You folks complain when you can't buy a super quality game at a super cheap price. You claim it's the market that drives the prices and yet you demand the market bend to your own personal take. 99 cent games are great. Most are worth just that. Some are worth a lot more. The IPad is going to have some great stuff written for it. I'm Looking forward to all the hard work those developers are putting in and I will gladly pay for quality and the experience on the larger screen. No slight to the IPod users. I am just saying the attention is going to shift a bit. If that isn't obvious to you now...it will be before long.
Now this I agree with. This I agree with as well. But saying that the "attention is going to shift a bit" is a completely different thing then saying "Will have the lions share of apps and games written for it for awhile" or "It just won't get the attention from developers like the IPad will." or even "it's going to take a back seat to the IPad for quite some time. It might even have to sit in the trunk. "
For starters, do you think developers care that people on a forum bitch about prices? Go to any enhursiast forum on the internet, whether its gaming, movies, music, comics, cars, sports, and there will be people bitching about something. It's half the reason people go to forums. The fact taht people bitch about price is irrelevant. You clearly do not understand how economics work. There is nothing wrong with people demanding a low price, just as there is nothing wrong with developers wanting to charge a higher price. Things end up settling somewhere in the middle where gamers are happy and developers are making money. I don't really get what you are trying to say other than, "we're cheap bastards and we're screwing developers." If developers felt they were getting screwed they would've left iPhone development by now. I'll ask again, do you care to actually respond to now multiple people stating that the economics do not line up with your theory that these high prices will stick to the iPad? Explain why you think that is. What is going to stop developers from dropping prices or putting on sales as like what happens on the iPhone side? Without that explanation you sound like an idiot.
I'm not Mr. Obvious, or obvious at all, and I agree with everyone who sees the iPad app economy settling into something that's more similar to the iPhone's but it IS possible to make a case for the opposite. Maybe some sort of cartelesque price fixing? Or maybe moving away from universal binaries and using iPhone versions as a loss-leader for the more expensive iPad apps?
The problem is there has to be collaboration between developers for this to work. If the app store was similar to the console market, which is run by 3 console manufacturers and a handful of major publishers (EA etc..), then settling on a standard price is much easier. The console market pretty much has standard price points and often similar timelines for how games reduce in price over time. This is easier to handle because of the smaller amount of parties involved. PC gaming on the other hand is a little more varied in price as things are not as centralized. Because of the fact that there are so many app developers and with limited advertising, top sales lists and featured lists in iTunes are huge for driving sales. This helps games made by smaller developers, like Flight Control, get millions of sales. There is no way to reign in these developers and control price fluctuation and set up a cartel type system in this market, it is just too big. As I've said a number of times now, the only way to force higher prices is for Apple to come in and take control of pricing. Otherwise, the counter argument for the fact that iPad prices will drop is just not feasible.
Isn't there the potential for that though? Looking at the iPad apps available, most of the titles fall under the banners of maybe 4 or 5 publishers. Plus, the reliance on social networking backends mean most games will either use OpenFeint or Plus+ or Crystal. Is it that hard to imagine those independent developers realizing that they stand to gain more than they'd lose by making a grassroots effort to establish a viable standard minimum price point? I can't believe I'm arguing in favor of price fixing and collusion.
I dont think you are arguing in favor of price fixing and collusion, but rather stating a possible alternative, which makes for interesting discussion. A lot of the games do fall under the banner of bigger developers, but there is still tons of games that do not, and those would still have the freedom to undercut. Same with the games that do not fall into one of the social networking systems. Having some games not fall into those groups hurts that effort since its a free for all on who gets on the top downloads list and therefore more attention. Price fixing without Apple intervening I think would be very hard to accomplish here. Had this happened at the beginning of the app store back in 2008, then it would've been much easier. At this point, I think most people expect the market to react as it does, and if price fixing did occur, I think sales would plummet. I can't speak for everyone, but I know that myself and many others came into this market looking for a cell phone or mp3/multimedia device, and discovered at some point later on that there was a thriving gaming market. If prices rose to a point where I didn't find the price worth the game and the experience of playing on the iPhone, I would move on to something else. I think a key reason for the success of iPhone gaming is the price, which allows most to overlook the fact that iPhone games are in most cases far inferior to games on the DS or PSP. If they started charging $10-20 for most iPhone or iPad gmaes, I would just move to DS/PSP gaming. So in other words, is it possible for big publishers and the social networking to collude and start fixing prices? Maybe, but I find it highly unlikely unless they find a way to get rid of those games/developers that aren't tied to one or another. If that did happen, I think you would see significant drops in sales as a result, which really wouldn't be of much benefit to developers either.
Easy to imagine, hard to enforce. There are just too many independents who came come in with a Flight Control or a Bryce Manor and eat their lunch. Cartel's just don't work where the barrier's to market entry are so low.
To me, the crux of the problem is publishers are all too willing to play into the sucker's game of trying to arbitrarily determine how much a game is worth. When you're playing in in a market where the customers sometimes determine the value of a game based on the size of its binaries, all the rules go out the window. Undercutting is an interesting dynamic to the open market of the App Store but I'm not convinced it would play that much of a factor if the right companies were willing to take a stand against the inevitable race to the bottom. I don't think there's much overlap between an indie darling like Spider or Space Miner and a larger budget title like, say, Plants vs. Zombies. I'm not sure the typical App Store customer would pass on PvZ in favor of a less expensive Flight Control if Popcap were to steadfastly refuse to lower the price of their game. If someone wanted to play PvZ badly enough (and I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't), I can see them willing to pay a premium to do so rather than face the alternative of not playing it at all.
Unless you have standard pricing, there is no other option than the developer making a decision on what they think a game is worth. If they feel that sales are suffering by a high price, they'll drop it and so on. I can guarantee you sales for PvZ would decrease if the price was higher. Some consumers would buy it no matter what, but many would pass if they feel they could get something else enjoyable for a lower price. Plus over time as interest drops and more games gain attention, its normal for prices to fall in any gaming market, consoles included. Nobody would buy a 2 year old Xbox 360 game for $60 unless it was something like Halo 3, and I believe that has dropped by now. The same could be said here. Even if Popcap or other developers try to take a stand to not drop price early on, it would eventually lead to drastic sales decreases over time as newer and better games come out. This is opposed to the current pricing where its a very good price for a new game and is low enough to where even months or potentially years after release, it is low enough to still garner attention.
There is so much buzz about iPad!! But I think it could be good for iPhone gaming, if a developer make a sweet game (or app) for the ipad they can port it to the iPhone...... Cause there some new ipad games I've never seen on the iPhone
Sigh. Yet another long-winded person who still doesn't get it! The iPad is not intended to be a laptop replacement. It is intended for entertainment: reading books, browsing the web, playing games, watching movies, listening to music. Therefore, it doesn't need an OS like Windows or Mac OSX so that it becomes "more useful." Those of us who are planning to buy an iPad are smart enough to realize that we are buying an entertainment device. If you want a laptop, buy a laptop. The iPad is not a laptop. It doesn't need to "evolve" into a laptop. Not sure why people still don't get that...
Tell that to everyone touting iWorks and the other productivity apps for the thing. I for one think its a joke to push those products, but if productivity apps are being help up as key apps for the product, then it is coming dangerously close to be marketed as a laptop replacement to some degree. None the less, entertainment purposes or not, the iPad is to large to be a mobile device, yet it is using an OS that has limitations in place for a mobile platform. It doesn't need full Mac OSX, but it does need multitasking and flash support among other things. The OS needs to evolve past the limits placed on it with the iPhone in mind, or the Ipad truly is nothing more a glorified iPod Touch with a larger screen, higher resolution and better specs. I don't know why people like YOU don't seem to get that.
Already does I think it's already hurting the iPhone. The devs seem to be focusing on ipad the past few months. Sure it has better picture and specs but so doesn't the 3gs and they are not utilizing it's power but they are making ipad games. What happened to the 3gs? I for one feel I wasted my money since the only difference between the 3g & 3gs is a stupid compass and the apps run a little smoother. Bottom line is if they are using the ipads power for better games and still not using the iPhones full potential then it already hurts the iPhone.
Charles Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Co., says the target audience for the iPad is young teens and adults, who would previously buy the iPod Touch. If Apple takes a hit on iPod Touch sales, that's not a problem, he says. "The iPad has a higher price point and bigger profit margin." Taken from an article on USA Today online.
Speaking as a developer, I find the iPad to be a very enticing device to create apps for. It's got a huge screen compared to the iPhone and it's got multitouch, unlike any of the other tablets out there. The two together offer all sorts of possibilities that you just can't do anywhere else. So yeah, if a lot of people buy my app for the iPad, then I'm going to be focusing my development time on that. On the other hand, it's going to be a small market for a while. Just take a look at the Touch Arcade forums. Currently, 366 people are viewing iPhone/iPod games. And 22 people are viewing iPad games. And that's on *launch day* for the iPad. If I were a smart developer, then I'd stick with the iPhone. But I'm mostly doing this as a hobby and the iPad has a lot of potential that I want to explore -- especially with multiplayer games, which are of particular interest to me.
- I have a TV to watch movies. - I have an Ipod to listen to music - The Ipad is useless at browsing the net cause it has no flash support, so I have a PC for that - What ever happened to reading a book? I mean I hate reading for long a long period of time, looking at a back lit screen - I have a PC or a console to play Proper games. You say the Ipad is to be portable, but it is no more portable than a small laptop which does far more. You still need a case to carry it and it isn't much lighter. Most importantly my Iphone does all this and it is a phone which fits into my pocket and peoples Ipods do all this too and they can have their in their pockets. Just another overhyped apple fanboi product.
Would love to work on an Ipad game. Just the thought of a larger screen makes things really interesting. But yeah, right now the market ust be small.
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=50396 This. This link to a thread here on TA will make (hopefully) you think otherwise...and i'm pretty sure the iPad has HTML5. Correct me if im wrong, someone! I honestly don't think it will hurt the iphone in terms of NEW developers. Since they might want to start out small and learn the coding language, they would start with the iphone, then slowly work on an iPad app. But of course that is just my thought process (if i was becoming a dev, anyway)
