Apple about to prevent indies to produce any good 3D games

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by c0re, Apr 11, 2010.

  1. c0re

    c0re Well-Known Member

    Apr 15, 2009
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    #1 c0re, Apr 11, 2010
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2010
    Hello gamers,

    I'm sorry if this thread already has been posted elsewhere, but unfortunately I didn't find it.

    In short, according to latest internet news, specifically an Engadget article, Apple's OS4 latest SDK was provided with a new developer license agreement that prevents any middleware to be used in app development.

    Medias are mainly highlighting that it will prohibit Flash.
    Unfortunately, Flash won't be the only one to fall. Several questions to S. Jobs, several analysis from serious people, and most of all not a single official answer yet, all of this means that there could be a huge slap in the face for many game engines.

    Actually a lot of dev forums are completely freaking out.

    This means : No more game with Unity3D, Flash, Torque, UnrealEngine, Shiva, or any other good middleware.

    What you, gaming fellows, should know, is that producing an AAA 3D game without middleware requires to build a home 3D game engine.
    Which is simply unthinkable for indies as we have to follow the pace with new titles, and painful for big studios considering all the monthes of work it requires.
    Concretely, Appstore price tags are actually not a good justification to invest large amounts of time and money on such an engine, may it be for studios or indies.

    If Apple doesn't change their mind on this new LA, the result will be :
    1) a massive cut in new complex games
    2) a massive exodus of devs toward other platforms

    I am personally investing myself in a game since 2008, with 7-8 hours of work per day on top of my dayjob, and already raised the bill to 15000 $ (software, hardware, production).
    I'm alone on making this project, and not paying myself. So that bill keeps low.
    But I can't imagine other real indie studios who invested millions already ... and see Apple putting all this money, invested time and passionate dedication into trashcan.


    I don't want to start a riot, or freak out more people than there are on dev forums, but just wanted you to be informed, as you will be the most severely hit by that Apple move.

    So no official answer for now, but very, very awful posssibilities.

    And particularly, that sentence from Steve Jobs :

    I feel very depressed at the moment.
     
  2. Ace_97

    Ace_97 Well-Known Member

    This is terrible. Most (i think) of my games are indie devs. I like indie devs (especially because of their prices) and now the quality (polish atleast) will be not as great. Well, i guess graphics won't matter soon.
     
  3. Dusse

    Dusse Well-Known Member

    Mar 4, 2010
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    I think you overestimate the numbers of developers using this kind of technology.
     
  4. squarezero

    squarezero Moderator
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    cOre, I think what this means for Torque, Unity and Shiva is still unclear. Unity's CEO's last message on the matter was that he's checking into it.
     
  5. c0re

    c0re Well-Known Member

    Apr 15, 2009
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    Of course, I'm not talking about exiting apps, as most of them aren't in 3D.
    But with all the upcoming hardware upgrades, social networks and gamemakers attractions, it is not realistic to think that there wouldn't be a growing appeal for 3D games. Either be it for devs or gamers.

    I mean ... UnrealEngine was about to make iPhone exporting possible ... Adobe Flash too ...


    Yep this is unclear, even after mister Helgason told there would not be any problem for Unity users.
    This is what is freaking every dev out.
    Plus, the Jobs quote I put in the first post is another bomb going straightly in contradiction with Unity's CEO statement ... :/

    There is fear out there ..
     
  6. squarezero

    squarezero Moderator
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    That's understandable. But if the worst fears proved to be true, there would be a massive disconnect between Apple marketing and the iPhone SDK. Even at the announcement they were touting the quantity of iPhone games as a competitive advantage. As you know, modern 3D game developmen is almost all accomplished with one form of mddleware or another (the Quake engine for example, or the recently ported Unreal 3). Heck, at least 4 of the 10 best games of 2009 (according Apple's own list) were done with Unity.

    When you seem to be getting such a big disconnect, especially on a company as tightly run as Apple, chances are that there is a misunderstanding. My guess is that this change has nothing to do with gaming.
     
  7. c0re

    c0re Well-Known Member

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    Thanks Squarezero for your comforting words :)

    I want them to be true, badly ...
     
  8. JoshCM

    JoshCM Well-Known Member

    Aug 11, 2009
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    I hope we'll get the definitive answer on this question this week. The App store IMO would become a ghost town very quickly - with only higher priced 3d games trickling in slowly. The upcoming games thread in this forum for instance, would
    become pretty stagnant, as all of us 'middleware' users have to move over to Droid. We'll see.
     
  9. RagManX

    RagManX Well-Known Member

    Jan 23, 2010
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    I'm really hoping it doesn't mean what it appears to mean, or that the agreement is changed to allow many/most/all of the alternate development tools to still be used. On the other hand, if Apple sticks to this, I think that means a potential that I'll see more developers jumping on the Android wagon instead, which will work well for me when I get my Droid next month.

    Still, as it reads now and as most of us understand it, the new developer requirements really sounds hideously stupid and damaging for the app store as far as gaming goes.
     
  10. don_k

    don_k Well-Known Member

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  11. freedog

    freedog Well-Known Member

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    What I take from the message is that Apple is ready to try anything to stop the flow of mediocre and lousy apps flooding the store everyday, giving the platform a bad name and lack of respect. Some indies with good stuff are gonna suffer as a result of this plan too though.
     
  12. johnwayne

    johnwayne Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2009
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    ...means - We thank you indies for providing us with your stuff and for growing the appstore, but now, quality counts more than quantity and now we allready have the big companies producing quality games, so we don't need your sub-standard games anymore. Thank You for not hindering.

    :D
     
  13. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    It's a very unusual and political problem. On the one hand I can absolutely see why they wanna c-block Flash from entering the picture - suddenly the Appstore'd be kind of useless. Likewise I can see that they'd like to limit the amount of saturation of shovelware which is dumping daily on the appstore. This seems a horrible way to do it however - they set the precendent with their submission guidelines, that being "let anyone in so long as they don't cuss or have a graphic of a crack on the screen" (& et cetera).

    I expect that one way or another a lot of us sensed that this free-for-all period was due for some major upheaval one way or another it's unsustainable (though I really do have to blame Apple for letting it get to where it's at, both in bad ways and in good).

    To those affected (myself as well, ultimately?) take some solace in the other markets (droid etc) and hopefully it will be a little more mature/indie-friendly over there, in time. (And be wary that they will have their own set of issues, I am sure)

    For those with decent products with some creative sense of how to sell them, then the battle is not yet over. For everybody else, time to look for a new angle I guess :/
     
  14. c0re

    c0re Well-Known Member

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  15. playn

    playn Well-Known Member

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    i think this is just to stop Adobes Flash player converter. which converts flash games to iphone format
     
  16. Big Pig

    Big Pig Member

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    We're currently developing a 2.5d beat'em up that should be out next Autumn. It has some nice features like skeletal animation for bitmap based characters that would take us a long time implementing ourselves.

    The development cycle for our first game will be around 1 year. Without Unity (the engine we're using) it would easily go to 2 years, since besides the tech inside this engine, we'd also loose the amazing workflow it provides (e.g. importing models from 3d tools, seeing them in an editor, etc).

    "We've been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform. "

    It's impossible to generalize like this. I'm actually amazed that Steve Jobs makes such a specific remark. Besides, almost every game from top publishers uses some sort of intermediate layer. Are all of these games sub-standard?

    I hope that common sense will prevail in this matter. If it doesn't I'll convert our game to Objective-C, but I'll make it a point of first developing the game in Unity and then posting some videos and screenshots here, with a small note saying "Available in a year (or two... depending on how long it takes me to write this in Objective-C)".

    In the end, if this ban goes ahead, it's a lose-lose-lose situation for Apple-developers-consumers.

    Alex (aka Big Pig - www.ninjapigs.com)
     
  17. Punchey

    Punchey New Member

    Apr 12, 2010
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    Not only is Jobs' quote here just plain stupid, he is ignoring two important things:

    1) The reality of the state of the art in the games industry (the kinds of tools that are required to produce a complex, fully featured, quality game), and

    2) The current state of his OWN PLATFORM! By this, I'm referring to the fact that some of the games Jobs himself showcased at the iPhone OS 4 unveiling use precisely the kind of intermediate layer that he is saying produces "sub-standard apps" (i.e. the Touch Touch line which uses Lua)! He is either being a hypocrite, or he is totally ignorant of the fact that some of the top-selling games for his platform, and indeed ones he himself draws attention to as great examples of what's available on the platfform, use precisely the tech he is saying is unacceptable.

    So Jobs is either being intentionally intellectually dishonest here, or he is much more ignorant of his platform than you would expect someone of his calibre to be. Then again, when looking at his recent e-mail headers, he was found to be using out-dated versions of both iPhone OS and OS X. So perhaps dishonesty isn't his problem... just sheer ignorance?
     
  18. originalcopy

    originalcopy Well-Known Member

    Sep 10, 2009
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    Time to move to palm and android then?
     
  19. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Sep 11, 2009
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    Its their platform their rules. They have been the friendliest platform for indies dont forget that.
     
  20. originalcopy

    originalcopy Well-Known Member

    Sep 10, 2009
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    Yeah, they have, but so has google with android too. Sucks that their google checkout doesnt allow me to sell apps from where I am though. :mad:
     

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