That's what I said when the iPhone 3GS was still nonexsiting yet and I thought that the iPhone would just get the chip inside of the iPod Touch 2nd Gen
The lack of big companies in the appstore is a good thing only for Indie devs and not for the platform in general as it allows indie devs to release more and more rubbish, unpolished games! Of course there are a few good indie devs but a lot are just individual wanting to make some bucks off the appstore. It's a good thing that there are a few big companies that continues to invest in the platform like EA, Gameloft and recently Activition among others, of course it makes it harder for the indie devs to keep up with them graphically speaking! It's every indie's wish that big companies to stay away from the platform!
It´s also a consumers wish. Not everyone wants to play overhyped shooters non stop. A few good indie devs? You must be kidding me, there are not just a few but many independent devs producing excellent stuff each and every month for us to enjoy. Sure, there are some lame games aswell, but this is to be expected.
Most companies are not even using the graphic power the first generation devices had. Just look at Real Racing and compare that to the more recent racers. The progress you see is very little. It seems, that companies like EA produce crap which runs sluggish even on the 3GS and which is barely playable on older devices, while smallers devs prove, that with tons of work put into the project, you can create great and smooth graphics even on older devices. On consoles, this works differently. Since you only have one hardware platform for several years, you can learn to optimize for that platform. Games look better and perform better with the years going. On the iPhone, many of the bigger companies produce mediocre games for the current hardware platform. Instead, they should focus on developing for the first generation devices and when they master these, go on. Just take a look at racing games on the PSP, than look at Real Racing and then at Need for Speed Undercover or Shift. Both NFS games look like a joke on the iPhone, compared to the PSP version. And they perform like sh*t.
Partly because I still only have a 1st gen iPod Touch, Bombardiers Guild was created to run smoothly on that. This includes a physics engine, tons of particle effects (each trail has at least 5 layers), and - the biggest performance killer - an AI constantly running in the background. The 3GS can run all that and way more, still maintaining a smooth 50fps. There's a limit to what you can fit on the screen, however - there's no point bump mapping textures if you can't see the effect (not that we would for BG). I think the tablet device is where you'll see the jump in graphics, even if it has the same specs as the 3GS: suddenly it makes sense to offer 4 player, 8 player, 16 trails on the screen, etc etc, which would be near pointless on the small screen.
I beg to differ. Consumer interests will stand in the way of progress, because as long as most users still use older devices, there is no point in developing that many games for the latest hardware. You have to understand that many users are stuck in a contract with their older iPhone, so they possibly won´t update anytime soon. And as i said earlier: Better graphics will not make a bad game any better, even if todays gfx fancy kids seem to think that way. Jet Car Stunts is great as it is by the way, a really fun game.
It's the consumer's wish for the Big companies to stay away from the platform? What are you smoking? It's the indie dev's wish and nothing else!
I´m smoking nothing at the moment as i´ve got no weed left. I´m not a developer, and i still want big companies to stay the hell away from the platform, as i´d love to see more independent games to appear. So yeah, this is my opinion about it. I hope you learned something. Apparently you want to have more of those big franchises on the iDevice, fine, thats your opinion, but this doesn´t give you the right to speak for everybody else. Oliver already stated it, big companys like EA deliver sloppy ports of their games anyway, so it seems like they don´t bother much, or simply fail in optimizing their shitty code for the iDevice.
Why would you want them to stay away? Will their games existence on the platform affect your enjoyment of your indie games? It's a win win situation for the consumer as it offers more choices right?
Actually, I think we need both. If indie developers aren't pushed, they won't innovate. Frankly, without the big guys I fear that all we would see are the lowest-common-denominator type apps.
Exactly. It makes the game harder for them and forces them to sweat more but it's a good thing for the consumers. For the indies it's Keep up or get out!
One should think so, but i fear that once we have many big companies on the App Store, developing an independent game won´t be worth the effort in the first place, as it probably won´t get the attention it needs. Thats highly speculative, mind you, but it won´t make it any easier for sure. Just think about it. How do you generate hype for your game? Well, you need to buy advertisement on big sites, get reviews, get featured on TV maybe, and so on. Most indies simply lack the funds for any extensive marketing campaign, so based on marketing, they will never be able to compete with the big boys. They might deliver a better game, but what good does that do if noone notices it?
"If you build it, they will come". If an indy dev makes a great game it will get noticed. I don't think major companies (especially if they are taking the platform seriously) will cause any damage at all to indy devs. A good game is a good game...even with the glut of crap on the app store the cream rises to the top more often than not.
If an indie develops an innovative game like Spider, word of mouth will handle the marketing for them!
If anything, the big guys are, producing apps that the indie developers, for the most part, won't touch. I am not really interested in gimicky apps. In other words the big guys are putting out apps that are more than just an intro to computer modeling. I personally have never seen a farting boob app on other systems.
Well, i don´t consider a "Farting App" a legitimate app myself. But besides those crappy joke apps, there are a lot of great indie gems on the store. The Creeps, Flaboo, Tilestorm, Blockoban, Jet Car Stunts to only name a few. Word of mouth is a great thing, but i doubt it will be as effective as huge advertisement campaigns. Well, we will see where this is going to anyway.
Or that controversial 'Crying Baby' app and the 'I am Rich' app for that matter. Fact is Iphone has became a haven for a thousand of useless apps made by Indie devs that just learn how to program and thinks of the platform as a revenue for a quick buck! Imagine how many average joe suddenly decides to program for the iphone after learning that the Ishoot dev earned 800,000 $$$!
Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. Good games get buried all the time because the majority of consumers make their purchase decisions based on brands, not the quality of individual titles. Observe the Top Grossing games for US on December 26th: 1) NOVA - Gameloft 2) Call of Duty (Zombies) - Activision 3) Need for Speed Shift - EA 4) Avatar - Gameloft 5) Tetris - EA 6) Battleship - EA 7) Bejeweled - PopCap 8) The Sims 3 - EA 9) Madden NFL 10 - EA 10) Rock Band - EA 11) NBA Live - EA 12) Where's Waldo - Ludia 13) Scrabble - EA 14) Cartoon Wars: Gunner - Blue GNC 15) The Simpsons Arcade - EA 16) Doodle Jump - Lima Sky 17) Need for Speed Undercover - EA 18) Touchgrind - Illusion Labs 19) The Game of Life - EA 20) Labyrinth 2 - Illusion Labs 21) Driver - Gameloft 22) UNO - Gameloft 23) Words with Friends - Newtoy Inc. 24) 2XL ATV Offroad - 2XL Games 25) Pets LIVE: 60 Master Points - Storm8 18 games from major publishers, ~4 indie games I doubt the above list would look quite the way it did if only the quality of the games was the major deciding factor. Anyway, this discussion is derailing from the topic. The doom of indies should be another thread
