Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#131

Post by themoonbus » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:06 PM UTC

MarkG509 wrote: post #68

Back in the time-frame of the Leopard to Snow Leopard transition, I visited an Apple Store (for the last time), where upon I informed a 'genius' that on Windows, I had code that I needed to (or was required to) run everyday that was older than him, and that Apple's complete disregard for backward compatibility lost me (and everyone I know) as a customer for ever.

The image of you entering a likely-crowded Apple store and berating a random retail store employee because OS X doesn't support decades old software is pretty hilarious.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#132

Post by mbesto » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:07 PM UTC

pivo wrote: post #59

aresant wrote: post #31

It is fascinating how much the "micro-transaction" model on the iOS platform continues to bury everything else. Spiderweb throwing in the towel I would guess has a lot more to do with their #1 point "Competition on the App Store has risen to a frenzied level." than the others. The top two grossing games - Clash of Clans and Game of War - receive metacritic scores of 74 and 67 respectively. Whereas the most recent Spi…

> And as anybody who's spent 5 mins on app-store "optimization" knows - the better your paid, the better your organic - by a right mile. Sorry, I guess my English is bad. I do not understand this sentence. Could you explain?

I think a few people missed the mark here (in the sub-comments). The point is, if you're already have paying customers, you will get more. Users looking to download new apps discover them on the Top Paid charts more than anywhere else. The exception is to get featured, but this is a crapshoot. In other words, social proof is the strongest indicator for the long term viability of revenue for iOS apps, and it's hard to be gamed.

So (as others have rightfully pointed out) many app developers solve this issue in their early days by using paid ads...mainly FB ads, as their conversion rate analysis is so ridiculously well engineered. Which means you can theoretically turn off paid search/discovery and rely on on your high position on the Top Paid charts to drive you more even traffic. (Note - Many of them do not turn off paid acquisition channels as they are still highly lucrative anyway)

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#133

Post by lotharbot » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:08 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #123

lotharbot wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the ~17 years I've been involved in the Descent community online, I've had conversations with the developers of Descent 1, Descent 2, Descent 3, a project that was going to become Descent 4 until Interplay pulled support, and Descent:Underground (which just successfully kickstarted last week.) In particular, the Descent:Underground group is currently improving parts of their game based on conversations with me and…

I'm not sure what your point is. Are you trying to argue that it's impossible for iOS developers to form communities where they can talk to their users? Because that's obviously false. Are you trying to argue that PC game developers got such communities "for free"? Because that's also obviously false.

I'm addressing your comment that "form relationships" can only be meaningfully interpreted as something other than "relationships", by noting that I have formed actual worthwhile relationships with game developers in the past and present.

My comment does not address the rest of what you're saying (in particular, I don't care at all about iOS games or their app store), only that one point.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#134

Post by eridius » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:08 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #122

eridius wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you can follow companies, but "relationship" generally implies that it's reciprocal. A one-way "relationship" is called "stalking" ;) I don't really see why the App Store affects the ability for customers to choose to follow their favorite developers.

Because it commoditizes the product. Apple wants apps to be fungible and rapidly consumed and thrown away, and that does not lead to a real relationship with a producer. You have no reason to form a relationship with the provider of something that is placed, and consumed, on the same level as a Snickers bar. Games on PCs, Valve's best efforts notwithstanding, are not yet so reduced.

There's plenty of incentive for Apple to make apps plentiful and easy to acquire, but I strongly disagree that there's any incentive for Apple to want apps to be fungible. Why would there be? This is a claim I've seen repeated a few times without any supporting evidence. And I can't think of any reason why Apple would want apps to be fungible (more-so than any other software platform, at least; there is an incentive for there to be competition within any given category, but that's not the same thing as having the apps actually be fungible).

There are a lot of people who like having tons of new games available to try for a few minutes or hours or days, and then throw them away. But the existence of those people / that market does not mean that there isn't also a market for games that people stick with for a long time, and that are sold and maintained for a long time.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#135

Post by seanalltogether » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:11 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #31

It is fascinating how much the "micro-transaction" model on the iOS platform continues to bury everything else. Spiderweb throwing in the towel I would guess has a lot more to do with their #1 point "Competition on the App Store has risen to a frenzied level." than the others. The top two grossing games - Clash of Clans and Game of War - receive metacritic scores of 74 and 67 respectively. Whereas the most recent Spi…

I genuinely hate how apple has pushed microtransactions as the only viable route for app/game demos on their platform. I want to try out an app or game for free, and then decide if I want to purchase the full thing or not. This is how games always worked, and this is how Steam / PS3 / Xbox work.

The infrastructure apple provides however forces demos to live in the same category as microtransaction games, and as a result, the best games either get lost in the sea of free stuff, or completely forgo a demo and just list in the paid section. Quality content doesn't stand a chance.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#136

Post by eridius » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:12 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #128

eridius wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "gold rush" mentality was always a bit of a myth. There were a few apps that really did strike it rich, but the App Store has never really been a place where you could submit an app and watch the money roll in. That's not true now, and that wasn't true when it launched either. It's just a fantasy that a lot of people have.

Whether there was a gold rush or not is irrelevant for my argument. This isn't about being the random popular app, it's about the marketplace, supply and demand. How many flashlight apps were available 6 years ago? How many are available now? How has the average price changed? Given roughly equivalent ratings, how much research does the user have to do to figure out if one is better for their needs than another? How…

I don't understand your argument. Flashlight apps? There was a brief flurry of flashlight apps, and fart machine apps, and Apple then declared that they would stop accepting trivial clones of existing trivial functionality like flashlights / fart machines. But that's not really relevant, especially as the average price for those apps was generally $0. Those apps existed because they were easy to make, people who made them thought it was fun / funny / a learning exercise / whatever, but it was never a money-making category of apps. Ever.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#137

Post by Steko » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:14 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #31

It is fascinating how much the "micro-transaction" model on the iOS platform continues to bury everything else. Spiderweb throwing in the towel I would guess has a lot more to do with their #1 point "Competition on the App Store has risen to a frenzied level." than the others. The top two grossing games - Clash of Clans and Game of War - receive metacritic scores of 74 and 67 respectively. Whereas the most recent Spi…

Meta critic reviews don't hold much weight for me here, there's a knee jerk mentality in much of the professional press against all freemium games that's justified in many cases but certainly not across the board.

I don't play Clash of Clans or Game of War but I do play Boom Beach from Supercell and I can tell you with zero spent in over a year its far and away better than any other mobile game I've seen and I've bought almost every 4.5 star or better Toucharcade game for iOS.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#138

Post by bisrael » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:15 PM UTC

pivo wrote: post #59

aresant wrote: post #31

It is fascinating how much the "micro-transaction" model on the iOS platform continues to bury everything else. Spiderweb throwing in the towel I would guess has a lot more to do with their #1 point "Competition on the App Store has risen to a frenzied level." than the others. The top two grossing games - Clash of Clans and Game of War - receive metacritic scores of 74 and 67 respectively. Whereas the most recent Spi…

> And as anybody who's spent 5 mins on app-store "optimization" knows - the better your paid, the better your organic - by a right mile. Sorry, I guess my English is bad. I do not understand this sentence. Could you explain?

It means the better your paid install rate (via advertising), then you'll have greater organic installs as a result (usually due to your app spamming enough unwise people on twitter and facebook).

This is a natural result of paid advertising driving installs which the app store uses to rank games in their categories or create recommendations for their landing pages.

Source: I worked at a f2p mobile company.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#139

Post by Encosia » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:18 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #115

mark_l_watson wrote: post #104

I think that becoming the most profitable company in the world has negatively impacted Apple, at least how I view them. I wrote the chess program given away free with the early Apple IIs, made some good money on a Mac app in 1984, and until recently favored Mac laptops: a fan boy. That is changing. I bought an incredibly cheap and underpowered Windows 8.1 laptop in January (HP Stream 11) for $199 and like it quite a…

I've not heard of people running IntelliJ on a Surface. I'd be curious to know how well that works.

I run Visual Studio and Web/PhpStorm (essentially built on IntelliJ, I think?) on a Surface Pro 3 often. Mine's an i7 with 8gb RAM. More powerful than the 13" Ultrabook I replaced with it, and much more powerful than the MacBook I was using before the Ultrabook.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#140

Post by galfarragem » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 11:18 PM UTC

> Competition on the App Store has risen to a frenzied level.

I'm portuguese. I've an Ipad but I never bought any app. The market is so full of good free apps that I never needed to buy any. Most of my friends don't spend much in apps also. This makes me think that App store gets money only from very specific countries. Will App Store become like Google Store as soon as these countries get used to get apps for free?