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Where have all the iOS games gone?

minotaurproject.co.uk

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Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#131

Post by Steko »

personjerry wrote: post #122
onion2k wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the reality is that even if you're a semi-famous developer who has a practically guaranteed revenue and media coverage from your fans, it still isn't enough. You need to make a game that competes on quality with the studios that spend $millions on their apps. Thats not a very promising proposition to anyone considering making a game.

I thought the point of the parent comment was that the quality of his games has gone down.

Sort of. I wouldn't say the quality went down so much as what would was a great game in 1983 turned out to be meh in 2013. Also the level of polish in Txk (the "1000 x revenue" PS Vita game) vs any of the iOS releases is pretty stark.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#132

Post by xufi »

profeta wrote: post #65

history will look back on this iphone era we are living as the second dark age.

Agreed, I do feel there could've been much better games made on the phone. For example, I remember Nintendo was about to make a push to bring its old classic Gameboy Era games /Gameboy Color games to the phone to no avail

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#133

Post by Steko »

onion2k wrote: post #102
Steko wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Jeff Minter can't make the App Store work then no-one can. As a counterpoint I grew up on no small amount of Jeff Minter games, lost more hours to Tempest 2000 on the godawful Jaguar than one should admit to in polite company, and have downloaded almost all of Llamasoft's iOS games due mostly to the fawning reviews in Toucharcade and played them for not all that long because -- frankly -- they are simply not ver…

So the reality is that even if you're a semi-famous developer who has a practically guaranteed revenue and media coverage from your fans, it still isn't enough. You need to make a game that competes on quality with the studios that spend $millions on their apps. Thats not a very promising proposition to anyone considering making a game.

> So the reality is that even if you're a semi-famous developer who has a practically guaranteed revenue and media coverage from your fans, it still isn't enough. You need to make a game that competes on quality

Yes

> with the studios that spend $millions on their apps.

No, there are plenty of studios that compete on quality without spending millions.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#134

Post by colejohnson66 »

kbenson wrote: post #72
Lerc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this is the "Top Grossing 200" I wonder what percentage could be classified as abusive software. If that's the path I have to take to make money on iOS, I'll take a path on a different platform.

I agree. All my interest in the platform (mobile in general) dried up when I realized people really wanted free, and the way to monetize that path was rife with dark patterns. I don't like playing games like that, why would I want to make one?

Money and greed. It's as simple as that.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#135

Post by themartorana »

freehunter wrote: post #128
themartorana wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Milked" is seriously loaded. AAA console games cost $60 and up - do you know how hard it is to get a paying freemium user to even $10? Yes. There are people that spend thousands. They also spend thousands on $60 AAA games as well. The idea that players get "fleeced" is ridiculous. Spent $15 on Candy Crush, a game that you spent months playing? That really doesn't seem like a lot to me. Edit: I should acknowledge tha…

There's a difference between Clash of Clans and GTA V, though. There is nothing on any mobile platform that can compete in any way with any AAA game made in the last 10 years (the most advanced mobile game I see is GTA:SA, which came out in 2004 or KOTOR which came out in 2003). Hypothetically, if someone spends $60 on Candy Crush and $60 on a AAA console release, the Candy Crush developers are seeing a much more mas…

So, GTA brought in 2.5B, not all of Take-Two.

By mid-2013 Candy Crush had over 500m downloads, and in 2015 was still pulling over 340m monthly players. By comparison, GTA 5 sold about 235m units total so your apple-to-apple comparisons are not so much.

As for "playing their game," I've been in this business since before the iPhone. I didn't choose to work in an industry that raced to the bottom for pricing. Mobile gaming is fun and enormous and provides opportunities for small devs that consoles never did. That said, there is a wide range of free-to-play monetization, not all of which is pure pay-to-win. But this is the industry - you can bury your head in the sand, but you'll go out of business.

You may think jumping from one industry to another is easy, but you'd be mistaken. But you know, compare us all to King if it makes you happy. There are many people beating that drum, but they simply can't grip the economic realities of software and the mobile industry as a whole.

We work to make games people love to play. We have a lot of players. They've all told us how they prefer to pay for our games so that our families might eat. That's fine with me, and with our employees who love making games.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#136

Post by themartorana »

cageface wrote: post #118
themartorana wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Milked" is seriously loaded. AAA console games cost $60 and up - do you know how hard it is to get a paying freemium user to even $10? Yes. There are people that spend thousands. They also spend thousands on $60 AAA games as well. The idea that players get "fleeced" is ridiculous. Spent $15 on Candy Crush, a game that you spent months playing? That really doesn't seem like a lot to me. Edit: I should acknowledge tha…

I'm happy to pay $15 or even $60 for a game I really enjoy and play for more than a few hours. I'm not willing to pay to win though, which is what most of the top grossing mobile games require.

No, but the point of this thread was that there is room in the middle to make money, you don't have to be in the top 200.

We use rewarded video and advertising and IAP in free-to-play games our users play, but we have no desire to be exploitative.

The amount of room between basic free-to-play and psychological warfare on your players is enormous.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#137

Post by vonklaus »

buserror wrote: post #17

Weird, I was a die hard mac developer (since 1984), and I immediately stopped when iOS came out with the app store. Like, stopped /dead/. The reason I could be a Mac Developer was the small pond; There wasn't a LOT of work, but there was enough for good people, and it paid well. On balance I /never/ developed anything for windows, because of the 'tree vs forest' problem : Even if you are REALLY fantastically good, th…

i don't know what to make of this. so you correctly predicted that 5-10 years of lurcrative sales in a closed system didnt feel right to you because you were a big fish in a pond that woud become larger, so you stopped /dead/ and did what? again, I am not trying to be rude, just trying to figure out what provided a better opportunity cost and was more interesting for you to work on that you gave up 20-30 years in the mac ecosystem?

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#138

Post by vonklaus »

spikengineer wrote: post #79
jpeg_hero wrote: post #78

Apple needs to move the "standard price" from 0.99 one time download -> 0.99 per year Delete app to unsubscribe Remove 0.99 one time pricing $5.00 minimum one time download price

That is unaffordable to most consumers in the world. You will end up limiting urself to a market of few rich communities in rich countries.

that is not true. again, we aren't talking about a coursera course and paywalling information and vital self-learning here. We are talking about a dollar for a luxury game on a device that costs nearly $1000 and $100 a month for service. This is leaving aside that the economics of $4-5 a game would be better than a free game that is unwinnable unless you spend > $10.

I believe the parent, and if not then certainly I, am talking about games that are subsciption based and promote full releases that get upgrades and create community. not a 0.99 clone. this market is largely rich communities anyway if you use the world income scale, but we aren't using that scale, we are talking about iphone owners with discretionary income already willing to spend 1-30 a year on games...

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#139

Post by mback00 »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #134
kbenson wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. All my interest in the platform (mobile in general) dried up when I realized people really wanted free, and the way to monetize that path was rife with dark patterns. I don't like playing games like that, why would I want to make one?

Money and greed. It's as simple as that.

Poor and stupid - Simple you are. In a civil society those that provide a utility (or "fun") to others are rewarded and incentivized.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#140

Post by CydeWeys »

iofj wrote: post #126
CydeWeys wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a lifelong gamer who's entered a bit of a rut these past few years. I would love to pay to play great apps on my phone. But I don't have the slightest clue as to how to find them. The top grossing lists are all complete F2P junk, and there's nothing close to the cottage industry that's built up around PC and console gaming. Every time I try to go look up good mobile games I get hit with lots of dodgy top-10 compi…

Actually if that's what you want I'd advise you to buy a windows 10 tablet. They run old (and gog.com) games and come with decent mouse emulation and actually last 4-5 hours on battery. Taking games like Spelunky on a 400 gram tablet with you for on the train/plane is nice. Even something like Civ 4 is playable.

If I were going to get an entire dedicated system for mobile gaming, I think a PS Vita or Nintendo 3DS XL would be a better choice -- they're both way cheaper, have dedicated controls for gaming, and have large libraries of purpose-built games. But I'm just not interested in more devices, especially ones I'd have to remember to charge and bring with me. I already have a smartphone, several desktops, two laptops, a Kindle, and an Android tablet. It's enough already.
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