Birdsoft Blog

Well, its 10 days later and I still am trying to play this AppStore game. I just submitted the first new update that I mentioned which addresses a couple of the main suggestions I have heard. The main problem that I’ve noticed is that you simply need to understand the 4 rules of gameplay to fully catch on and completely enjoy the game. This is also true on games that have caught on like Trism. I did stress this in the AppStore description but now I decided to make the help instructions show the first time you play the game. I also made the help 3 pages so it has bigger text and has a page for poker hand cheats.

I added to the game a new ’speed’ game mode as that was the favorite part of the game by some of the beta testers who reached it (about level 9 in the regular game). I also added a ‘Hard’ difficulty as the early levels are just not a strain with the amount of time you have once you have played it quite a bit. And finally a pause button is now available on the game play screen and the hand selecting and sliding was improved.

 I also submitted a ‘Lite’ version that removes the new settings for difficulty and game mode and only allows 3 levels. We’ll see if having a ‘trial’ type program really does spark sales. I am a firm believer in Trial versions, so I guess in following the AppStore rules, this is how they want to handle it.

 I had submitted the game to numerous review sites and did get a couple really good reviews but none of the game specific sites decided to cover it(yet?).  In fairness there are a TON of big ‘name’ games coming out right now, though less so right when it came out. At this point it appears that unless you had already built up the hype and are a ‘version 2′, or your developer is a big name like Atari or ngmoco, or your game is 3d, well you don’t quite get as much of a nod… Somewhat understandable, but it does make it hard to get any kind of ‘internet buzz’. I have done promotion code giveaways and google ads and other promotions, and have good reviews from customers who did purchase it. So… hopefully with my new upcoming submissions and the Lite version and more promoting I can turn this thing up.    

And the one true way to get more sales on the AppStore is to get sales. Make the Top100 list and your golden. Swim up there with all the good releases coming out and you’ve done something.  And with Apple controlling the prime ad and feature spots in AppStore and those mostly reserved for the same big names, its hard to figure out the real tricks.

 It definitely is a different game…

Ok, so Im working on an iPhone/Touch application, and Im finding it rather fun and exciting, to an extent.  I went through a lot of ideas of what my first iPhone application will be, and changed my mind about 4 times as I obviously have some great stuff to ‘port’ and have had some good ideas for other games and applications rolling around in my head. But I decided to go with a port of one of my simpler games right off the bat. Why? Well for one it is simple and will get me to the market quicker I hope(Im shooting for a 3 week turnaround having started basically last weekend). Im very curious as to what the process is like and what type of sales even a lower end game should expect? 2, it will give me a project to work off of for other projects as games tend to follow similiar formats with like a title screen, help screen, settings screen etc….(it might have something to do with cards as I might have a lot of card game code lying around, so some of the graphics may be re-usable too depending on their reception).

 A lot of what Ive done so far is to study examples and read up on the Cocoa and Objective-C stuff. Its great to see that I may be able to re-use some of my C++ classes.  And then Ive done a lot of graphics work. I have about 90% of the graphics done(and created them all pretty much from scratch). And I have to say that while I’m not great, I sure am about 10 times better than I was the last time I released one of my games… Ill show you a taste once I get a little closer… 

And Im waiting for my Enrollment to get processed for Apple. I would expect they will contact me and charge me the $99 and I’ll be able to post to the store, and more importanly test on my iPod Touch, but… Im not even sure how that process goes or how long it takes… That might be my biggest hold up to market.

But its great, a lot of people have taken up iPhone Development including some VERY talented people that I worked with in the past, so I’m getting pointers from them and then on forums and the documentation and its got me excited to see how my first game turns out and even what they are doing…  

  The whole thing is obviously still kind of a buzz because of the early market thing, much like I used to feel in about 2000 messing with Pocket PC. Its rather fun, and though I stand by everything Ive wondered about the ecosystem, it is interesting that this many big game houses are putting development towards it… Though it sort of looks like some of them are already adopting the “this is a paid demo for our actual desktop/console application” type deal. Oh, and the ad based programs are a new interesting twist…

So it appears that the smaller guys will still be the ones responsible for the best stuff on this platform… Fun!

(Don’t worry, part of the reason I also chose this ’short’ project, is because Im committed to doing the big updates on our existing WM products.)

Ok, Im ramping up big time for iPhone Development. Just bought the new iPod Touch, and Im excited to develop for it. Very nice device for only $229. They have improved it a lot in a year. And with the low resistance of the iPhone store, I really like the idea of it. So Im in the process of designing a couple programs and coding them up in Objective-C, which is new to me too.

But a Post over at JustAnotheriPhoneBlog and other posts Ive seen by a lot of bloggers and forum members got me wondering even more so than I already am… And with so many 1 star ratings in the iPhone store expecting lower prices on Applications it just makes me question what is going on. And yes a lot of those are people that don’t know any better as that is all they’ve known for a mobile market and a lot are younger kids, so a little different demographic than we’re used too, but…

http://justanotheriphoneblog.com/wordpress/2008/09/04/dinner-dash-comes-to-iphone-makes-bad-price-choice-imho/

Basically I’ll repeat my thoughts and add a few more. It appears that these people very quickly have decided that just because of the current prices on the iPhone App Store, people expect it. I would expect some of the bloggers to know better(the ones that have been around the other mobile markets for sure), or at least think it through a little more instead of jumping on the ‘I need everything for 99 cents parade’, but…

Some questions and thoughts I have, that I will only be able to answer if the AppStore actually discloses more information or I get in the market or have connections that are in it… and as time passes…

1. This idea that if you lower the price from $10 to $1 you will sell way more than 10x the sales has not worked in the Windows Mobile World(a lot including me have tried it). Maybe with the way the current AppStore is setup right now it does, but I would have to see it to believe it. And will it last…

2. All these big companies are riding the early waves on the App Store. I hope it can continue but will we continue to see this kind of traffic once the App Store is older to justify the pricing for this high volume. And now once the game/app ages, they have no where to go with price to keep seeing any return…

Most of the bigger companies are dipping their toe in the water. We saw them all come and go on WM as well. Hopefully its a working lasting ecosystem and they stay, and hopefully Microsoft does some things to create a better market too… I know Im on record as saying that about 2008-2009 is when mass adoption and the mobile software market and ’smartphone’ type market in general will explode… We can only hope it is!

3. I still expect to see a leveling back up on prices at some point. Its nice of you to think a ‘Single Song’ file is worth the same as 200-500++ hours of Development(which is billable at anywhere from $40-$150+ an hour in the real world), but Im sure at these low prices we are going to have a LOT of people dropping back out of the market because of no ROI. Right now you have a lot of the excited Hobbyist types(and obviously some with a lot of talent) that have flooded this, but … (They have come in and back out on ALL of the other Mobile markets too).

If all these companies making the big games dont get sales numbers at prices like they get on Desktop and console games, do you think that investment on new games will stay around…

4. Are applications that are the same Exact code as on the Desktop even worth $10 less on iPhone? Why? Because they have to compete with the Music Files? Diner Dash, which is the program that was being talked about in the post, isn’t a FREE desktop program, the real version still costs I believe $19.99…

And just to get a foot hold in this new market is it worth cannabalizing sales on your Bread-and-Butter platforms. Desktops and Consoles still represent much bigger markets. But when people see the game on iPhone for $5 they arent going to be willing to pay the $20 price on the desktop for it… 

Which is made even more confusing because a lot of the these games on the iPhone so far are cut down versions of the real games. So yes, then they are worth less..

5. Another flaw in the idea, is that if you look at the current iPhone Store the good shelf life of the current applications has been like 2-3 months or less… Look, some of the best games have already been dropped to low low prices as others have came in. So you may sell a ton in those 2 months but even if you are a top designed game, even at $10 it may be hard to get your ROI in that short of time…

6. You have to sell a TON of 99 cent Programs with your 70 cent cut a month to make a pay check that you can pay a mortgage with… Im sure the adoption rate is loads higher but expecting to sell 3-4000 copies of a percieved cheap app, with all the uninformed users ‘1 staring’ your application for any reason makes it harder. Compound that with the shelf life problem and the lack of better sorting in the store to find applications and it makes it difficult to get word out to sell that many every month.

7. And people are seeing this 13 Million device sold number. Well a large percentage of those still never enter or use the AppStore. Im sure the percentage is way higher right now than on WM, but the number of existing WM devices out there is way higher too.. So dont kid yourself that anything but the best applications will ever hit anywhere near the 1 million sold number….Man I hope Im wrong, but…

So I expect the ecosystem will change, the AppStore is in its infancy and I will be surprised if it can maintain in it current state. So please Apple do Sub-Categories so you can find say a “Puzzle Game”, and please only allow purchases to review an applicaton(the price complainers arent helping anyone in the long run), but yeah keeping the prices low are bringing adoption rates up in this early start. Right now some of the best games and programs Ive found have been by accident when searching for completely unrelated topics in the search. Getting Lucky is a bad way to have to find what you really want…

And the no trial thing is forcing the prices down too, but is that good…? I think that will burn thousands of people to not even waste the $2-10 bucks after they get burned a few times, because the review system is so inconsistant so you never know what to believe or how good an application you are getting until you have already dropped money on it..

But I will say  I dont see any application with any quality really being worth just 99 cents. You should and Im guessing will be comparing them to the prices of Albums on the Store, not just a single Music File…

Right now the way the iPhone ecosystem kind of works it reminds me of a gumball type machine with the prizes inside. I’ll go in and mill around hoping to find something and plug in my change and crank the wheel. What will I get? 

Guess I need to do my shopping on the Desktop.. But then isn’t the point to not have to.

Can’t wait to find out how right or wrong I am…

I have purchased a Mac Mini for iPhone Development. I have played with Macs a bit the past few years, but never really sitting and doing anything for long or trying to accomplish anything on it…

So I did spend part of today setting it up and trying it out.

It was an interesting experience. The Mac Mini is nice in that I will just get a KVM switch so I can use the same monitor,keyboard, and mouse as my current development box. I had to buy one ps2 to USB adaptor and the KVM will be around $30 so not too bad with a $600 mini. I expected to have invested a lot more with Apple’s inflated prices (it would have been $100 for their mouse and keyboard and $600 for their monitor).  Though I do still have to buy a Touch for testing. And possibly more RAM.

Initial impressions… It was very nice to setup. I plugged this stuff in and it worked and found and used my wireless network very easily during setup.

But man, I just don’t see why people brag up OS X… Its flaking out and getting in my way more than it is “intuitive and bug free”. Ive already seen system errors in one day of just playing around(it makes the little blue screen jokes that Apple geeks make seem silly, especially since I havent seen one in years)… And trying to watch Developer Videos from iTunes was just plain goofy. It ‘may’ be a little prettier(coming from XP) but some of that was getting in the way of functionality for me as well. Yeah, a few small things were placed nicer in the UI, but others….

 So now I’ve been there and done that, I don’t think I’ll drink the Kool-Aid, and definitely not when the cost is so high for something not really as good.

But who knows maybe my opinion will change…

But I do now have the iPhone SDK up and running and have played with compiling some sample applications and stuff so, now its time to decide where I want to go with it…Ideas?

Couple of things right off the bat. 1. I am heavily considering developing for the iPhone which will require a significant investment, so I do see potential and do think that some things the iPhone does are very very good. 2. I am also obviously heavily WM biased, since I have lived and breathed the platform for the last 8 or so years. That being said…

I am extremely surprised by the almost blind following of Apple Drones. And Im not saying that everyone that has an iPhone or Touch falls into this category, far from it. And not even every Fanboy falls into this category either. And some even slip in and out of these characteristics. But I’ve seen and tired of it since 6 months before the iPhone release and a new crop of droning has popped up with the release of the SDK.

What I mean by this is that some of these people, instead of admitting that something is potentially a very bad thing about the iPhone, actually go to the other extreme and think that anything Steve Jobs does(most of which is actually done for the $$ but then glossed over for these drones to believe) is the best possible thing that can be done.

Some Examples:

1. The SDK will not support Multi-Tasking.  I actually have heard arguments about how great this is and how they don’t want it to turn into $#!#$ Windows Mobile devices that are so slow,  and how they actually say there would never be any reason why they would ever need 2 applications running at once. It is Laughable!!  

THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING!!! Yeah, I will admit that Microsoft should allow you to close applications and should have a little better memory management, and should up the minimum specs for WM devices. BUT… this is not a problem on most devices and you wouldn’t believe how many applications run on WM devices at once… It takes a lot to get them slowing down(and you are in control of what is and isn’t)… 

As MOST mobile enthusiasts know, the main thing that people have been waiting for from a NEW PALM OS is good true multi-tasking!! But now Apple comes along and says, oh yeah, we’ll only allow applications to run one at a time and have to persist themselves, well we are right back to PALM OS.

Now the non-drone fans are out there too saying that the Jailbreak community will still be out there and  hopefully there are ways to circumvent this or get exceptions… Me too…

2. Now I do like what Apple did with the “Store” with it on every device and they are originally offering a fair revenue share. But they also then basically have a monopoly on the Store and keep up with the iTunes like thinking. Everything you buy for your iPhone, you will buy from Apple!  I hope most people know economics enough to know that this isn’t a great thing!

And then I see the drones regurgitating Apple’s claims about not wanting to make money on the store. I’m sorry but if they didn’t want to make money they would have a considerably smaller % setup for developer revenue sharing. There are much smaller companies out there offering the same share, but having to maintain much larger web solutions and infrastructures. What I hope is that they stick with this percentage as I’ve seen these numbers go up later in the stores life as well…Who’s to stop them?

So please… We know you love your iPhone. We think some things with it are pretty cool too… And a few choices Apple has made recently have improved their cause, but it still has some things that need to be fixed and some that won’t ever be.

So if you have ever fallen into the drone category, Please Wake Up!!