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On March 17th, Apple, with an ear toward developers' pricing gripes, unveiled
an in-app DLC feature to be included with the iPhone's 3.0 software. The logic was,
of course, that developers can still charge low prices for relatively
simple apps, but then build in additional content and features at additional
cost without resorting to free updates or sequels.
Marsh, Bossert and Nicholas are pleased with the feature,
saying that it is an improvement overall and provides more ways for developers
to earn revenue. Bossert, however, admits concern that Apple does not allow
free games to up-sell premium content.
Morrison remains lukewarm, however,
saying, "It solves part of the problem. Of course, now it's even harder to
justify a $4.99 price tag. I can't believe I just said that," referring to
the negative reviews based on price, and the insane lengths users will
sometimes go to procure a download code.
Says Nicholas, "I've had a number
of people email me to complain that $2.99 was, and I quote, 'very expensive'
for a game, and could I pretty please give them a free copy of it?"
Once
you've gotten your game onto the App Store, though, that essentially lets the
ratings genie out of the bottle. Ratings represent a crystal clear channel for
users to vent frustrations, offer advice and sometimes leave glowing 1-star
reviews -- whether developers want it or not.
All of the developers express
frustration with uninformed or outdated reviews. Apple has addressed this issue
with version-tagging reviews, but the Rate on Delete function remains,
receiving universal disdain from the panel.
"It's
a very bad feature," says Morrison. "It promotes negative
reviews." Bossert agrees, "I think it's crap." Nicholas and
Oliver come back with a simple solution of perhaps prompting a user to give a
rating after they've launched an app five or ten times, which draws approval
from the other developers.
Still, out of the chorus, there are some voices with reasonable requests and
thoughtful advice. "Most suggestions from customers are consistent with
the aims of the game," says Bossert. "We often have a list of
potential updates and improvements, and customer feedback can help us
re-prioritize that list." Marsh agrees, saying that "User reviews can
quickly alert the developer to bugs and missing features."
 But with reviews on the forefront of every App Store page, and developers that
are eager to please, can user feedback drown out design docs or alter the
artistic intent of a game?"
Morrison and Freeverse have taken a firm
stance in the past. "We really only go after a new feature that fits in
with what we want to do. Many people have asked for protected species of
fish/sharks/whales in Flick Fishing, but we will not let you fish for
endangered species, even virtually. It's a stance we wanted to take."
Nicholas too takes the hard line. "I'm not saying that players are dumb or
anything like that -- just, well, if Miyamoto had listened to my suggestions
after playing Mario 3 for twenty
minutes, it would have been a terrible game."
iPhone development and the App Store itself remain very much a work in
progress, which makes it one of the most exciting platforms to watch.
As we've
seen through Apple's updates, there's constant give and take among not only
developers and gamers, but also Apple itself by constantly refining the App
Store. Overall, developers sound pleased with the Apple's support.
"Many
issues devs reported have been addressed nicely," says Bossert. "I
think their response has been great. They're giving the creative devs even more
tools and APIs," says Marsh. Nicholas also agrees, saying, "I don't
know about everyone else, but I got everything I was hoping for and more with
this update."
Of course, he later Tweets
his frustration during the iPhone 3.0 event, "Arg, I really need the
iPhone developer portal to actually be working now! Yes, I know 3.0 is
exciting, but stop killing the servers!"
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I like the way apple sells macbook, macbook pro, desktops, Itouch and Iphones. Smartly keeping some features and removing some at a prize difference. I hate Apple for that sometimes but do we have an option?
I would be releasing my game next month which is a multiplayer game on same and multiple devices.
To fight the .99 prize tag and at the same time marketing it smartly I will be keeping three versions of my game if app store allows that.
1) The famous and free Lite version.( single player and one AI enemy)
2) .99 version multiplayer allows 4
3) 2.99 version full features with wifi.
If player likes the game he goes to three or may be I am dead at 1 or 2. possibilities of reaching 2 exist.
I hope this strategy helps. Any views.
Vijay Sharma
www.createplayshare.com
(Note: I say this as an iPhone dev myself, so I have a bit of first-hand knowledge on the matter)
I agree with Sean. Drop the middle version or make the middle version the entry version. I think that the middle version would give the customer the most to experience and get them want more of what you have. You could even lower the multiplayer number to 1 or 2 people.
When it comes to demos (which is essentially what you are doing with the free version) you want to whet the player's appetite and make them want more. Just the single player experience might not be enough to get them interested in the full experience.
Ephriam I understood what you saying and I guess that is what I should be doing. I feel i will give away too much if I give even two multiplayer in demo version but what you saying is also a way.
I will study again on this.
Thanks Sean and Ephriam.
Like the article says, most times it's something I do when I have free time. It's not like my DS, 360, PC where I sit down to play a game for a few hours. Sure I've been hooked for a few hours unexpectantly, but if you are going to charge anything over 5$, you dang well better have a lite version.
I think too many consumers have been burned by some apps they paid for that really really suck. I think that more than anything contributes to people not being willing to pay more for an app. A lite version helps counter that. But still 10$ is really over the high end of what I would think to pay for an app. Sure it's a port of a 30$ game apparently, but you have to know the platform you are working with, and what the audience expects to pay. I'll be very interested if it does well at 10$. Wolfenstien shot up into the top 25 after one day at 5$, so I think that show it's the optimal price for a nice game. Maybe 5.90 also, but there is only one game in the top 50 over 5.99 MLB at bat. That's 10$, and it has constantly changing content.
The shovelware issue is huge. It is so hard to find the good games in between thousands of apps that are barely games at all. Many of the current offerings make "casual" pop-cap style games look like World of Warcraft in scope and complexity.
While there have been some pretty good game apps released, there isn't one that I would call a "AAA must-have". Even games with brand names like Silent Hill and Metal Gear leave a LOT to be desired. I have no issue with 59.99 for a 360 game, 39.99 for a PSP game, but with the current assortment of iPhone offerings, even the best ones are barely worth $10. This creates a huge dilemma, as developers seem unwilling to put in the work/money for what could be an AAA game, based on the prices apps are going for, but there are very few apps currently out that would warrant a higher price. I think this will change over time, but it seems to be currently a catch-22.
This interview gives some great insight, and it will be interesting to see how iPhone development evolves, which I'm sure it will.
To touch on a few elements:
DLC: using the "razor blades" model (the handle is free; the blades are not) may work, but there's a lot of resistance to this from users who tend to view it as an attempt to gouge more profit - and most attempts to produce episodic gaming have failed (Sam and Max/Grimm/Strongbad being the only ones to date which have managed to sustain interest). The Maw recently got savaged for releasing DLC too soon after the game - though labelling the new levels as "lost levels" certainly didn't help with perceptions. The trick will be to balance the timings to avoid both loss of interest and claims of profiteering.
Past there, I think it's safe to say that there are distinct parallels between the iPhone market and the decline of the 8-bit market in the UK (more specifically: the ZX Spectrum). In a potted nutshell: the market opened in 1982 with a blitz of low-quality arcade clones, before steadying down as quality improved and original IP began to appear. The market continued to grow and expand through the early 80s - however, cracks began to appear. Games were supplied on audio cassettes, which were easy to pirate. Software houses devoted to low-cost releases (Codemasters, Mastertronic) appeared, offering games at 1.99 GBP and 2.99 GBP (sound familiar?) - and often, the quality was on a par with the price. Bigger software houses started to get into the act by offering older releases either at budget prices or as part of a compilation. Over time sales dropped - Wikipedia's Mastertronic page quotes sales declining from 50'000 in 1986 to 5'000 in 1990 for the average title.
Another major factor was the availability of "free" content: magazines competed with each other by licencing and giving away games: for instance, Crash was offering 4 free games and demos for just 1.50 GBP in 1989 - even cheaper than the budget releases!
The decline of the viability of the Spectrum as a gaming platform is also a factor, but there's certainly parallels to be drawn between this and the iPhone market - the advent of the internet has simply accelerated the timescales. New releases have to compete in a saturated market (if anything, the "long tail" principle makes it worse: older games don't vanish off the shelves any more) and fend off competition from low priced (or free) titles of varying quality.
In the end, what saved the software industry back in the late 80s was the shift over to the 16-bit market, where piracy was (for a time at least) harder, and the increase in power (memory/cpu/storage) meant that innovative new features could be added to attract customers.
The problem with this iteration is that any future iPhone is liable to be backwards compatible, so the issue with market saturation isn't likely to go away. Equally, there's unlikely to be the same quantum leap in power and storage when iPhone 2.0 is released (although the article notes some interesting things being done via integration of online features).
Finally, it'll be interesting to see how Apple manage the iStore going forward. After all, in many ways it doesn't matter to them if there's ten good games which sell a thousand units each, or a thousand mediocre games which sell ten units each: in the end, they still get the same cut. The question is whether the "pile them high and sell them cheap" strategy is going to work in the long term: both Microsoft (XBLA) and Nintendo (Wii) have encountered similar issues - and in Microsoft's case, have responded with a redesign of the XBLA UI and threats to cull low quality/low selling titles.