Where have all the iOS games gone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#161

Post by diziet » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 6:34 AM UTC

uptown wrote: post #61

diziet wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sentiment is totally right -- especially if you take other countries into account. The numbers you mentioned are pretty far off for US -- a typical rank 200 game in iPhone earns around $4000-6000 or so per day, but worldwide we can expect the top 100 app to earn around 100k / day on both platforms, and the top 200 app earns roughly half of that. This is wonderful because this kind of revenue can sustain a lot of…

Are the rough figures you cited the app purchase price, advertising revenue, in-app purchases or some combination of the three?

99% of them are in-app purchase revenues.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#162

Post by dpcan » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 6:37 AM UTC

eludwig wrote: post #3

The amazing thing to me is that at WWDC, Tim Cook (I think that's who announced it) seemed genuinely thrilled that there are over 2,000,000 apps for iOS. So sad and useless. You could hear the barely contained horror of the assembled developers. iOS has become a victim of its own success. I guess the market will eventually sort it out, but when? 2030?

I think we could send a huge message if at next year's WWDC everyone goes silent when they announce 2.5 million apps - or whatever it will be.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#163

Post by WillPostForFood » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 6:46 AM UTC

billyjobob wrote: post #84

I feel it's worth pointing out this isn't just some blog by any old indie development studio. This is a blog by Jeff Minter. The man practically invented home computer gaming. I was buying his games with my allowance 35 years ago, because they were great. And I still buy them today, because they are still great. If Jeff Minter can't make the App Store work then no-one can. (Although he probably could have done if he…

I love Jeff Minter, and have bought a bunch of his games on iOS. But I'm not sure he really embraced the limitations and controls of touchscreen devices. The games I have feel like they would have been much more fun on a large screen with a joystick.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#164

Post by diziet » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 6:59 AM UTC

jblow wrote: post #92

diziet wrote: post #13

It's often hard for indie developers without marketing budgets, but in the same vein the whole gaming market on iOS is doing tremendously well. Here's a high level snapshot of iPhone earning by country, month by month: https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/993499/16283312/2... The industry grew a lot - surely driven by the most successful titles, but also for the longer tail of developers. More of the total reve…

The problem is that games designed to "stick over many months & years and monetize the player" are generally garbage, as far as the quality of the actual game goes. Of course these things are relative or subjective and what have you, but it's pretty rare for people who have a lot of experience playing games to seek out stuff on iOS because of the great quality of games there. If you build a system that incentivizes g…

Jonathan, I would disagree about the generality of the games being generally garbage.

The parallel on the PC side of things of games that have recurring revenue sources lies in the spectrum of WoW / Dota 2 / TF2 / League of Legends to little known asian market MMOs where you buy xp boosts.

The top grossing games are played by a lot of users who play a lot. Similarly, the top titles on mobile have very repeatable revenue sources with high retention rates. I can't blame companies and businesses for investing in predictable revenue streams.

Now without a doubt there is a point of conflict between long user retention and addiction, and the drive to maximize LTV can be taken too far, but I don't think this is happening to most games. As an example, Farmville (2) is a well crafted experience in terms of mechanics, art style, pacing and progression for what it is trying to achieve. I can appreciate the work and thought that went into the game.

I can also similarly appreciate The Witness and I was happy to pay $40 for it. I appreciate the game for different reasons and different set of skills in game design and story telling and pacing of challenges. I love games all about gameplay -- heck, I spend time playing a pure maze puzzle game ( http://www.pathery.com/ ) that about 300 other people play. But this does not stop me from appreciating and respecting the game design work and decisions that went into making the mass market IAP driven games.

I might disagree with the long term reward-loop design of some of the titles, but I would not call them garbage.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#165

Post by Roboprog » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 7:12 AM UTC

NEDM64 wrote: post #141

Well, try your luck at Android or Consoles or PC. Never noticied the AppStore was some kind of heaven where money rained. Seriously, so much entitlement. If you want to make money selling games, you have to spend a lot in advertising, how much does Clash of Clans and etc spend? It's the rules, it always has been, what's the surprise? Maybe it worked for a couple of months out of novelity, but it doesn't work any more…

The first part was a bit harsh, but you make a good point about games for girls. (my now 20 daughter plays a lot of console games, but hates "ugly" scenery)

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#166

Post by sundvor » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 7:13 AM UTC

jarjoura wrote: post #107

How is it that Sony PS4/Vita stores can sell these same indie games for $20 a pop? Sony pushes these games hard and gives every one of them a fair amount of free marketing. They also celebrate their game developers by writing about them on their blogs and press-releases. The Apple App store in its current iteration is just mentally exhausting. Everytime I open it up I'm presented with a new grid of app icons and no c…

Not to mention that it is nearly impossible to glean anything about the app/game from its ratings, if any are available at all. It truly is a confusing mess.

I deeply regret the day I got an iPad for my son instead of an Android device. At least ratings aren't censored or hidden there.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#167

Post by chongli » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 8:15 AM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #67

vitd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, though they're not all games.

Games is the biggest category. http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/ says there are over 500,000 games active now.

How many of these games are made by full time salaried studios?

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#168

Post by greggman » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 8:17 AM UTC

fnayr wrote: post #14

I hear this myth perpetuated incessantly. (That there's no more middle ground in the app store, only the Clash of Clans and Candy Crushes and the rest with no downloads). People paint the picture that it's the top 0.1% and everyone else with an unsustainable business. The truth is there's plenty of us in the middle still. My two person iOS dev studio has pulled in 6 figures a year for the past 4 years. The problem is…

Are you sure it's 5%? Apparently 250,000 games shipped for iOS last year. If true you're suggesting of those quarter of a million games 12500 of them are making enough for a small studio? I have a feeling that's a pretty high number but I have no evidence to back it up. 1% would be still be 2500 games and even that seems high.

I certainly haven't looked at 2500 games in the last year, probably not more than 100 if that (then again I'm not a the target consumer so I have no idea how many games people look at). Still 2500 games (1%) is over 6 games per day.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#169

Post by Ntrails » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 8:19 AM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #119

nxzero wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the average WoW player likely plays 500+ hours a year, sounds cheap cost wise, but expensive time wise.

Years ago when one of my social circles decided to play WoW together, most of us found we had more money in the bank at the end of the month. It was far cheaper entertainment per day than most of the other options we would choose. One night out for drinks and you've paid more than a monthly subscription.

I feel like you're ignoring the ancillary cost of grinding heroics until the early morning hours with friends. There were some large pizzas, a bunch of soft drinks, and probably a packet of biscuits to accompany Tea...

That's gotta be at least a couple of rounds of drinks each :D

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#170

Post by chongli » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 8:27 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #127

kbenson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different stores would allow competition on store policies and inventory. Would a store that differentiates by disallowing certain in-app purchasing strategies by useful? It would to me , because I don't want to support companies that use certain sales strategies.

By disallowing certain IAP tactics, the price of an app might rise to meet the required profit margin. Would you be willing to pay more in that case?

Only in the case of professionally developed apps. There's tons of free (as in beer) apps out there that I just can't find because there's no way to filter out the IAP products.

Personally, I'd just be satisfied if they made a new category FREE+IAP and then we could search for and browse genuinely free stuff.