I didn't have time to read through all the posts, however here are two cents about the publisher/price stuff. From my point of view, for an indie developer is really difficult to be noticed among the huge amout of applications that arrives on the apple store every day. Being reviewed by websites such as TouchArcade might help (and I believe this is the reason why they give so much attention to independently published games), but in general it is a matter of luck. A lot of really good games get lost in the pit after a few days, and maybe they come back to life after months thanks to some lucky coincidences. Having a huge publisher such as EA behind you, gives you the right fuel to focus on the development of the game and don't think about marketing and visibility, that will be taken into account by the huge publisher. Which is not that bad for an idie, as long as delivering high quality games is usually the first goal for indipendent developers. However a big publisher can be a double-sided weapon: sometimes they help "too much" (pushing the game in the direction they believe will make the game sell more - and most of the time they do that 'cause they are *convinced* it will sell more with the changes), and therefore the development time increases (along with the costs). Then they usually require a big % of the income (even if not such as big as what happens for PC/XBox/PS* games). All this stuff makes the price to increase a lot, because the more you invest (was it time, money whatever) the more usually you want to have back. And having a big publisher and a nice game seems to be the right mix for a high priced game. That said, I'm totally for independent developers that publish the game independently, but there should be more support from the users - or developing a game such as this one (which look awesome from all point of views - and I'm not for this kind of games) will be impossible and too risky (I guess they didn't develop this in 2 months during free time ... ). Again, really good job - I wish you all the best!
I just wanna play the game! Haha but yeah I'm sure they're fine with a big company publishing their games. A ton more people will buy it too thus making more fans which is always good
It seems like EA is doing well with Shank so far ... and I'm sure the team involved in iPhone publishing is different from the main one Let's see ...
Is it so hard to understand? They are publishing with EA Partners. That will allow them to be in control of their own game. They will continue own the IP. I believe they still control the price as well. But EA is giving them more tools and a bigger budget. That way the game will be great and EA gets a fraction of the money. Everyone's happy!
Sounds good to me, i haven't been on TA in a while, and i was hoping that the time that i came back this would be out...but i guess not.
you impatient idiots...the release date is 'Summer 2010'. At least where I live it's still summer for a good month or so. Mirror's Edge has been a ridiculous delay but this game, knowing it has had to be adapted for iPad and has to go through the procedures to be published by EA has had an understandable one.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/08/jamil-moledina-interview-1.ars Should be an interesting read for many, EA on what EA actually does which this kind of stuff.
