We're mad as hell about iOS games that cost money, have ads, and/or any IAP at all.

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by tsharpfilm, Nov 3, 2009.

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Is Canabalt worth $2.99?

  1. Yes

    213 vote(s)
    35.0%
  2. No

    293 vote(s)
    48.2%
  3. Not my type of game

    102 vote(s)
    16.8%
  1. natedogg213

    natedogg213 Well-Known Member

    Jan 24, 2010
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    Lazer - if you don't mind disclosing, what is the anticipated price of development of an SD vs. an HD game. Without knowing the details about the type of game you are making or the graphic intensity, I think that retina display is becoming more and more of a necessity. If I'm unsure of whether to buy a game or not I often look to see if there is gamecenter and if there are hd graphics. Some games looked great in SD such as tilt to live and flight control did but with the next generation of hardware coming out soon, generations 1-3 will continue to fade and be unable to meet minimum specifications. Just something to consider, sounds like a tough choice.
     
  2. Madman100

    Madman100 Well-Known Member

    Jul 6, 2011
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    Holycrap @ your post count WT*!!

    Sorry, I have no business in this discussion but since I'm already here.. I agree with MididanGTX. Post your opinion and get on with life. No offense to the guys who do stick around to discuss it politely though. And especially no offense to the Mods and Editors of this site kuz if it weren't for you guys it wouldn't be possible to discuss things here. Much respect. Keep it rockin' all.
     
  3. backtothis

    backtothis im in ur base killin ur d00dz
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    Jul 13, 2009
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    That's not really his post count lol.
     
  4. hamster787

    hamster787 Well-Known Member

    Sep 1, 2010
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    well this thread is always fun to come back to and read from time to time, some people speak logic and others bulls@£t but its always good to see the reactions of people when they disagree etc. ;)
     
  5. natedogg213

    natedogg213 Well-Known Member

    Jan 24, 2010
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    And on his glorious Saturday, god replied: "Shut thy mouth Hodapp - and returneth to your one redeeming quality of scribing the Wednesday night release list. Take heed - you must again describe for the 100th time how the release process works instead of making a link to a page explaining only once how the process works. Do not argue child, for it is god's will. However thee shant continue use of cutesy adjectives such as "adorable" to describe games. Furthermore, i command you to cease your relentless night time whacking, for it be the true cause of your sleepless nights. Heed these words hodapp, lest I lobotomize thee as I have done to Your minions yemi and vovin".
     
  6. C.Hannum

    C.Hannum Well-Known Member

    Feb 13, 2011
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    You might be wrong, or you might be right. Mine and my friends kids are all on the younger side. My daughter is turning 7 this week and my son is almost 4. Oldest kid in my peer group is, I think, 10, so no teenagers, but keep in mind that even with teenagers families will be handing down devices, using the allowanced account option and siblings likely sharing authorizations, etc..

    Kids are the greatest excuse in the world to upgrade your i-Devices, and with up to 5 computers on any one Apple ID, any time you're selling your app to a family in this modern world, universality comes into play because of "device fluidity". Mom buys an iPad, that winds up shared with the children. When mom later gets an even better iPad that iPad becomes the childrens explicitly. Dad upgrades his touch or iPhone, the oldest gets their current i-Device upgraded with Dad's old device. The next youngest gets their device upgraded with the oldest's former device, and so on.
     
  7. Lazer

    Lazer Well-Known Member

    May 14, 2011
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    I can't really speak to what a whole game would cost since I'm doing a lot of the work for free, but I can speak to the artwork that I was looking to contract out, which was about two-fifths of the artwork in the game. Many artists charge by the hour, and others charge by the size of the assets, either way you go, however, HD seemed to more than triple the quoted prices. My game is a large and ambitious project so I don't know how these prices hold for other games, but for SD it was 5-7k for the artwork that I was looking for whereas for HD it was 20k+.

    I'm no artist, but there also just seems to be a huge difference in experience levels when it comes to making 120x120 pixel images versus 240x240 images among designers. This might be creating a premium price around HD at the moment which will go down as people become more experienced. Note that an HD image is four times the size of an SD one so four times the price isn't unreasonable. Note too that those prices were just estimates, and that everything contracted out tends to have a high percentage chance of running you more than the quoted price.
     
  8. TheDukester

    TheDukester Well-Known Member

    Please PM me soon for some excellent real estate deals. I can offer you a bridge in Brooklyn; I've also got some great Florida swampland just waiting for a buyer.
     
  9. Lazer

    Lazer Well-Known Member

    May 14, 2011
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    Thank you for the insight. It's stuff like this that starts to bridge the gap between developer and consumer. Honestly I had not really thought about how families would look at universality when I was considering it, a rather egregious oversight on my part but one that I'm sure a lot of developers make.
     
  10. backtothis

    backtothis im in ur base killin ur d00dz
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    Jul 13, 2009
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    Not going to lie, some of the previous few posts really got me to lol.
     
  11. schplurg

    schplurg Well-Known Member

    This^^

    If you don't like the practices of a company, you have the choice to not do business with them.

    As for Universal Apps not being financially viable for the dev, I myself decided to go universal for many reasons, one being that I do not want to have to update and bug fix two different versions of the same game. As a small dev it is much more time/cost effective to go universal - at least for me. Some of the big publishers are starting to do it too.
     
  12. schplurg

    schplurg Well-Known Member

    Oh really? A taxi driver that does that is ripping you off, plain and simple. However, with an iOS app you know what you are getting up front (usually). What's evil about it? Either you buy the app or you don't.

    In either case you can choose not to do business with a company that you feel is playing dirty (except the gub'ment).
     
  13. Haliaeetus

    Haliaeetus Well-Known Member

    Jan 8, 2010
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    In the spirit of this thread, I thought I would politely state my opinion and then leave. I completely agree with this and it is totally understandable to charge more for HD graphics than SD graphics...

    The only thing that bothers me is when a dev charges more for the iPad's HD graphics and then gives away the "retna" (which is HD) for nothing. In my mind that makes the price difference completely artificial. An example of a game that handled this correctly from my point of view is Great Little War Game. An app that handled this as poorly as possible (again in my opinion) is Cordy.
     
  14. Donovan1209

    Donovan1209 Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2010
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    Read this part and laughed my ass off. Canabalt came out long before Mirror's Edge came out on iOS. Mirror's Edge is basically based off of Canabalt. 'Nuff said. (I don't think I'll even bother reading the rest, just gonna be flaming and bs posts like this one)

    Edit: and btw Hodapp, if you may be reading this. I haven't even looked on TA much at all in ages, but the newish podcast is awesome ;D
     
  15. Vovin

    Vovin 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Nov 28, 2009
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    LOL @ time-out.
    This is becoming a hobby of yours, somehow.
     
  16. Lazer

    Lazer Well-Known Member

    May 14, 2011
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    I see your point and am not disagreeing, but just wanted to point out one thing from a development standpoint. The iPad and iPhone use different coordinate systems. From a coding perspective, adding HD art to the iPhone doesn't change much of the code since you can still use your existing coordinates for everything. The iPad can get trickier based on how to designed everything in the first place. If your coordinates are relative in code then it's not that hard, but if you use a lot of absolute coordinates then it can get pretty tricky/messy (sorry if that's too under the hood).

    I think we're still in a period of transition where games were conceived with different iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad versions since the retina display is just a touch over a year old. It's easy to say, yeah just drop that HD art we already have into the iPhone version no prob. It's harder to say, let's go back to our code and redesign it all as a single version. As SD becomes obsolete, this sort of design decision will make less and less sense.
     
  17. Deaf Smith

    Deaf Smith Member

    Sep 5, 2010
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    It is that simple for me. For others, E-Drama is just too darn entertaining.
    Looking forward to buying the game tonight if it shows up on the US App Store..
     
  18. Peekachu99

    Peekachu99 Member

    Jul 1, 2011
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    I still don't know why people are encouraging this premium pricing. It's a twice rehashed game with minimal development costs and no boxed, retail expenses.

    One of the reasons why I swapped from console gaming to iPad/ PC (this coming from someone who had every system since the Amiga) is because as an adult, the pricing and DLC madness associated with consoles are simply cost prohibitive. I have two mortgages and lots of other bills so paying $100 (game+tax+inevitable DLC) doesn't make since.

    Lots of iOS developers have proven you can make a PREMIUM product without this sort of highway robbery pricing. God, I grabbed Order and Chaos and Dead Space for $0.99 (sale, granted, but only $7 normally). A dollar, for new IPs made for the iOS. SE are exploiting the nostalgia for $

    This is a fantastic game, sure, but I'll wait till its at least 1/2 that price before I even consider it. Be very careful how you as consumers spend, I watched the explosion of half-finished games, DLC and on disc-DLC this gen in the console space and once a publisher figures out there's chumps to pay for this sort of abuse, they don't stop.
     
  19. Archifodder

    Archifodder Member

    May 3, 2009
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    Although I would agree that the price point of this game is crazy high, I think your comment on the minimal development is inaccurate. This game was first announced during the E3 conference last June and has gone through numerous delays due to the development - the initial release date was September 15, 2010. They put a lot of development into this game to make sure the user experience was high with regard to speed, graphics, overall gameplay experience, etc.
     
  20. backslashio

    backslashio Well-Known Member

    Apr 7, 2010
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    #1780 backslashio, Aug 3, 2011
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2011
    I think SE are doing this on purpose because they made a mess & lost too much money from FFXIV :p I doubt Square-Enix will ever learn and it seems like a slap in the face to not include an introductory price (like say $10) for this after patiently waiting for so long after its intended release date

    I'm not saying their games should be on sale for $1 but a $10 RRP would be much more respectable
     

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