Exactly.Most"gamers"on iOS won't even pay 5 bucks.But if they do they expect free lifetime support not only for bugfixes but also for addional content (Hello Monument Valley). That's why we can't have nice things...
My brother has often complained about the lack of in depth quality type games, he is a playstation lover, and understands fully the cost of development, he will buy a ps4 game at whatever the asking price is without hesitating. So I understand why he'd want a similar experience on his phone or ipad, thing is he's the type of ios user wants wants the world on a stick for £1. I've had many a conversation with him about this, anything more than £3 on ios is very expensive!! he won't pay more that £1 for anything on the AppStore, but he thinks that £1 should give him access to everything ever, and the devs should fix everything ever, and if they don't, then they are greedy and trying to rip people off. He has spent maybe £15 total during his several years on ios, and that £15 was a gift card from me, so he's spent nothing really. Everything else I either buy for him, or he gets when stuff drops free. I actually enjoy these arguments, because he is so very quick to jump on anyone who says ps games are expensive, so when I point out his double standards and how he thinks £3 is expensive on ios, and his pride in never paying for anything on the AppStore, while at the same time moaning about the lack of console style games. He confuses himself. Fwiw, I'm very very happy with ios games, there is such a wide variety and all cheap. Sure it's not perfect, sometimes stuff disappears from purchase history, or is broken with updates but I've had the widest experience of genres on ios which I couldn't do on console, as the games cost much more, everything from simple puzzles to in depth RPGs, I love it. If there was a market and people would pay console quality prices then devs would go for it, but at the moment it seems they struggle to sell titles for the baseline price on ios, because of people like my brother, who want the good stuff, but don't want to pay for it.
The biggest problem with the Ars Technica article is that it is merely looking at numbers and not the reality of market pricing. Look no further than Steam to see the power of price stratification and how often they run sales. Many of those sales have compelled me to buy games that were a maybe and I have a huge backlog of games I have yet to play but could not pass up. Software is worth exactly how much people are willing to pay for it. Historic pricing does not matter and is a distraction. The problem with console pricing is that every game, regardless of budget or quality, is released at the same price point. A few might be released for $50, but anything less than that is often perceived as low quality and the studios that do release for anything less than full price usually release games that do nothing to alter that perception. This is also why the pricing conundrum is such a problem for mobile right now. Rebuild 3, which is a fairly recent release even on Steam, goes for more on Steam than what it released for on iOS. Part of that is they already have a product to market and are porting an existing foundation. Not a zero cost proposition but still cheaper than a game from scratch. Would the developers of Rebuild 3 have released on iOS first if they had looked at the market and thought "Well, realistically we can't release for more than $10 a download"? Would they even be trying for a $10 iOS game if they didn't already have an established pedigree or would they be flooded with negative reviews for daring to release a game that is "too expensive"? I'm somewhat sensitive to the pricing issue because it wasn't that many years ago I was still working for a software vendor and that entire concept of software being worth only as much as someone is willing to pay for it was a reality. We had abandoned many applications because for our limited market we could not convince our customers to pay more than $10,000 a license. The cost of development, ongoing support, software updates, etc. meant we had to release software for no less than $50,000 a license per year. The "high" cost was due to a limited market but also providing very specialized services that helped our customers make money. They also have to make enough money from our products to spend anywhere between $50,000 to $500,000 a year. Keep in mind, this is money they expect to make back or VALUE ADD they perceive they are getting. Games are entertainment. They also have a HUGE market. If you have a potential customer base in the millions and you can't make money, regardless of the price, then you are either spending too much money to make it, not making a product people actually want, failing to reach your target audience, not delivering value for the dollar, not priced appropriately (can be too high OR too low), or any combination of the above.
The question is why do they have to do that? Look at the newest 6s or any iPhone prior. 10s of millions just in pre orders. They could create a game just for the newest phone or two and do fine I'm sure. Or instead of penalizing those with high end devices for the sake of those with low end devices, make games with malleable settings. Low - medium - high etc.
But how many of the millions in pre orders are from people buying their iPhones as a gaming device? I dunno, I don't think it would be a high percent , so if a dev makes a game for the very newest model only, you'd need a large proportion of those buying the latest iPhone to be doing so with gaming in mind and then within that group of people, they are willing to pay console quality prices, and judging by what I've read on here and online most people want mobile games at a lower price. There's been plenty of outrage at PC ports being priced the same on ios as steam etc. I don't think devs penalise people with high end devices, instead of reaching a smaller percent of the mobile gamer market buy targeting the latest users then they are trying to reach a large proportion of the mobile gaming market, and to do so they need to develop for lower end devices too. It also relies on people upgrading every year or so, to be able to buy the latest games, and if users had to that then there would be complaints too, ios devices are expensive, most people I know don't upgrade every year, most don't even upgrade every two, and the fact that people are still using old devices shows that they are built to last. If I felt penalised by not having console games on a phone, I'd use the several hundred pounds the phone costs and buy a console instead I think. I honestly think if a dev thought it was viable, they would be doing it. I could be wrong.
So limit it because you prefer simple games? You think developers offering more full/console type game means the removal and stoppage of all bejeweled types? Or does your logic go in a different direction I'm missing? It's mobile you say. And each year it closes the gap between non mobile. The new iPhone will smoke my laptop and I can play most new games on it problem free (albeit at low settings) so I'm not sure where your going with that either.
There was a podcast episode on Release Notes where a guest speaker just flat out says it "there isn't really a culture of paying for stuff on the iOS AppStore". One of the speakers goes on to say that he's of the opinion that if he makes an app, it has to charge a subscription service. Else, it's just not worth doing. Exactly! PC games sold for $40 to $65 a pop, so they were at least charging more than the pittance that you see on iOS these days. And those PC games weren't made just for bleeding edge hardware. They supported lower end systems too, but that may be too much work for indie developers, or cost AAA shops too much time and money. Time is money. Developers and studios have a limited amount of it which says they can do something like one AAA game, or 2 to 5 smaller games within the same time frame. The latter is much less risky, and yields better returns, so of course they're going to do that. Who cares if the specs and resources are higher than ever, and greater than a laptop? If people don't buy your product you're utilizing that capability towards a meager market. Just think of how often history repeats itself with this... -Android has some great hardware, but it's not some super gaming platform that you're trying to push iOS into -many gaming consoles' sole function was kick-ass video games. Despite having great hardware, they couldn't make enough $$ and closed shop
