I really do get all of your points and I agree with parts of them such as multiplayer advancements as I mentioned in earlier posts, but Appletini explains the why or the possible necessity, which I touched on. However, I do agree with you that it's not ideal for gamers like you or myself. I'm just curious about which comments you don't agree with in his post. Could you make some sort of rebuttal?
Well, I was actually brief since I didn't see a need to repeat myself. He is the one making rebuttals to my statements so I think it's clear where we disagree. I'll give him this though: his arguments are generally much stronger than mine since he is only using his head. I'll readily admit mine come from the heart as much as, if not more, so. I guess it's easy to dismiss those as "hysterics." In truth, in part I'm envious of someone able to present an argument with as much cold, hard logic. I'm driven by my emotions and can only hope the logic is keeping up. I wouldn't want to be him though; I'm happy being me. (I'm sure he feels the same way!) I have some healthy respect for what he's written even if I don't agree, as I've said. I doubt he feels the same; clearly not, going on his first paragraph in particular, though I have to question why else he'd bother to write what amounts to almost nothing short of an essay in response to me if not. When I don't respect someone I normally ignore them. In any case, the point is, this is exactly the sort of discussion I was hoping to get when I started the thread. Not much gets discussed if all people do is sit around agreeing with each other.
I work almost specifically with virtual currencies and IAP, but this argument has been put forward exquisitely. I still believe there are productive ways to implement IAP (for instance, providing things that are attainable in-game, but take time or skill, for players who for whatever reason are too impatient to spend the time attaining those things). [Obviously this shouldn't translate into advantages for, say, a game with multiplayer-elements].
I don't think this is true in general. Like you said yourself: TouchArcade represents only a tiny sliver of IOS gaming so a bit of whining about pricing here shouldn't have any effect on game sales. In reality, people seem perfectly willing to pay 5 dollars or more for games like Angry Birds HD, Fifa 12, Tin Tin. Even a $5 brain-training game that I never heard of made the top 5 grossing iPad games in my Appstore.
I'm sure there are some bad examples of freemium games. But take the excellent Bullet Time. So whats wrong with this being freemium ? Its free so i downloaded it, i played the whole of the first chapter without buying any weapons from their IAP store. So i'm not 'forced' to buy anything to complete it. To me IAP stores are an easy way of creating a 'slight' cheat mode, in the old days there were hidden combinations of letters you pressed to get infinite lives etc. Now in the app store so many games are throwaway and disposable, with new games coming out every week one week you may love a game, a week later it'll sit there gathering dust and then get deleted. Devs need to make money quickly. As long as i dont play a game which is freemium and HAVE to buy a weapon in order to beat some end of level boss i dont mind. But when i really do enjoy a game, as i've said Bullet Time, i'm just happy to buy some IAP purchases just to say 'thanks'. If theres a game and i have to buy new ammo every week then i wont do that at all as thats obviously a joke. If the games 'free' but i have to pay $2 to unlock more chapters then thats not a problem in my view. I downloaded the 'free' Miner 2049er a few weeks back which is a classic platformer, you had to pay 99c to unlock the original version which again not an issue. I buy many of Gamelofts games, think theyre mostly very good, great value for money. For the price of a coffee or two i've got a quality game with hours of gameplay. Their western freemium title i'm interested to see how that works, but i'm not 'upset' by it at all. Have to wait to see how the freemium model works in this case
Obviously TA doesn't represent the common AppStore customer, quite the opposite actually. The top 50 grossing games will always be dominated by freemium titles because there are more than enough people that are willing to sink tens to hundreds of dollars into FarmVille/iMafia/Poker type games. This didn't start with Eliminate. It started much earlier, in 2008 actually when iMafia and its clones already dominated the top grossing charts. Mind you, the AppStore only opened the summer was of 2008, so this isn't a trend. They've always been the kind of titles the normal AppStore customer is glad to spend a good amount of money to get ahead on. There's absolutely nothing wrong with these titles. There's nothing wrong with including iAPs in a game like Infinity Blade either. There will always be enough premium titles for the core gamers. I think the two types of price models coexist perfectly at this point in time. I've rarely, if ever, seen a premium game that requires you to buy consumable iAPs just to move. They're a great mechanic to have in games in order for less seasoned gamers to get through them. Take into account that people are literally paying to defeat the purpose of the game. As far as online games with iAPs are concerned like Order & Chaos, you get what you pay for. Online games have nearly always worked in a similar manner. Considering there are still thousands of players at any time on the servers for Order & Chaos along with MC3 among other online titles filled with iAPs, it's not hard to see that the implementation of these purchases haven't turned away customers. Instead, they draw more players to these games. Considering the great majority of consumers in the AppStore find iAPs to be a positive thing and that these iAPs are what get developers money, it's a win-win situation in the grand scheme of things, which you must accept once again, TA doesn't come close to being or representing. It's not a conspiracy. People are actually willing to buy consumable iAPs. Concerning Gameloft's shift in marketing strategy, which I'm not exactly a fan of, it makes perfect sense. Bring out premium titles that are accessible to everyone and include iAPs for less-seasoned players and have the game be just hard enough for experienced players to get through without any iAPs, or at least, without more iAPs than the title would have cost in the first place, $6.99. Are you honestly going to be angry if you have to spend $0.99-$6.99 on iAPs when the exact same game would have cost you that much in the first place? Gameloft is taking away their dependence on $0.99 sales, which pitifully, people even here on TA start waiting for the day a new Gameloft title comes out. Like I said, everyone benefits here. People are getting a free quality game while Gameloft expands their customer base significantly. They'll get revenues from certain groups of people, while others will be getting a free game. Remember, above all else, that this is a market dominated by casual gamers and that it's the fastest growing market in the industry. People who never played games now do.
This probably has been said all over again, but I think IAPs like the ones Cordy have such as adding more levels is fine as you still get to try before paying which is just awesome, but IAP for extra coins/perks/godknowswhat are unacceptable. MC3 is awesome, but because of the extra coins the game has way more cheaters than MC2 by far. A company I despise, a company that really milks money from players is Beeline. God I hate them, and their games are terrible tbh. I read an article where they told that a 5-year-old kid spent like 3000 euros on Smurfs Village Smurf Berries without even knowing about it. Snoopy's Street Fair looked like an awesome game until I read that Beeline is the developer... But yeah, freemium gets money and so they don't have to do regular price drops. It's a shame, cause I'd rather pay like the price of 10-20 dollars for MC3 rather than having to stand the guys who use a cash load of money on extra coins, thankfully they put the limit to buying. Edit: BTT has a point though, I suppose there are lots of people willing to pay on IAP, I myself never bought 'extra coins'. and yeah, TA is an odd place
Well lets see how bad/good Six Guns is for freemium when its out tomorrow. I've only ever bought IAP just to help the dev if i've really enjoyed the game, actually feel a bit 'guilty' if the games free and i've had hours of fun from it, want to repay them back with a small thanks. The story about the 5 year old kid is quite shocking BUT surely their parents must realise what the games like ? If they left in their details with the password already typed in so the kid can install any game they want (or in app purchases) then i'm sorry but thats just stupid by them
Freedium I hope that if they continue to do these games we will not see 50 and 100 dollar price tags on the gems or coins what ever most of these are kids and if we the adults dont have that kind of money to spend how will the kids get it. I myself had rather pay for the game out right. I had rather pay 10 to 20 dollars for a good game on the ipad or the ipod than for them to keep diggin in my pockets. I think one of the worse ones and I like it but these dev of fish tales do not care about there users. Some of these guys would take every penny you have. I hope we go back to the other way of gaming I think most people will pay for a good game not a throw away game though.
Of course, I'd rather pay a one-time fee as well. I've personally never bought a consumable iAP for the sake of beating a game either, but I've donated before by buying them. The premium game model just isn't what'll bring in the money on the AppStore though. I guess we'll never know how a true premium title will sell until one of the bigger players in the industry decides to put out a modern AAA title for a reasonable price relative to other mobile platforms ($25-$50).
I agree with the bulk of your post, except for this part. If a game is quality enough to warrant a $7 pricetag, gamers will buy it. My specific case-in-point, Let's Golf 3, would have been well worth the $7 asking price, and judging by the success of Let's Golf 2 (which was released at around the same cost iirc), they wouldn't have had too hard of a time selling it. However, asking us to pay again and again just to continue to play the game at it's core, is a greedy move. Yes, I could opt not to play the game at all (which I have), but I want to play the game, I just don't want to have a "subscription" to it, without ever actually owning it! If I had spent as much time playing Let's Golf! 3 as I have spent playing Let's Golf 2, I'd likely have spent upwards of $100 on the game already. The alternative to this (in my case) is to simply not bother with the game, and stick to playing Let's Golf! 2, which is largely the same game, at a one-time cost. If there was any question about the greed of Gameloft at this point, allow me to remove it: Let's Golf 1 & 2 were actually removed from the App Store days after the release of Let's Golf 3! Aside from pushing anyone who wants to play Let's Golf at all into playing it under the pay-to-play model, why would they do this??
Haha! Fair enough! I was just looking for some sort of counter argument to his rebuttal. Not to seem like Mr. Agreeable, but both of you present valid points when you look at how you present your arguments, which is something you sort of stated. He shows a necessity, and you show more of the hardcore gamer's plight. I, personally, don't like the Nintendo DS or the PSP, so I would love to see the iDevices move more towards hardcore gaming. But, Apple has placed itself as a casual platform, which is understandable based upon what it is, or was. I'm pretty sure most of, if not all, the valid points have been mentioned thoroughly in this thread. This statement more than likely doesn't apply to the overall market. Actually, I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Have developers become greedy; probably. This is human nature; attain as much money as possible. I can't 100% fault them for that, but it does mess up the experience for gamers.
I think, I'll make this my last comment! Why do we have freemium games and IAP on the AppStore? It's a strong revenue model! Will it stay for the long haul? As long as it makes developers more money; yes! Will we ever see fully premium games? Honestly, I don't know, but the waters sure do look murky! iOS is still very much a casual platform.
You're right, it doesn't. But Gameloft is the biggest fish in the pond, and definitely sets an example to other devs on how to be successful and make the most revenue. Chances are if smaller devs are trying to make it in the App Store, they will try to emulate their business model...although I certainly hope this isn't the case.
Agree with everything, but the last. Of course there will be lots of premium games... If not by indie, then by premium. You think EA will do only freemiums?? Anyway, NFL 2012 comes out tomorrow by Gameloft as premium, looks great tbh.
Hmmm... interesting point, but you're forgetting that those "greedy bastards" are not the devs alone. It is mostly the fault of all these greedy AppStore customers, which always wanted AAA games for nothing. We all know the price complainments. We heard and read them hundreds of times. "More than a buck? F*ck it." If I were a dev, I would not go and create games over months just to sell them for one buck or maybe two. I would make games which are likely to bring in the most revenue. iPhone gamer should take a look into the mirror before complaining about freemium devs. There equally worse, if not much worser.
