I can't speak for everyone else, but we've stopped doing lite versions too. It's nothing to do with price dropping though. In our game, there is a learning curve. It's not a steep one but it's enough that we can't just throw in the highlights to some gameplay and expect the user to know what they're doing. The main game introduces stuff one thing at a time. So that leaves us with a prospect that our big "come and get me" demo would in fact have to be just a couple of tutorial levels and maybe some early "real" levels but without much content to look at. We realised that this will probably do us more harm than good. There are trailers, user made review videos, big site "pro" reviews and a low entry price. Anyone can see exactly what this game is about before buying, but they hopefully won't be put off by the less than stellar stuff we'd have to have in the demo.
In general I prefer the higher priced "primium" games. However I have noticed that the "freemium" model delivers more frequent bug fixes and content updates, while the primium priced games often release once with an bug fix update or two and are then left to stagnate. Primium game Devs are more likely to sit on any content updates for a sequel.
Well I got an iPod 4G when it came out as my first dip into iOS gaming and my first purchases were Infinity Blade and sone Gameloft games, all of them were about 5 a pop and looked super cheap to me when I took into account he price of almost every game ive got since the NES days. Then the appstore spoiled me a little when I learned of all the discounts and I almost turned to a 99c guy until I learned about and purchased King of Dragon Pass, a game I didnt knew anything about but hooked me way more than anything on my current gen consoles besides the Elder Scrolls and fallout games. Whoa, sorry for the wall of text but this game really pulled me from the dark waters, it made me realized that theres real quality in the appstore if you look for it.
I think we'll see more social gaming because it makes more money. Most of the freemium games in the top 25 grossing category appear to be social play games. Really it's hard to convince someone to buy $25 worth of virtual bullets to shoot. It seems like people would be a lot more inclined to pay that to build a cooler farm, town, city or car than their friends. Providing their friends can see their virtual investment.... To tell you the truth it makes no sense, to me. It makes a lot of $$$ though.
Picked up The Walking Dead (brilliant) for $5 and Justice League (bland/repetitive) for $3. Next up was going to be Elder Signs, Puzzle Quest 2 and perhaps Judge Dredd and Orc: Vengence, but I may get the Walking Dead bundle and finish my back catalogue first.
I'd take the old days, but that's really subjective: I'm not the person I was then. I'm fairly sure I got a better value for my buck out of the ~$50 (USD) I spent on Master of Magic (PC) than from any other game before or since, but that was at a time of my life when I could, would, and did spend an almost MMORPG-like amount of time on a single-player game. Frankly, I think the App store is still (relatively) good for indie developement, an that's what I care about. The best purchase I've ever made for iOS is still King of Dragon Pass for $10, and I almost wish I could play it the way I played Master of Magic, but that's just not where I am now.
^Yep thats depressing ! Who are these people who get addicted to adding cows to their fake farm on the internet etc ? And they annoy everyone (until you de-friend them) on Facebook with constant updates about their corn or pigs. Just bizarre.
well i get most premium games free like angry birds season, civilization revolution, ashphalt 6 and clear vision (freeappaday), and many more, or i just get them with gift cards i got for free, and i rarely buy games and when i do they always are on sale. the most i ever spent was on infinity blade on sale (thats 2.99$), and the most i ever bought was shrek kart by gameloft for 4.99$ but it was free since i used a gift card. infinity blade and shrek kart both went on sale after i got them, for both 0.99$ before, but it doesnt really matter since infinity blade is a console quality game and i poured a ton of hours into it, and shrek kart is really fun and i still play it now, 2 years later. i probably broke my habit since im getting mage gauntlet at 2.99$, 1000000 at 1.99$, and great big war game at 2.99$. but i still prefer 0.99$ games since theres many games at this price that are good, like archetype and ashphalt 7.
You're noticing two different methods of developing a game - games as a product and games as a service. The strange thing is that the lines between these two methods are blurring more and more all the time.
First app I bought was Pocket God and then I bought NOVA and realized how much depth there could be vs the 0.99 app.
I remember the days of the iphone 3g. Hero of Sparta 1 was $9.99 and the light version was a short demo. I remember games being around $10 for the premium ones (Real Racing 1) and about $3 to $5 for good titles like Space Miner. I wasn't so picky back then and anything on the app store seemed ahead of its time coming from a motorola razor. That's when mobile gaming on a touch screen was relatively new. Now I'm ridiculously picky about what games I get.
