Lower app prices do make it harder for developers to want to dedicate more time and resources in polishing their titles. As well as coming up with unique titles. That's why you see so many copycat apps. For the dev, it becomes a matter of economics. They can only survive if they can generate proper revenues. Larger companies have the advantage of cost reduction through their infrastructure and name recognition. There is still hope out there that some developers will take more risk. But with the high volume of $0.99 titles, I fear the consumer is being trained (as well as developers) that $0.99 is the default price for things.
Nor does Pac-Man. What's your point? I've never heard such a load of drivel as I have on this thread. Try to get a fact through your heads: DEVELOPMENT COSTS AND PRICING HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER. Does a U2 album that cost $30m to record cost 10 times as much to buy as one that some punk band made in their garage for $500? No, of course it doesn't. And that's because pricing is a completely separate economic calculation from dev cost. In the last 6 months, I've spent about $60 on disc-based games for my Xbox 360. In the last TWO months I've spent $170 in the App Store, mostly on games costing $0.99 or $1.99. App Store pricing is the best thing to happen to gaming in 20 years, and yet it's under constant attack from idiots demanding to pay more. Great. Let's get all iPod games made by big companies with huge budgets and selling for 20 bucks, and maybe if we're really lucky they'll become as generic, formulaic and tedious as mainstream videogames are. If you want PSP games, go buy a damn PSP.
exactly....i dont care for premium games because my ipod touch is and IPOD not a PSP.....i would rather have 10 .99 games than 1 9.99 game because im not looking for an xbox 360 type game, im just looking to have some fun while listening to some tunes. So all you crybabies stop, maybe someday this will become the new PSP but for now the games are just for entertainment purposes only and if they are cheap and good quality than thats a good deal
NM I gotta tell you, I am going to be buying more games at the $10 price point. The Appstore is just developing into the same type of market as on the PC, well partially at least. Real Arcade and all those cheap games are making a frickin killing. They are also constantly selling. Yet the big boys are still around..... I think more quality games will come out, and as long as developers don't screw us around with prices (man its annoying to buy a game at 8pm, then at 12am see its on sale for 1/10 the cost), everything will turn out alright. Devs are doing it to themselves by not being patient. If the game is GOOD, I mean actually worth it, people WILL buy it.
While I agree with what is being said and I am sad that companies don't take the risk of creating a high price premium game, there are plenty of quality games for .99 that are worth much more.
Part of the problem here is that the AppStore reaches to a broader audience than most console or PC games. There are people that don't own any gaming systems at all out there, yet they'll have an iPhone loaded with games. There's also a lot of different psychological aspects going on with how people make AppStore purchases. This is why it's so hard to compare the iPhone or iPod to other gaming platforms: 1) Tons of free and lite versions of games and apps available. Sure, they might only last a few minutes...but for people that only play games a few minutes at a time...this might be all they need 2) Sale pricing. There's a lot of data behind the psychology of sales and ".99" pricing. People who don't even particularly like an item might buy it when it's on sale due to perceived value. If a person feels like they are "saving" 50 to 75% off of retail pricing...they make impulse purchases. This is a common phenomenon seen in retail settings with coupons and sales. 3) Indie devs. They are simultaneously the greatest benefit and worst problem of the AppStore. Good devs will come out with unique ideas and great games. They should be rewarded. Bad devs will come out with horrible games and crappy clones. They should not be rewarded. Unfortunately the AppStore's marketing model doesn't always work out in the best interest of developers who are pushing the envelope and making the iphone and ipod a better and more rewarding gaming platform. The other problem with some indie devs is their lack of business experience. They are prone to make a lot of poor choices that a bigger company would know to avoid. 4) Distribution model. There is no guarantee that a dev can reach their target audience. Even if a dev makes the perfect game for a specific audience, there's no guarantee that those people will ever even hear of the game. This is different than other products where people who are looking for the item can do a search on google, find the product's website, and then directly make the purchase....or go to a retail store, see the item on display, and make a purchase.
Let me know which word(s) you didn't understand and I'll talk you through the sentence nice and slowly.
I have to play the Devil's advocate here. Yes, a lot of quality games have reduced in price to the point where any additional support/content is questionable, however the truly outstanding games have made their developers enough money to continue creating great games. Real Racing, Flight Control, iDig It are hits and have generated significant revenue because of their quality. Real Racing is still selling at its original price. Those who release average games may be discouraged from doing so, yes, but high quality games will stand out and will be successful. I bet that a lot of people read reviews and opinions of other gamers before buying the game. High quality games will generate a large number of positive reviews and that will drive the sales. Khalid Sheick and the like can release 5 apps a day and not make any money, but you release one good app and you are laughing. Look at Blimp - just released and is already an instant hit. Even when the price goes up it will still sell, because most people are prepared to pay an extra buck or two for truly good product and in case of Real Racing 9 more bucks.
I've only had an iPhone for a little over a month, but I'll still chime in. I couldn't agree more about the price point issue. It's a shame that devs can't get a fair asking price for their games for fear of being ostracized by the .99 cent crowd. Still, I think if the game stands on it's own, it will sell regardless of it's price. I've purchased a handful of games for $1 that I wouldn't have otherwise bothered with, but after playing the LITE version of Zen Bound, I would have paid for the full version whatever the cost. I honestly can't complain. In the last month I've been able to try over 50 games. Of those 50 I purchased maybe 5. The rest I found on my own. I've spent a total of $13 on games so far and I have had hours of fun. What's to complain about. Does anyone remember when they had a normal flip phone?! Games were like $5.99 and they suuuuuucked! Now we have access to polished and playable games for $1. That's a friggin steal. I'm in my 30's and I have a job, so I've never not had $1. I'm not in the "I can't afford this" catagory and hopefully never will be. They way I see it, I could spend $1 a day on Apps for 60 days straight. At the end of that time I would have gotten WAY more enjoyment for my money than say a PS3 game I most likely would have played for a few hours then abandoned soon after. Maybe it's just because it's all new to me, but as of this moment, I'm lovin' it.
Your previous post which started this argument says: See? You were talking about the $.99 barrier. We tried to argue but you changed the topic on us to something totally different. Zenonia is not at all a cell phone port. It's an iPod Touch original. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenonia. You can't make that point that Zenonia's a mobile phone game in this argument, because it's platform IS a mobile phone. Therefor, your point is completely irrelevant. I may not have played Gang$tar, but I have played GTA games before, and a clone is not much different. You said a that a game needs to be longer than 3 hours to be polish or full fledged. Almost every one of Gameloft's games games last a lot longer than that, except for Midnight pool and Midnight Bowling. Gang$tar will be a sandbox game, which basically lasts as long as you want it to. Duh, of course the games I listed aren't out yet. That's why I said "UPCOMING" games. Resident Evil 4 lasts 4 hours? Isn't that again more than your three hour barrier? Once again, You said you doubted that there is a game that breaks the $.99 barrier. It doesn't matter what excuses you cook up to excuse these games from being over $.99. They are all over $.99 or will be over $.99. Therefor, all the points you just made are completely irrelevant to your original argument.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you...but I believe Zenonia *is* a port: Development Zenonia was developed and published by Gamevil. It is a port of a popular mobile game from South Korea.[4] Much of the time spent porting the game to iPhone was spent on translation.[2] That's from the wikipedia article that you linked.
Maybe apple should do what M$ did.Buy a few gaming co. and start producing psp quality games for the iphone.
Oh. Sorry. I was thrown off when I saw that its only platform was iPhone. Forgot that mobile phones weren't platforms. But still, just because it's a mobile phone, doesn't mean it's not a great game, like the person I responded to claimed.
Heheheh, if you guys spent your time gathering change instead of posting you'd be able to purchase the last of the premium games being released. I must state again, I feel devs are too impatient for money and drop the price and have too many sales. As a result consumers are spoiled. The people worrying about this impending doom of premium games make me smile. But I do agree it would be nice if Apple added a premium games section. You don't see bejeweled beside crysis at ebgames afterall.
