people using this and talking about it with their friends. Then as the user base grows, you can slowly increase the price. If the product does well, I would expect it to cost $79-$99 in three to five years. Good luck Bryan!
June 3rd, 2010 - 10:23 pm
Hey Bryan. I wouldn’t go with ‘set your own price’, not yet anyway, first you need to find a way to get yourself some sort of media coverage (outside of your shows at JB), than it would work.
First, let me prefix this by saying that I have not bought Illumination. This isn’t because I think the price was too high, but because I have no need for it. (call me old school, but I like typing in my programs.
, but mainly because I need a few lower level or OOP features which illumination has yet to offer).
Okay, with this disclaimer out of the way, here is how I would go about marketing it (note that I’m not an economics major). The demo/full version is a good idea. But your biggest problem is your website design. I go to your website, and you make it really easy to download the demos. In fact, too easy, to the point where I begin to think they’re the full version, and it’s not until I get into the fine print that I realize that their not. (Well, okay, I knew that from this blog, but if I didn’t read it, I wouldn’t know). Next, when I went looking around to see where I could buy the full version, they seemed too obfuscated to me. (As in, the design of your website makes it really hard to see the store button, because the demo version (which should say demo), pops out much more).
Another idea is to try to take the Trolltech model. Duel licence your product. Have one licence that lets you do anything with the product, and charge a fair amount for it ($100-$500 per licence (obviously it would need to get a bit better before you get charge in the $500 range), and than have an open version, which is free, but you have to release your ‘source code’ (I have no idea how that would work for Illumination though
, project files? ) for any project you create. While the FSF, and several other hard core ‘free software guys’ might have a tissy fit, most of the rest of the world think very highly of it (again, assuming you managed to get some sort of media coverage), infact, many ‘free software guys’, would also like that you are going to a more open direction.
Good luck with your project.
June 3rd, 2010 - 10:37 pm
I purchased the software – under $100 is great value. A programmer needs an income.
June 3rd, 2010 - 10:40 pm
Right now, it can’t really do anything really powerful (unless you mix in some shell scripts, but that defeats the point of being easy to learn). As such, I wouldn’t charge a lot for it ($5~$15) until it is more featureful (but don’t charge for upgrades, otherwise people might complain).
Other people might still complain, saying they’d have a better deal if they bought it earlier, but that’s their problem. My point is that, right now, the price too high for the functionality the software has to offer -> customers are disappointed.
June 3rd, 2010 - 10:45 pm
the set your own price thing worked great for the indi game developers. i dont know if your customers are going to be as generous/fair but that seems like the coolest way to go.