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Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

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Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#121

Post by zyxley »

icebraining wrote: post #82
hesdeadjim wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the market doesn't support selling a premium game at prices that allow anyone other than a small studio to keep the lights on. We've been in the game since the beginning so I've seen the transition from selling a game at $4.99, then $2.99, then $0.99, and finally free with IAP. Despite being very successful we didn't enjoy that trend, but instead just adapted to it. It's purely a response to the mobile…

What about trial versions? Are they supported by the app stores already? Seems like they'd solve the psychological problem.

This is basically what a number of episodic games do - for example, the Ace Attorney iOS ports and the iOS versions of the assorted Telltale Games series. You can download the app for free and access the first 1/5th or so of the game, and an in-app purchase unlocks the rest of the content.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#122

Post by tomjen3 »

0x0 wrote: post #46

I tried Angry Birds 2 and was super impressed by the production quality and butter smooth graphics. Too bad the entire gameplay is a 100% miss: You have to wait or pay to retry levels after a while. This goes completely against everything that defines angry birds gameplay, which for me is to instantly re-start the level if I'm not satisfied with the first bird shoot. Absolutely ruins it. I'd much rather pay $X upfron…

I too would prefer that, but games like that just don't sell. Selling mobile games are hard enough in the first place (unless you can get into the top 10) because you are forced to sell at 0.99, which barely covers your expenses, but you also have to fight all the free games out there (only so much attention is available).

Essentially this is the only way to have a shot at making money in the mobile games market.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#123

Post by tomjen3 »

0x0 wrote: post #88
icebraining wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about trial versions? Are they supported by the app stores already? Seems like they'd solve the psychological problem.

In the early days of the App Store, people solved this problem by publishing two apps, a free "lite" edition and a for-pay "full" edition. Not sure why this isn't used more. Maybe because it's a hassle to migrate data (game progress, saves, etc) between apps, but I thought at least in modern iOS versions, multiple apps can share a common bundle ID prefix.

That was a hack to work around not having IAP.

The problem with strategy is that your whales only pay once, even if they would be happy by paying thousands of times.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#124

Post by nacs »

nsxwolf wrote: post #27
tfandango wrote: post #6

I'm not surprised, they have been cranking out the same game over and over again, re-branded and/or adding slightly different abilities without changing the basic game. After playing the Star Wars version for a little while I deleted it because the concept (while initially fun and interesting) had gotten old. They did release something called "Bad Piggies" too which I thought was a fun different game but along the sa…

Even so, Angry Birds 2 has a level of polish that makes the original look like some indie side project. If there's such thing as a AAA casual game, this is it. Which really shows how sad this business is -- a true sequel to a smash hit that goes way beyond the original sells so poorly that it leads to mass layoffs.

> Angry Birds 2 has a level of polish that makes the original look like some indie side project.

The game's quality isn't the problem. It's the forced in-app purchases (or wait massive amounts of time) they made with this new version that makes it horrible.

They went overkill on the IAP and the reviews reflect that.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#125

Post by TrevorJ »

mangeletti wrote: post #119
hesdeadjim wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the market doesn't support selling a premium game at prices that allow anyone other than a small studio to keep the lights on. We've been in the game since the beginning so I've seen the transition from selling a game at $4.99, then $2.99, then $0.99, and finally free with IAP. Despite being very successful we didn't enjoy that trend, but instead just adapted to it. It's purely a response to the mobile…

In my opinion, this whole paradigm shift is partly the result of a lack of trust in customer reviews. If customer reviews could be trusted to be authentic, people could look and see that the game is rated five stars and make their decision based on t trusted to be authentic, a lot of people would make their decision based on a game's rating. Instead, app developers have gamed the system by paying for reviews (e.g., t…

It also has to do with how people value their time. On the PC, I'm willing to do some research before I plop down 60 bucks on a game. On mobile it would be the same amount of work for me to research, but I'm only looking at spending 2-4 dollars. In that scenario just going with the free option and deleting it if I don't like it makes more sense.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#126

Post by cwyers »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #118
ma2rten wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a number of friends who play candy crush and before that I had number of friends who play farmville. If you ask them they will say they having fun playing those games.

> I have a number of friends who play candy crush and before that I had number of friends who play farmville. If you ask them they will say they having fun playing those games. I know several people who smoke. If you ask them, they will say that they enjoy cigars and cigarettes.

I mean, they probably do? Cigarettes and cigars contain nicotine, which is very pleasurable to consume. Now, yes, it also contains a ton of carcinogens and tar, but those don't actually make cigarettes not enjoyable, just not healthy.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#127

Post by JoshTriplett »

cwyers wrote: post #126
JoshTriplett wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a number of friends who play candy crush and before that I had number of friends who play farmville. If you ask them they will say they having fun playing those games. I know several people who smoke. If you ask them, they will say that they enjoy cigars and cigarettes.

I mean, they probably do? Cigarettes and cigars contain nicotine, which is very pleasurable to consume. Now, yes, it also contains a ton of carcinogens and tar, but those don't actually make cigarettes not enjoyable, just not healthy.

That was the joke/analogy, yes.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#128

Post by sosborn »

nosuchthing wrote: post #103
sosborn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it greedy to want to keep the lights on?

It's greedy to design systems that manipulate children into becoming psychologically addicted to fruitless casino games.

That's on the parents.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#129

Post by r618 »

sosborn wrote: post #128
nosuchthing wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's greedy to design systems that manipulate children into becoming psychologically addicted to fruitless casino games.

That's on the parents.

so you're deliberately feeding the parents fruitless casino games that manipulate children into becoming psychologically addicted, just to keep them occupied selecting from that pile of trash what is acceptable and what is not, right ?

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#130

Post by km3k »

logfromblammo wrote: post #86
ceejayoz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my initial response to The LEGO Movie, which wound up being one of the best movies of the year. It'll all depend on the team behind it.

When I saw that The LEGO Movie had not even been nominated for the Academy Award for best animated picture, I immediately stopped the recording of the awards show, and deleted it from my DVR. The decision to buy the DVD was absolutely effortless. With respect to the team behind the Angry Birds movie, they're using Sony Pictures. On the one hand, they have a couple Aardman releases and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatball…

The Smurfs was a bad movie, but did well with young children, which is exactly who a lot of the Angry Birds memorabilia targets.
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