@Frand - Thanks for those insights, I'm glad you took the time to write that down. I don't know a lot about development processes but when written in normal English, I enjoy reading about it.
Excellent post, especially about genre bias. I am definitely a core gamer, easily spend >$1000 a year on games. But I'm an action/adventure gamer through and through. The sight of an RPG or RTS configuration screen makes me fall out of my chair in a catatonic state of boredom. I honestly believe that the only route by which the iPhone/iPod Touch is going to see a regular stream of quality core-gamer games that will show good profits for developers is if/when major and semi-major publishers start making their new computer/console releases for the touch platform as well. This is how publishers leverage their assets and their advertising expenses. This is how it's been for any new gaming platform. It's not going to come solely from indie devs (fortunately, tho, indie devs have and will continue to come up with the occasional rare gem and hopefully reap the rewards). It's certainly not going to come from ports of 15- or even 5-year old games (Mac games being an exception since OSX and the Touch OS are similar; it might have been "easy" for Pangea to port their Mac titles to iPhone but there's no way it's cheap or easy to port a title from a console-centric franchise like Sonic to the iPhone, except maybe as a "dumbed-down" mobile game). I really don't get why RPG-gamers are calling for ports of FF one and two instead of calling for Square Enix, Bioware, etc. to start thinking about the iPhone when developing their next releases. I sure as hell don't want Raven or Epic porting their old games, I want their next games.
I undestand what you are trying to say. It isn't fair when you developers spend much time on your apps and don't get anything out of it. I don't completely agree with you though. Like previously stated some apps should come free even for a while. For example, if an app isn't popular, it could be free so people could see if it is great or not. I only expect a free app if that is what the developers promise.
Why customer can't expect something for nothing? May be some developers just like to develop games very much and they are willing to give away their game. What is wrong with that?
