egarayblas, I think you make a really important point, specifically in regard to being 'serious'. At $0.99, there isn't a reason to do any research, no reason to read reviews, nor get opinions. Apps are cycled so quickly that word of mouth isn't even effective. If I could buy a shirt for $0.50, I probably wouldn't even bother doing laundry anymore. This is what the app store has become: disposable. The majority of the fault lies with the developers, myself included.
I don't think we should be too hard on ourselves, do remember the earlier point about the appstore setup being heavily geared towards forcing lower prices (through charts based on sales numbers). If Apple wanted it differently they could have arranged it so. I'm sure they're happy with this outcome, it means that if apps appear on other platforms developers would be forced to price them a lot higher, and so make Apple's devices all the more appealing... This might be quite naive, but I'm gonna say it anyway as I'd like to hear all your comments on it: Imagine for a second that games right now were all priced more "fairly", as lots of people have been talking about, so perhaps priced similarly to the way they were during the appstore's first six months. Bear in mind too while imagining this, that we are still at exactly the same point in the appstore's life (nearly two years in), and there are exactly the same number of apps out, they're just *all* more expensive. Could it be possible that in this situation developers actually wouldn't be making any more money? And additionally, the appstore wouldn't be as popular? I'm only asking this as everyone has talked about devalued pricing, but has never (from what I've noticed) stopped to ask the question as to whether a more expensive appstore would actually result in people spending more money overall. Isn't it possible that people would just be purchasing fewer games? I get the argument that it might help the quality games rise to the top more, maybe... I'm not convinced though, I think the vast majority of users (who aren't the sort of people on sites like this), unfortunately can't be bothered to research whether a game's good or not.
I and many many others said this would happen, the high ipad app prices has already started to crash the ipad appstore, prices are already dropping like bricks, in a few weeks the prices won't be much different to the iphone/touch market place, Good riddance to the high/greedy ipad prices, hello to the future of ipad pricing! Some may even say that if some developers wasn't as greedy as they were for the launch apps this crash might not have happened this quickly.....
Good to hear! Nice to see that some developers haven't fallen into the trap that many others have by over pricing thier apps, ipad users will be the judges and lower prices will be here to stay..... When I get an Ipad I will NEVER buy anything over £4.99, if it means I miss some apps then so be it...
LOL, someone has their panties in a twist.... The iphone/touch pricing is correct now and is why it is thriving, higher prices on the appstore will kill it, this is why apple want lower prices on the appstore and is why all ipad app/game prices are already dropping. And yes, $14.99 is way too much for a decent ipad game hence why sales of the expensive ipad games have been so bad, noone wants to spend those prices on ipad games, might as well get a psp or ds if your going to pay those kind of prices. $4.99 for a top ipad game should be the upper limit and I think this will be what happens in the next few months, buyers speak with their wallets..... P.S, sorry for the triple post
We can't even get in the Top 100 in any list with a free game getting over 500-1200 downloads a day in the iPad App Store. I don't even know how people are finding us. Only way I can is with the search function.
Its true... as much as people don't like low prices devaluing their apps, the app store would not be nearly as popular or have as many apps if they weren't as low as they are -- and the fact is, MANY of these apps ARE worth the low, low prices bc they are well, crap. If the prices were higher, obviously there would be a LOT less spending AND a lot less developing. Right now from personal experience, I can get 2-3 games whenever I want without even thinking about the financial hit. With 5-15 dollar games on average, you better believe I would be toning down my purchasing BIG TIME. Also, only higher content games could compete at higher prices, which would get rid of tons of high quality, pick up and play games we see at .99. From a developer standpoint, suddenly you can't make little pick up and play games because they have no place in a more expensive market. Also only known developers would be making a real impact because at higher prices, people would only go with companies they trust, like gameloft. Indie developers have a MUCH harder time in a more expensive market, because they are competing with more expensive, renowned talent. I actually think the app store IN THEORY works well right now with a nice mix of impulse buys, and deeper games you have to think about a bit before you buy. Another issue is that I think developers who price their game a bit higher blame their lack of success on the price first, before looking at the game itself and realizing it might just not have the appeal they thought it did, so they drop the price (which doesnt do anything other then a temporary spike in sales). If people want your game and think it looks cool, as long as it is priced fairly, they will buy it whether its 1 dollar or 3-5 dollars. As for the iPad prices, the "standard" 2-5x mark-up WAS too much imo. I think developers need to treat iPad games as their own entities, and price it what they think its worth, period, instead of as "upgraded iphone" games. IMO this means a pick up and play game like doodle jump should still cost 0.99. Now, that being said, I think the iPad has more potential for higher priced games and you can certain have "higher value" games on the iPad then the iPhone. I wasn't saying a game can't be worth 14.99, just saying i don't think that we've seen that yet.
Your number 31 in the free top 100 games category. And number 24 on that list is in the overall top 100. Your very close to entering the top 100 overall. Look go here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?id=25180&popId=44&genreId=6014
Wow, thanks for the info Zincous! I had been checking through the iPad only, which at the time I could not find Shroomz Deluxe. I appreciate the info!
You can see it from the iPad too. Go to the "Top Charts" tab. Then in the upper left hit "categories" and select "games". Then hit "show more" to keep going down the list until you get to number 31 and you can see your app And no problem, your welcome.
This isn't a naive question, it is one that is asked by economists. Fortunately we can arrive at an answer. Yes, people would be buying fewer games. However, those games would be of higher quality, purchases would be smarter and informed, reviews would get attention, word-of-mouth would be effective and marketing and promotion would have a bigger impact. Fewer games being purchased isn't a bad thing. Right now the app store is plugged up with crap, crap that drops an otherwise-worthy app from the NEW list prematurely. Timing is everything in the app store, and if your app happens to occur at a really bad time, it can get buried very quickly. At $0.99, games are in the same price range as the original Fart app. Seriously, this is a problem. So what can developers do? Build crappier games. Spending the effort to build your masterpiece very likely won't pay off. But if you can spend a weekend building a game, it will pay off very nicely. So this is the direction the App Store will continue.
I don't think the number of downloads is what you should be worrying about, focus more on the 40+ 1/2 star ratings instead. No one will buy a 1/2 star game, and most of the time I wont even download it to try for free. Ratings are everything.
Thanks for the feedback! However, I wouldn't say ratings are everything. We have a comic series that is highly rated (4.5 - 5 stars) and they sell one a day if we're lucky. Ratings are important, however.
Frankly, if this view is commonplace the iPad will be a flop. The device has the potential to be the platform for some truly groundbreaking software. After all it's the first available multi-touch screen where actual multi-touch can be considered truly practical. However if the majority of users are only willing to pay money that wouldn't buy them a fish'n chips meal it will be very hard for anyone to justify spending serious resources on the platform. If we consider the estimates talking about 4 million iPads sold in year one this might sound impressive, and it is. This doesn't necessarily mean it will be a financially sound platform to develop for though. We still don't know how many of the people who get an iPad that will actually be shelling out money at all. Let's be generous, let's say 25% of the iPad owners year one will buy games. This means a potential market of 1000 000 customers. Sounds incredible, I know but if 100 000 apps have to compete for those 1000 000 wallets it will be nigh on impossible for anyone to make money pricing their games at the lowest tier. Just look at the Nintendo DS. 125 000 000 devices, each and everyone sold just to play games. Every single owner will have to buy at least one game. They have less than 4000 titles to choose from(!) Frankly there are probably just too many of us developers catering the iPlatforms to make it financially worthwhile to the majority of us.
Then that is a shame because those thoughts are very commonplace right now, I think many of the developers out there are pinning hope on the ipad making them money when in reality it won't be any different to the iphone/touch market in a few months. The iphone/touch and soon ipad are not known for high priced games, the devices are doing well due to the low price of apps, if these prices rise sales will nose dive, something apple don't want and higher prices are not what consumers want, they simply won't buy. The iphone/touch/ipad are not dedicated gaming platforms, comparing them to a DS/PSP and their £29.99 games is very silly, look at Real racing for example, now compare that to Gran Turismo on PSP, no contest really is it, you pay more on the ds/psp because the games are proper games that last much longer. I don't know anyone (and I know a lot of iphone/touch owners) who would ever pay more than £5.00 for a top idevice game, this is exactly the same as comments on many gaming sites, e.g, neogaf, eurogamer, vgc, cvg, ign etc. I love my ipod touch to bits, I love gaming on it (i much prefer it over the ds/psp) but I also know that I wouldn't own one now if the apps cost more than they do now, the low cost of apps/games was one of the reasons I bought it and no doubt its the reason millions of others bought them too!
You can't have quality for cheap, this should be self-evident. There is no business case in developing a console-quality downloadable game for iDevices at the price points the consumers are willing to pay. No amount of whining is going to change that, strangely enough, paying the asking price would. Yes, there will be ports from other devices (like GTA:CW), because there may be a profitable business case in porting costs vs. App Store sales for games with recognizable brands. But original, high quality content comparable to downloadable games on established console platforms is not going to happen - ngmoco tried it, and have made it clear with their new strategy that premium original paid content doesn't work in this marketplace. And the only thing stopping the iDevices from being "proper" gaming platforms is not the technology, not the distribution channel, but only the consumers who are unwilling to pay for premium content. Gran Turismo on PSP didn't start from scratch, there are years of content and code development behind it. Real Racing is a new game, and by whining about its price and therefore forcing the developer to cut their price to try to make back the development costs, you are sending a message to the developer that they should not invest into a sequel that would improve on the first game. (Note, I don't speak for Firemint, and I'm only using their particular game to describe a generic line of developer reasoning). You would do well to understand that the interests of Apple are not the same as the interests of the developers. Apple welcomes all content and lets them fight it out to the benefit of those few who get up to top 25 - cut-throat content pricing only helps sell more iDevices. The house always wins, most of developers don't, and end up bankrupt. The situation is a sustainable business for Apple, and most likely unsustainable for a great number of iPhone developers. Bottom line: If you don't care about whose games you buy, then by all means, keep buying cheap crap from the latest developers trying to survive in this marketplace. If you care about quality and have respect for any particular developer and wish for them to keep developing better games in the future, stop complaining about pocket change and support the developer.
Exactly... even if devs DO make console quality games for higher prices (15-20 bucks), they still probably wont do well bc the majority of the idevice user base just doesnt want console games (or rather, they don't want to shell out the money that these games cost) -- i personally believe the best games for the idevices are ones that are "pick up and play with depth" bc those cater to the short game times of "on the go gamers" while still allowing someone to sit down and explore the game a bit without getting bored. Of course they don't have tons of content, but that doesn't mean it doesn't offer lots of play time and high quality. It also means the game probably isn't worth $10+ though. I just think devs have to be smart and realize WHO they are developing for. Don't you think in a way the current situation is forcing people to do this anyway? BECAUSE there is so much crap, all of those things are still quite important to find the good games. Ultimately, gamers will always go to websites and do research regardless of the prices, and casual players will usually pick up interesting looking games on a whim, for cheap. This won't change if developers start jacking up their prices. Also, another spin on the whole situation that imo is hurting the whole pricing aspect of the app store, is crappy games trying to sell for too much! Everyone only talks about good games lowering their prices to do better, but what about the crap that is charging 1.99, 2.99, 4.99, etc... as a consumer if i invested in a few crappy games for that price, it would be no wonder the public starts clamoring for lower prices. In fact, I might argue that there is more OVERPRICED garbage, then there is under priced gems. But then you might say "that is their fault for not doing research." But come on, the whole dynamic of the idevice market is that people are doing things on the go! They don't always have time to go to Touch Arcade, search the forums, and read a bunch of reviews to decide what game they want to buy to play on the subway.
LOL, so let me get this right, I (the consumer) should be happy spending more money on games because the developers "deserve" it? sorry but it doesn't work like that. And that's nice of you slagging off 75% of the appstore by calling it "cheap crap", there is plenty of top quality games for 59p, 99p, £1.99 and £2.99, is that cheap crap too? Look at Plants vs Zombies for example, a fantastic game that has hours of gameplay and lovely graphics, how much is that? £1.79p! and they (popcap) has sold record amounts (over 350,000 units in 24 hours) making them over £250,000 in profit (the rest went to apple and development). That is an example of a high QUALITY game selling at a very low price, the result? selling loads and making the developer a huge profit while pleasing consumers. Its not all about high pricing on the appstore, a concept not many in this thread (mentioning no names Frand) seem to understand, you do NOT have to sell your app/game for a lot to make a profit, theres 80 million iphones/touches out there, sell 25,000 decent quality games at £1.00 each and you have made a nice profit, much more than selling 100 games at £5.00 each because no one wants to pay a high price. And for your information Frand, I have bought many TOP games on the appstore and have spent well over £175 on the appstore in less than a month on apps BUT only on cheaper good quality ones, absolutely no shortage on them! I just make sure I keep clear from the high price ones which I feel are overpriced (street fighter for example), And lastly, YES! you can have quality for cheap prices, look at the following for example, all cheap yet very high quality (which I have bought) Angry bird, chop chop ninja, superfall, ragdoll blaster 2, tilt to live, skyforce, peggle, pvz, sentinel, space minor, the creeps, finger physics, spider, zen bound, words with friends, rebounce, train conduct, mini squadron etc, Then look at all the high quality FREE games out there, We Rule, Godfinger, Touchpets for example, yes you can buy items in these "free" games but you don't have too, all very high quality games! We Rule for example I have been playing every day for almost 2 months. I rest my case....
The business case for developing a new $0.99 - $1.99 game, compared to a premium title, does warrant the term. It's a game that's designed to be as bare-bones as possible, a one-trick pony. Here's a quote from the developer of MiniSquadron: "The way I see it, the iPhone economy has now given us it's own idea of what games are to be expected and what is possible - cheap, short, "distractions"/small-scale games not costing a lot to develop, leaving the longer, fuller on games to be taken on by larger studios with fat marketing budgets to make sure it sells. If you like that kinda thing great - but if like me, you like quirky, fun and individual efforts that aren't just a single level or a 60 second diversion, and if you don't like the shit games that get peddled out with a big name license - it might be a lot harder for them to come by." From the MiniSquadron blog. Plants vs Zombies would never have been an iPhone original. It is a port from an existing PC game which arrived to the App Store with huge brand visibility, being exactly what I wrote about in my previous post. It is a profitable port, not a profitable premium iPhone original. PvZ sells for a healthy 20€ on desktop platforms, and covered its development cost there. The numbers you quote make it clear you do not work in professional game development. A high-quality one-trick-pony easily costs $70 000 USD to develop in a timeframe of ~three months for a professional game studio. Considering Apple takes 30%, the game must sell at least 100k copies to even make back the cost of development. And remember, it's supposed to generate profit. The business case is certainly different for one man working on his spare time in his garage, but we are talking about the problems facing "real" and "proper" games, right? The fact that you quote quality titles being sold for pittance does not in any way prove that the games have managed to make back their development costs or generated profit on this platform. And there seem to be a fair amount of ports in that list as well (Sky Force, Peggle, PvZ and Angry Birds to note a few). Will you see a second title from any of the developers of the above titles? Or have they quit development and gone to look for new jobs? These kind or results take months or years to manifest themselves: failing as a game company due to low revenue isn't a head-on crash, it's usually a long struggle. Again, this supports what I wrote about in my previous post. The freemium titles you quote have been developed with venture capital investment, with the belief that the market will sustain this kind of business model as time goes by. It hasn't yet been proven that ngmoco can survive with a freemium strategy - we'll only see that once their latest $25M investment runs out. Which brings us right back to what I wrote earlier: If you respect a particular developer and want to see more and better original games from them, paying their asking price is the only way to show proper support.
No, the majority are not doing this. The majority buys what is seen within the App Store itself, through features and top lists. This is why it is so important to get into those lists and stay there. The people who do pay attention to reviews are in the minority, but it is a minority that is significant enough to to grant your entry into the coveted lists in the App Store. This minority needs to be targeted within an extremely short timeframe. This minority is insignificant over the longterm. Both of these statements are delusional. You take an example of a single highly anticipated game and act like ALL games can achieve that. In order to achieve those numbers, exactly 350,000 units of various other $0.99 games LOST their sales to Plants vs Zombies. There are 140,000 apps in the app store. The app store sells about $10 million worth of apps a day. Do the math. Here, I'll do it for you: That comes to $72 per game per day. Now, in order for any $0.99 game to make $1000 or more in a single day, they need to steal sales from 928 other games. The entire system is balanced- money does not magically appear from nowhere. The app store cannot sustain the success of even 10,000 apps, much less 140,000. The vast majority of developers are on the losing end. Some of them deserve to be there, some don't.
