The 1990's were the heyday of Christian software development. But other than our 15 or so new titles since 2002, and a couple of other nice titles from other developers, the Christian software market has failed to grow. In fact, most of the developers from the late 90's and early 2000's have moved on.
Why?
Economics ...Some producers tried to develop Christian titles like they developed secular titles ...with big budgets and teams of developers. However, the sales of their product never allowed them to keep such a business model going.
Bad decisions ...at one point we kept count of all the Noah software that had come out. We were up to 16! (Thankfully, most are gone and forgotten). Some poor apples spoiled the barrel too. Worse, some of the big $$ projects aimed at teen boys and young adult males --trying to compete against $50 million dollar Halo and Gears of War titles. Whereas, most ignored the preschool and early reader market.
Poor distribution channels. ...Bookstores don't want software that's two years old. And they don't know how to sell software from a shelf. ONline stores often only tell you a little bit about the software.
"Failure to Embrace" ...the Church talks about negatives in the culture, such as violent games, but does little to support the non-violent Christian game industry.
What's needed?
We need the denominations and their publishing arms to embrace this medium. They have a built in need to educate their young people, a sales and marketing apparatus, and the "imprimatur" of their name behind the product (i.e. if it comes from the Methodist Publishing House, 14 million Methodists will trust it). EXAMPLE: Every denomination has a need to teach Church history to young people, especially with those annual Confirmation programs. Why is there no interactive Church history program or online interactive presentation?
Every denomination sells Bible books to children. Why then aren't they ALSO backing an interactive Bible for children?
Part of the answer or 'reason' to all this is the Church is historically behind the times and underfunded for new initiatives. And as the rate of change speeds up in society, this makes the Church seem increasingly irrelevant and out of step with the needs of its members. Yet small developers ARE creating such resources and the internet is helping them distribute on their own (http://www.sundaysoftware.com/ is one such example!). The denom's should be partnering in this.
<>< Neil
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