Universal Gunpowder (by Rogue Rocket Games)

WOW, 3 weeks after release date and the game's already on sale for 1,99€ (from 4,99€). Now that's a kick in the face for early adopters, isn't it? I just didn't expect such "politics", now imagine my disappointment...

 

Come on Dude, that's a bit harsh... I'm sure you've been around the AppStore more than five minutes and realise that dev's do these things as a pure last resort tactic to keep the game from plummeting out of site. I've looked through this thread and you're quite involved throughout, you haven't seen the dev commenting how hard it is to keep a good game in the public eye? Think of it this way, you were lucky enough to truly support the game as an early adopter.

If the game was number 1 on the charts and raking in the cash then I'd see your point, but sadly I don't think that's the case. I apologise if I've come across rude, that wasn't my intention. I was just a little annoyed and don't feel it's right that you take it out on the developer for trying to do the best for their game in the insanely crazy and competitive AppStore market.

 

The Son of Anarchy: I'm not taking it out on the developer, I'm just saying I'm disappointed and that I didn't expect it. I understand the tactics. I wrote it on multiple occasions in different threads that I'd prefer the launch sale instead of this. I know this is not as obvious as with Dustoff Vietnam when the price went down for 66% the next day after release, but it still doesn't feel right. Not to mention, there's over 4300 players according to leaderboards on GameCenter and the actual number of game owners must be much higher, so I wouldn't say the developer's in urgent need for an attention.

Yes, you're right about me being involved, I bought the game the very first day because I love it. I bought it actually twice, for me and for my son. And don't get me wrong, it's easily worth its asking price (4,99€), but it's not about that. I'm just saying it doesn't feel right to do this to early adopters. That's why I'm a fan of launch sales. Or the Waynward Souls, that's even better example. They're never going for sale, instead of that (to honour the early adopters) they're going to increase the price with every new content update. And that's what I like. I understand how hard it is for premium titles these days on the AppStore, that's why I support premium titles as much as I can. So this is not about price, it's about principle. I didn't expect this and that's why I'm disappointed. When I found out there's an IAP for unlocking bonus stage, I wrote about it because I didn't like it. If it's not obvious, I care about the game so I'm just expressing my opinion on the matter.

 

Hey there. I'm sorry, I didn't expect it to have this effect, and as a open and vocal supporter of our game, I feel bad it's made you feel this way. But to be clear, this isn't a permanent discounting, it's a 1 week sale, which will be supported by a press release coming out a bit later today, and price will be returning to $4.99 in a week. I had thought the press note would have gone out before but Apple doesn't let you control the time of day for the promotional pricing to start. Oops.

The fact is, we weren't planning on doing this pricing strategy from the start, but the reality is that sales declined rapidly within the first week, which I guess happens to almost everybody, despite rave reviews universally by reviewers (and, mind you, from a peak sales rate that wasn't going to blow anybody's mind).

You can't, unfortunately, use the GameCenter numbers to show anything (in fact there are more players in GameCenter than there are total purchases of the game thus far). Without getting into the full spread of real numbers, our stats suggest that pirates outnumber honest players nearly 20:1, so that should give you an idea. Here's a hilarious statistic to give you an idea. In Asia, we have sold a total of about 20 copies as reported to us by Apple. Our stats suggest there are 10,000 "users" in Asia. sigh.

I'm not telling you any of this to garner your pity, we don't want that. I feel your honesty should be met with honesty in return. And you should be a little irritated. WE are a little irritated that this is the reality of it.

The last thing I want to say is that we're a very small company, and there is no person here that is not a game maker. So things like pricing and marketing decisions are largely made by me, (Hi, my name is Rich btw, one of the CoFounders, and primary developers). So I want to personally thank you for standing behind us, and bearing with us as we learn how to navigate this market, and for your honest thoughts!

 

Rogue Rocket "The last thing I want to say is that we're a very small company, and there is no person here that is not a game maker. So things like pricing and marketing decisions are largely made by me, (Hi, my name is Rich btw, one of the CoFounders, and primary developers). So I want to personally thank you for standing behind us, and bearing with us as we learn how to navigate this market, and for your honest thoughts!"

Its nice to hear straight talk from small developers as they try and navigate the world of major game devs. Designing a great game is sadly just a small part of the whole equation of being successful. I think these type of candid conversations and knowing that you as a dev really care about how players react and feel, goes a long way. Hopefully you can garner some more attention as you've done an excellent job with theme, gameplay, appearance, and most importantly hitting the fun factor out of the park.

 

I appreciate the positivism! We love what we do, and we try to do it and still be nice guys about it. =)

 

oh man! nom'd for Game of the Week! Please help us go vote! Psyched and honored!

 

I was the first one to nominate the game so you've got my vote for sure. And btw, when I switched from beta to updated version, I lost my progress completely even though I had a backup of the previous version, but as turned out Apple made restrictions to documents, so it's not possible to backup save data anymore (in iOS 8.3). So I went back, made the downgrade to iOS 8.2 and I'm starting from scratch again, but I don't care because this game is awesome, just so you know

 

Wow that sucks. sorry that happened, but thanks yet again for supporting us!

 

Hey, does anybody here follow any YouTube channels for mobile games? I hear Youtube is a great resource for reaching people interested in games, but I don't know who the popular ones are for iOS in particular.

 

The more established ones are AppSpy, Touchgameplay, IGV, lonniedos and of course TA when they occasionally do videos. There are smaller channels too, folk like AppUnwrapper, Redribbon.

 

If it was universal I'd buy right this moment but sadly all of have is a iphone 6. Game looks great though.

 

I really wish we could make it universal. I mean, we COULD, there's no technical reason not to, but we did some tests putting the game on the smaller devices but it just seemed too hard to play.

 

Hi guys and gals. If you would like to help us out, we could use more positive reviews on metacritic. We're basically trying out all sorts of things to try to elevate awareness of the game, and this is one of them. Of course, only be honest in your reviews, but if you feel encouraged to do so, here's the link:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/ios/gunpowder

 

Lately, we've been thinking that maybe we should just try making it Universal iPad/iPhone/iPodTouch. There's a legitimate issue that it won't be nearly as fun on the smaller devices, but I wanted to see what the devoted followers of the iOS game scene here think.

Have you come across any games that clearly are designed with a bigger play space in mind, yet allow you to buy it and play it on smaller devices? If so, was it generally regarded as acceptable if it's up front about it in the description, or does this result in a bad perception of the game?

 

Would you like to try out a iOS Universal build of Gunpowder? Please contact me with a private message so I can get your information to invite you to the Beta through Apple's Testflight. The goal is to let some people play on their iPhones or iPod Touches and see how they feel it plays. ie, is it good enough that we should update Gunpowder to be a Universal app for real!

In exchange for your help, we'll give you a code good for a free copy when it's released. I know a few people here said they would have bought it already if it was universal.

 

I can't imagine to play this game on my iPhone. But I don't like gaming on my iPhone in general, so what do I know, right? I mean, I've got like 30+ games on my iPhone, but they're all small casual games to pick up for a few minutes while waiting in a car or whatnot. I have no interest to ruin my experience with this game on smaller screen than iPad mini with retina. And I wouldn't recommend to do so to anyone else. There's a lot of stuff happening on the screen, a lot of details and you're still controlling the game just with your finger, so it's not gonna be as precise as on bigger screens.

This game fits the iPad family perfectly. Don't succumb to peer pressure to make it universal. I don't think it's worth the possible consequences of players' issues with the game on smaller screens eventually. But I understand it's not my call, I'm just saying how I see it from where I'm standing. In the end, the decision is yours and yours only.

But yeah, it's a smart move to run a Beta test first to see different opinions. You won't go wrong with Beta test I guess. Anyway, I'd be ready to expect some negative feedback though.

 

Hey. Yeah there's a reason why we launched originally only on iPad. It's just better there, that's a fact. The question is, would people rather be able to play it on their phones with a bit less great an experience vs not being able to play it at all. We would probably note on the description that really it needs to be played in iPhone 6 / 6+. iPhone 5 is just way too small. I played it a bit on an iPhone 6, and it's still fun but definitely things are getting very small and more challenging.

The reason for this experiment is less due to any kind of pressure and more to do with chatting with people who have successfully supported a premium game. We were chatting a bit with the Badlands guys for example. Turns out going iPad only is extremely challenging, as they have been losing popularity pretty substantially to "phablets" like the iPhone 6+. So we figured it was worth at least seeing how people reacted. If people hate it, we won't do it, and if they feel the tradeoff is fine, then we will. We don't want to assume we have all the answers. =)

 

Sure. As I wrote earlier, it's a smart move to run a Beta test and you'll get your answer. In fact, you probably can't lose even if you release the game for iPhone right away. If people asks for it and you're able to give it to them, why not to do that, right? Anyway, good luck with this experiment, I hope everything goes well. Fingers crossed. And please, keep us in the loop. Personally, I'm quite curious how this turns out.