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Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

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Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#81

Post by cld8483 »

apozem wrote: post #78
cld8483 wrote: post #11

They can't compete with what they once were, so they bury the past. I suspect many industries are like this. If classic movies were played alongside new Hollywood releases, the new movies would probably be choked out. Accordingly, Disney will even restrict the availability of their old movies on DVD. They can't stand competing with their former great selves.

> Accordingly, Disney will even restrict the availability of their old movies on DVD. I don't know if this applies to Disney given they just launched a massive streaming service containing almost all of their back catalogue.

In that case, they're selling a subscription instead of selling movies, no? (I haven't used it, I don't know the details of how it works.)

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#82

Post by hedora »

apozem wrote: post #78
cld8483 wrote: post #11

They can't compete with what they once were, so they bury the past. I suspect many industries are like this. If classic movies were played alongside new Hollywood releases, the new movies would probably be choked out. Accordingly, Disney will even restrict the availability of their old movies on DVD. They can't stand competing with their former great selves.

> Accordingly, Disney will even restrict the availability of their old movies on DVD. I don't know if this applies to Disney given they just launched a massive streaming service containing almost all of their back catalogue.

What is this service you speak of? Disney+ only has a tiny fraction of their back catalog. (For instance, it is missing all of miramax)

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#83

Post by qwytw »

Jasper_ wrote: post #76
tensor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't play any iOS game with either ads or with a "free but micro-transaction model." If you look in the pay up front category on the app store, there are very very few games. It's too bad.

Google and Apple aggressively push developers to use IAPs rather than up-front paid games, and often won't feature games & apps costing more than 99c. They incentivized the current market.

I think the demo/trial model is still very reasonable. You get to download the game for free and play a level or two and then you need to purchase the full game to continue.

Of course the problem is that it's sometimes a bit hard to tell apart games like this from the P2W micro-transaction shovelware junk

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#84

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

cld8483 wrote: post #75
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older movies are full of filler too, but it's generally less exciting filler - looooong shots of a car driving through the countryside or plot beats that could be 1 minute stretching to 10 without having any reason to be as long as they are. Over time movies have learned to cut a lot of fat.

It's about conveying atmosphere and mood, not conveying plot-points as rapidly as possible. Same reason a book might spend two pages describing a lazy dog laying on a porch swatting flies with his tail, instead of cutting straight to who said/did what.

OK, so movies have gotten better at setting the mood without derailing the story's momentum.

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#85

Post by gspencley »

hedora wrote: post #45

We need copyright reform for cases like this. In particular, copyright infringement damages should be capped at a small multiple of lost sales. That way, when a copyrighted work goes of market (or is no longer sold at a reasonable mass-market rate), there would be no penalty for redistributing it. (Derivative works might need to be handled differently, since the above effectively invalidates the GPL, though not Apach…

I have a nuanced take on this.

Say, hypothetically, that I am the creator of a song, book, video game or whatever. One day, for purely selfish reasons that I don't need others to understand, I decide that I no longer want to offer my creation to others. Do I forfeit any and all rights over something that I personally produced; that I invented, designed, fabricated and brought into existence; just because I once offered it to others?

I know that the law takes a more social look at the issue. After a while creative works enter the public domain and copyright is no longer recognized. The timeline varies and has been extended. I think right now it is the life of the author plus 75 years or something like that because of copyrights held by corporations rather than individuals.

I don't know what the "right" length of time is. And for classics that have outlived the life of the creator and are "culturally significant" there is a broader discussion to be had.

Beyond that scenario, the principal that I come at this from is that I, as a creator, rightfully recognize and defend my own rights to the things that I pour a significant portion of myself and life into. I made it, it's mine and therefore others can GTFO even if they disagree with me.

Bill Waterson, of Calvin & Hobbes fame, had a similar view. In rare interviews he stated that the only audience he ever cared about was his wife. If he could make her laugh with the comics, that was all that mattered. Since retiring the comic he has held on to those rights very tightly. He has allowed a few reprints but otherwise does not license out the property much at all. He doesn't want any more Calvin & Hobbes works to be created. Agree or disagree, I recognize that as his right as the creator. You or I did not create Calvin & Hobbes, he did. It's his.

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#86

Post by yamtaddle »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #62
tensor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't play any iOS game with either ads or with a "free but micro-transaction model." If you look in the pay up front category on the app store, there are very very few games. It's too bad.

I think we should really call out Apple and Google for mismanagement here. Imagine if there was the option to play a game for an hour as a free trial, and then buy the game instead of having to plunk down $4.99 sight-unseen - or having your game in the Free category with the microtransaction shovelware around it. If I'm the developer who wants users to have any semblance of try-before-you-buy, the free category (with…

They don't even need to do much, just add a category for developers who want to have a free + single-IAP-to-unlock-the-whole-thing version, and let people search that category specifically. No need for Apple to enforce time limits or anything. The trouble now isn't that demos can't exist, but that it's hard to tell which IAP-bearing apps are just full version unlocks and which are whale-chasing bullshit.

For that matter, just segregating games with any "consumable" IAP from those without would probably help a lot.

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#87

Post by _5uxp »

mkaic wrote: post #52
NackerHughes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only speaks of how severely the attention span of the average person has plummeted in recent decades. It's impossible to sit through a movie without enough dopamine-inducing distractions or MTV-style jump cuts every few seconds.

Definitely disagree with this take. I'd argue that all it means is that filmmakers have learned to make more exciting films. Cinema is a young art form and hasn't even been around for 200 year, it's no surprise to me that the movies of today are fundamentally different and more engaging than movies from last century.

They are more dumb tho, scripts and dialogues are so much simple. They rarely give you the feeling of once a lifetime seeing experience. Most of them have too much CGI and sometimes not even looking rea at all.

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#88

Post by yamtaddle »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #84
cld8483 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about conveying atmosphere and mood, not conveying plot-points as rapidly as possible. Same reason a book might spend two pages describing a lazy dog laying on a porch swatting flies with his tail, instead of cutting straight to who said/did what.

OK, so movies have gotten better at setting the mood without derailing the story's momentum.

A lot of great modern movies have pacing similar to those older ones you don't like. It's not that they "leveled up" into some new form and obsoleted what came before—the other sorts of pacing remain entirely valid and in heavy use.

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#89

Post by throwaway744678 »

flenserboy wrote: post #26

A wedge for developers looking to boost Linux: make small, quality games that distribution makers can be convinced to include. MicroSoft did this with Minesweeper and Solitaire, and far more people than you might think demanded Windows not because it could do the tasks they wanted, but because it had the simple recreations they desired and had grown used to. The best way to crowd out the ad-laden and micro-transactio…

Even more true for Nokia: people bought Nokia phones (3210, 3310, etc.) because of Snake!

Re: Rovio delists original Angry Birds from PlayStore because it's still too popular

#90

Post by speeder »

tensor wrote: post #58
petepete wrote: post #9

It's almost as if when given the choice people prefer games without microtransactions, even if they're older and have fewer features/powerups etc.

I won't play any iOS game with either ads or with a "free but micro-transaction model." If you look in the pay up front category on the app store, there are very very few games. It's too bad.

I had a startup that made games in the pay up front model (with variants, like having a free episode and then selling more episodes, or demo + paid version, etc...)

It just doesn't work, people don't want to buy stuff when on mobile, they just don't. The price made no difference in sales either, could be high, low, 99c, whatever, people just ignore your game and get only the free versions.

On Android this is even worse than iOS, my startup could had SOME sales on iOS, on Android we had millions of downloads and literally zero sales.

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