On Wednesday, Amazon announced its own gaming service for game developers called GameCircle. By creating this new experience, Amazon appears to be competing directly with Apple Inc. (AAPL) Game Center, putting scores, competition and social gaming into one service and offering it to developers and users alike.
On the Amazon Mobile App Distribution blog, the company describes what GameCircle is all about, calling it a “new set of services designed to make it easier for you to create more engaging gaming experiences and grow your business on Kindle Fire”.
GameCircle will make achievements, leaderboards and sync APIs accessible, simple and quick for you to integrate, and will give gamers a more seamless and entertaining in-game experience.
Although it focuses mainly on developers creating an ecosystem for their apps, the end user features are very similar to Game Center, Apple’s own online multiplayer social gaming network. It allows users to “ track all earned trophies, treasures, badges, awards, and more without leaving the gaming experience”.
Other features include giving users the ability to invite friends, start multiplayer games, track achievements, and compare scores on a leaderboard. With GameCircle, Amazon’s Kindle Fire enters the social gaming market that other companies such as Apple and Google are currently dominating. GameCircle will allow Amazon to offer tailored services to its Kindle Users and with the new SDK can also offer users apps made specifically for their device.
With GameCircle, Amazon is preparing to get a leg up on the competition and make the Kindle Fire one of the more sought after devices in the market. Amazon’s Kindle Fire 2 is rumored to be unveiled next summer, and will likely take advantage of GameCircle and the company’s numerous other services.
{Via 9to5Mac}
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On rare occasions I will tell you to go and grab a game immediately and then come back and read this review…….this is one of those occasions and to be honest what do you have to lose when all you’ll be spending is 99 cents on a universal app that will work on both your iPhone and iPad should you be lucky enough to have both.
You may be thinking, especially if you already have Asphalt 6, why should I even spend more money on the next version of Gamelofts arcade racer and the simple answer is this, it’s Bigger, Better, Faster and there’s more of it, so much in fact this review may only scratch the surface of all the features that are packed into this racing game.
If you have played any of Gamelofts games before then you will know what to expect when it comes to sound and graphics, and in Asphalt7 Heat they continue to lead the way a rainbow of electric lights that illuminate 15 different tracks from all around the world and with a pumping soundtrack the game is a dream to both see and hear.
There are four control options to choose from so you are bound to find one that suits your driving preferences, from using the accelerometer, on screen steering wheel or the screen itself the controls work very well, and you can also choose from auto or manual acceleration depending on your preference.
The quality of the controls are highlighted due to the fact that you can jump straight into Quick Play mode and start winning races immediately. Quick Race is just the beginning though, as the Career, Online and Multiplayer modes are where the real value comes in.
The Career Mode is spread over 13 cups each with 4 different races and these include normal races, elimination, knockdown, paint job and king of the hill which all offer slightly different variations on driving as fast as you can around the streets of the world.
As you work your way through the career mode you’ll have the ability to unlock and upgrade a great range of licensed cars, from a Mini Cooper S to the Shelby GT 500, from a BMW Z4 to the Lamborghini Countach and everything in between. There are 60 cars in total so there should be something for everyone.
The cars handle as well as you would expect for an arcade racer, the game relies heavily on drifting but this is relatively easy to control, early on at least, only when you start to unlock the bigger, faster cars does it get a little trickier, by the time you unlock them though you’ll be well practised, right?
Of course you don’t have to work through the game and earn your racing stripes to unlock all the flash cars, instead you can purchase your in game dollars by spending your hard earned dollars via in-app purchase but it’s well balanced, meaning that if you are willing to put the time in you can achieve your rewards without the need of spending above and beyond the original $1 outlay.
The online options are really where the game comes to life and it does this in two ways. First up is the online multi-player where you can race against your friends, and enemies, in any combination of race types and locations. The online mode works well, the games come thick and fast and there is relatively little slow down, it adds a whole new dimension to the gameplay that will keep you playing Asphalt 7 for a long time to come, or at least until Asphalt 8 comes out!
If you don’t want to want to race against people online in real time you can choose the weekly event that makes up the Asphalt Academy and see how far up the world rankings you can get.
With the game being a universal app it’s good to see that your progress can be transferred between devices. Asphalt Tracker allows you to transfer your progress between devices using either Facebook, or Gameloft’s own servers and while this isn’t quite as seamless as iCloud syncing would be it works and prevents you having to play the game twice across all of your devices.
Asphalt Tracker also enables you to send offline challenges to your friends via Gameloft which just adds more depth to an already deep game and that’s before mentioning the goals are Gameloft’s equivalent of GameCenter Achievements.
After all this eulogizing you’d think that perhaps I didn’t have anything bad to say about the game, that’s not the case. Asphalt 7’s all about social gaming and this takes the form of Facebook integration, the problem with this is though that between races and for every earned goal you are prompted to confirm whether or not you want to publicize the achievement and if you don’t want to bombard your Facebook newsfeed with your progress it can get a little frustrating.
If you’ve got this far and have not been simultaneously downloading Asphalt 7 on your iOS device you have permission to do so now!
[rating: 5/5]What we like
What to know
If you are one of the millions of players who downloaded and lost hours of their lives playing Jetpack Joyride then I may have a new game to break that addiction.
Madcoaster from App Store dominators Chillingo is a new universal game where you control a roller coaster train on a never ending journey through multiple lands in order to collect as many coins and travel as far as you can with all your lives intact.
The game has a great cartoon look to it and the multiple lands look great as you speed through them. The game starts with just a few ‘themes’ enabled which you travel through for 1,000 meters at a time. Should you complete 1,000 meters you will continue on through another ‘theme’ until you run out of lives.
The themes are based on different events and locations, so one moment you may find yourself zooming past panda’s in a Japanese themed environment and the next past pumpkins in a Halloween inspired theme. Additional themes can also be unlocked via in app purchase or by reaching 10,000 meters in the game. The in-app purchases are nicely positioned meaning that you don’t have to keep on buying them.
Your roller coaster carts have no speed control but things get pretty crazy straight out of the traps and you’ll need fast fingers as you leap gaps, loop the loop, and move up and down tracks.
As you fly along the rails you can pick up coins and smash though a variety of animals, the only thing that can kill you is falling off the track though, in fact smashing through the animals that are standing on the tracks or hitting birds that are flying past the tracks earn you rewards rather than hinder you.
All these things contribute to the variety of objectives that are set for you on each run and clearing these objectives will provide upgraded carts for you to ride. Not that these carts have any additional features, instead they just look different to prior carts, it would be nice to have power ups to make your cart faster or jump higher.
The game has that addictive quality that makes you want to try one more time to beat your current high-score or complete one more of the 30 achievements that are available via Chillingo’s social gaming network Crystal, or the GameCenter integration.
Madcoaster is a Universal app and is available from the App Store for just 99c so grab it while you can.
[rating: 4/5]What to know:
iBomber Defense Pacific is a follow up to the highly acclaimed iBomber Defense and provides hours of tower defense style game-play.
The action, as the title suggests, takes place on the Pacific Rim and the levels reflect that region in all their glory, from golden deserts and deep jungles to the city streets the graphics are clear, detailed and strong over 20+ different levels.
If you’ve played a tower defense game before then you are going to be very comfortable in iBDP but for those of you that haven’t there is in game tutorial that takes you through all the basics and it’s not difficult to pick up, although as with all good games there is more to simply knowing enough to cruise through all the levels.
You can do that if you like and even then there you will enjoy the journey but just like achieving 3 stars on all the levels of angry birds the real fun comes in attempting to get the best ranking in each level which in turn rewards you with the cash and honors to do even better in the following rounds.
The controls are simple, drag and drop to place your machine gun, cannon, rockets, flamers and other weapons and tapping on them provides you with the ability to repair, upgrade and sell them. If things aren’t going your way on any level you also get the ability to rewind a wave and try again, however this ability it limited so it has to be used wisely.
I highly recommend playing the game with your headphones on too as the sound of the thundering gunfire over the back-drop of the ambient location noises creates a great atmosphere.
As with all Chillingo titles the game comes integrated with Crystal, their social gaming network which provides multiple achievements and leaderboards for all the levels.
Chillingo continue to churn out quality titles and in iBomber Defense Pacific they continue to do so with a solid, if not ground breaking title. iBDP is a universal game and is available in the App Store now for $2.99.
What we like:
What to know:
Growing up I would frequently send and receive greeting cards that used the poems and character of Purple Ronnie, a stick figure, funny guy who always brought a smile to my face, and in Fancy Pants for iPhone and iPad I was taken back to that time as the lead character in this game reminded me of him.
However, most of you will know Fancy Pants from the web version of the game that’s been around for a while now and the port over to iOS is a pretty accurate representation of the stick figured platformer although the opportunity to take advantage of the iOS unique control functions of a touch screen and accelerometer was one that should have been taken advantage of. Instead the controls are simply via 4 virtual buttons.
All that aside Fancy Pants {App Store} is still a lot of fun, it’s fast, smooth and addictive and has loads of content that will keep you coming back for more again and again.
The back story consists of the everyday story of rescuing your sister from a bunch of pirates who have kidnapped her, the story is fun, entertaining but following the story is not required and doesn’t take anything away from the game play.
After a brief tutorial you’ll soon find yourself running, leaping, climbing and crawling through large sprawling levels which are full of obstacles but also various challenges and things to collect. You don’t have to complete everything to move through the store mode, in fact having something to go back to the earlier levels to do is all part of the fun.
The artistic style of the whole game is one of simple line drawings but they spring to life as Fancy Pants charges through the 11 levels and multiple arcade challenges that you can unlock as you play through the levels. These arcade games can then be played separately and you can track your success across all of this via the Crystal social gaming network.
If you decide not to complete all of the side challenges then the game can be literally run through pretty quickly, the question is though, why would you!
Despite not taking advantage of any iOS unique control options the controls do work well and Fancy Pants moves around so fluidly that even when he’s not swimming under water it can seem like he is, and that’s no bad thing!
If you like platform games but want something that is a step up from the normal jump up, jump over, stomp, repeat, repeat then Fancy Pants is for you. Fancy Pants is only 99c at the moment and is a universal game so can be played on both your iPhone and iPad, however there is no iCloud support so you’ll need to complete the game on both separately.
[rating: 4/5]What to know:
Puckerz [rating: 4/5]
Many successful games in the App store share several main qualities that allow for such success, one of the most prominent is simplicity. Puckerz seems to be an extremely addicting creation based off of pinball roots.
Players use a control system not unlike Angry Birds to shoot their puck along an enclosed board that consists of blocks, orbs and obstacles with the idea of clearing the board of all blocks and orbs in a designated time. Seem a bit boring to you? I was right there until I got my hands on this little gem. I completely underestimated just how much fun and addicting this game would be.
I must say that a new age adaption of pinball doesn’t seem like a very intriguing game at first but after just a few minutes playing this game I realized that its roots in pinball and new spin on things would keep me coming back.
The controls are like those of Angry Birds but instead are utilized in a pinball type machine. When you launch the game, you are met by a simple loading screen that houses a widely overlooked item in many games in my opinion, “How To Play” button. Along with the “How To Play” button there are options for “OpenFeint”, open source social gaming network, and “Game Center” as well.
After hitting the “Play Now” button, you are posed with a strictly aesthetic yet difficult question. Which “puck” will I use? The “pucks” all have different designs and I had a difficult time choosing between the games signature logo “skull” puck or the “ninja” puck. Small feature but somewhat cool to be able to personalize the puck you’ll inevitably be staring at while you play this game.
The game itself as mentioned before is a fairly simple concept. You have a starting point and you launch your puck towards the blocks and orbs in an attempt to clear them off of the enclosed board before the time runs out. On the right side of the screen is a progress bar that tells you if you have cleared enough to get to the next level. As you progress through the level you are confronted by obstacles like holes in the board that will cost you a 10 seconds time penalty and unbreakable blocks that can be both an advantage and disadvantage at times. You also gain certain perks as you progress such as spots on the board that act as a speed boost that in turn aid you in breaking more blocks and ice boost that makes your puck continue to travel further. Using these perks to your advantage and avoiding the obstacles are crucial to getting past the more difficult levels. The gameplay is simple but this proves to be this game’s strong point.
I was welcomed by a catchy tune and stunning visual design when I first launched the game. I was extremely satisfied by the fact that the visuals and music stayed impressive throughout my Puckerz experience. The futuristic design is fairly simply but very crisp with active background in the menus and solid animation during gameplay. I never saw a drop in frame-rates and the game stayed smooth throughout which is pretty impressive considering the action taking place on the screen at a given time.
The music was impressive and something that I have learned to not overlook when playing games on the iPhone. Many games have the same constant tune that plays throughout a game and becomes mundane. This game has a wealth of different jams to crush blocks to. I felt that the music helped to set the tone of a fairly high paced game that keeps you engaged for the duration of your allotted time. Luckily the audio and visual aspects of this game were great, almost as awesome as the gameplay itself.
Puckerz is an extremely addictive and very amusing game. It is a simple pick up and play style game with similarities to pinball that might pull at some heart strings for those of us that have actually played a pinball machine. It’s genius in the attention to detail and simple fun that it provides. The perks and obstacles provide for a continuously changing gameplay that allows for new strategies and approaches giving the game a touch of complexity. I would high recommend checking this game out, especially if you are a fan of pinball.
Pros
Cons
$0.99 (View in iTunes)
Category: Games
Released: Feb 01, 2011
Version: 1.0
1.0 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
Size: 18.5 MB
Language: English
Seller: Groundbreaking Games, Inc.
© 2010 Groundbreaking Games, Inc.
Rated 4+
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later
The update also adds Game Center, which is Apple’s take on social gaming. It enables users to auto-match with others, compare scores on leaderboards, unlock achievements and more.
During the special music event Steve Jobs announced that iOS 4.1 would enable users to take HDR photos, rent TV shows and upload videos to YouTube over Wi-Fi on iPhone 4 and all these features will be installed on your device after you have finished upgrading.
Complete list of iOS 4.1 features and improvements:
Bug fixes, including:
Products compatible with this software update:
Game Center requires iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 2nd generation or later.
]]> https://touchreviews.net/ios-4-1-software-update/feed/ 0Pattern matching and elimination games can be a hard genre to develop in. Regardless of how original and good a game is, it is inevitably compared to classics like Bejewelled. Comparisons to a genre-defining games can create unfair expectations and leave you second guessing an otherwise great product. While Hexius is very firmly in the pattern matching and elimination genre of games, it is a great game that would stand up well against any such comparisons. While including many elements from the genre, it is unique in its own right and well worth playing.
Hexius is played by finding patterns of hexagons on a board. Hexagons on the game board are marked with either circles, triangles, diamonds, or crosses of varying color. When you select a hexagon on the game surface, you are given a count of how many similar pieces are available. Your task then is to find the other pieces on the board. Once you have successfully selected all available hexs, paths are drawn between them and all intervening pieces are eliminated. The more pieces you eliminate the higher the score for the move. Tightly packed hexs are easier to find and provide a lower score than widely dispersed pieces that require more time and skill to find.
Adding to the complexity of the game are three play modes; time attack, level challenge, and strategy mode. In time attack, you are allotted an amount of time to score as many points as possible. In level challenge, the player is given targets to eliminate within a set time limit. Eliminate the targets and you move to the next level while adding time to what is remaining on the clock. In strategy mode the object is to get as high a score as possible in 30 moves. Assisting with the scoring in all of these modes are bonus moves created by specific tasks done throughout the game.
Hexius implements social gaming through OpenFeint. It has a set of achievements and allows you to compete with your friends that also have Hexius. While Hexius is a very replayable game, OpenFeint support and social gaming adds even more replay value.
I thoroughly enjoyed playing Hexius. The three play modes combined with challenging boards and social gaming kept me coming back for more. If you like pattern matching and elimination games, Hexius is definitely a must-have for your iPhone.
Price: $1.99 (iTunes Store)
Category: Games
Updated: Jun 17, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.1.2
Size: 5.5 MB
Language: English
Seller: Phasic Labs Ltd.
© 2010 Phasic Labs Ltd.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.
The incredibly popular Parachute Panic, which boasts 4 Million+ downloads as well as Scoreloop Social Gaming integration has just shown up as “Parachute Panic HD”. [iTunes Store]
Doing a search for iPad today in iTunes 9.1 now shows up quite a few iPhone/iPad Apps. And there is actually a dedicated section for “iPad Apps” in the results.
Some of the usual favorites are visible such as TweetDeck, FlightTrack etc. all showing as either “Compatible with iPad” or “This app is designed for both iPhone and iPad” in their descriptions. Presumably depending on whether it is a dedicated iPad app or a Universal app, respectively.
Searching for “HD” in iTunes yields similar results.
It’s nice to see the search results in iTunes being split 50/50 between iPad and iPhone / iPod Touch.
So what iPad apps are you going to buy first? Have any of you downloaded them before you’ve even got your iPad?
]]> https://touchreviews.net/apple-ipad-apps-games-hd-itunes/feed/ 2Ngmoco certaily seems to think “Freemium” is the future. And it’s hard to argue with their popularity in the AppStore charts. In November of 2009 their FPS shooter “Eliminate Pro” had already been downloaded 500,000 times, at the staggering rate of 25,000 copies an hour. These figures placed it solidly at the top of the free app chart in iTunes.
More recently they purchased longtime Mac / iPhone indie publisher “Freeverse” with venture capital money they raised with Institutional Venture Partners, and existing shareholders Kleiner Perkins, Norwest Venture Parters, and Maples Investments. Currently Freeverse’s catalog is all paid apps, but the plan apparently is to move them over to the free-to-play model also.
To date Ngmoco’s installed base of it’s most popular apps (TouchPets and Eliminate) tops 9 million copies “downloaded”, with hundreds of thousands of “plays” each day. Ngmoco are also taking a pop at the likes of Scoreloop, OpenFeint and Agon with their own entry into the social gaming network race, Plus+.
Young (Ngmoco’s CEO) is pushing to roll out more and more new games in a virtual avalanche, and plans to open up an SDK to their Plus+ social gaming system so that other developers can easily tap into it. The Plus+ system can manage virtual goods payments, player-to-player messaging, and other social aspects of iPhone games. Effectively taking on Urban AirShip as well as Scoreloop, OpenFeint and all the rest, all at the same time, in one all encompasing package. On top of that they are planning on bundling an internet based multiplayer network in with all these other features at some point in the future. At the moment that aspect of their network seems to be limited to their own creations though. I have not been able to get a timeline from them for general availability when I have made enquiries.
These figures, acquisitions and developments are hard to discount when asking yourself about Ngmoco’s future, and the success of the “Freemium” app model. But how much is to do with these games being free at the start? And is this Apple’s success or Ngmoco’s marketing we’re seeing succeed, rather than the “Freemium” model?
How is giving people the opportunity to try before they buy any different from the current system we have in premium console games? On XBox live or PlayStation Network people download a demo, and then decide whether to buy the retail item all of the time. The whole process is simply not integrated seamlessly yet as it is in iTunes, but they are getting there. Virtually every serious game purchase decision I have made personally in the last several years has been made after trying a free demo of a game. The real change that seems to be creeping into games these days is that we get less at purchase / download time and augment that with a cash stream trickle feeding the publisher for more content. All things that the big game publishers have been pushing harder and harder recently, and seems to have accelerated in iTunes since the advent of OS 3.0 on the iPhone and Apple introducing “In App Purchase”. Steve Jobs waxed lyrical about all this in his latest Keynote address stating that iTunes has around a bazillion people’s credit cards on file for buying content right now.
Scrolling through the reviews on the AppStore for some of the higher profile “Freemium” titles it seems that a fairly considerable percentage of people are not impressed by the basic “free” app they get, and the rest simply upgrade / buy app content because they like the game anyway, or get hooked. A great example is Eliminate Pro which severely limits replays in the free version, necessitating stumping up hard cash to buy more effective playing time. It’s like the “CoinOp” era all over again from where I am sitting.
To date Ngmoco’s most successful Freemium titles are in areas where games are almost guaranteed to succeed. One is the Sims style game TouchPets and the other is not only the first, but also the only multiplayer FPS on the iPhone : Eliminate Pro.
With or without a free download these games would garner quite a lot of attention anyway. So what are Ngmoco gaining from giving the title away initially? It seems to me they are quite able to market their games effectively – something which is harder for smaller developers. It’s also apparent that they have fairly high production quality when it comes to game websites, game front ends, and the overall look and feel of their products. So they would seem to be able to fair reasonably well if they simply sold their games at full price. After all they have enough backing and infrastructure to run their own global multiplayer network for “hundreds of thousands” of players. Not an insignificant undertaking!
(Yesterday I wrote about an interesting App Store pricing model experiment carried out by Indie Developer Tommy Refenes. Although an isolated unscientific study, it’s worth reading the account to get where I am coming from with this whole App Store pricing problem.) NOT PUBLISHED YET.
There is another important aspect to this method of marketing to consider. It’s a model very strongly based on the social aspect of gaming, and a certain amount of addiction to competition (passive or active), rather than the fact that something is free. It’s certainly true that by offering a free glimpse into every game you make you have a better chance of selling it to people than you do from static screen shots, or even gameplay videos. This is assuming that the entertainment value grasps the user in that trial period. But it can also canibalise your paid app sales. There is an interesting article on that here (GDC: Backflip’s Farrior On iPhone Ad Sales, Free Versions) where Julia Farrior, CEO of Backflip Studios talks about some of their hits and misses in the App Store.
I mentioned Scoreloop earlier, who’s entire business model is venture capital funded and free to Devs. Likewise with OpenFeint and the other contenders for the gaming social network crown. The difference is these startups don’t publish games, but provide the social networking back end for app developers to leverage. Something that OpenFeint and Scoreloop may have going for them is that they are more often than not part of a product that a gamer has already decided to buy. So up-selling app content is not actually part of their business model. Scoreloop, for example, very much rely on selling their own “coins” to players so that gamers can wager against each other. Gambling on their own skill, and against that of others, to amass more virtual wealth.
Let’s take a look at Eliminate Pro again. It’s a good example of what the “freemium” model is all about. Simply put the free game provides a limited amount of something. This “something” (energy in Eliminate’s case) is required in order for you to compete effectively, and then progress in the game’s hierarchy. You have two options: Put up with an arguably crippled experience after a very short introduction period, or pay some cash to compete on a level playing field – or compete at all! The great thing from the developers perspective is that they get much much more exposure with free games that are immediately accessible to gamers. The free versions of games I have been involved with are downloaded between 10 and 50 times more often than paid items. One of the older iPhone titles I worked on sells very little now, but still gets 20 or 30 free downloads a day, every day, with little or no promotion. It’s certainly a hard fact that if you want to at least get some market penetration, and a chance of being discovered in the burgeoning list of entertainment titles in the AppStore, then you need to give a free or “Lite” version of your title away. That is unless you have the marketing power of EA, or the IP of Ubisoft or RockStar. Then again you could just write a Zombie game!! I jest.
A cynical person could liken the Eliminate Pro or TouchPets model to that employed by drug dealers, or more charitably similar to that of World of Warcraft, or paintball even. First you get them hooked, and then you keep nibbling at them for a dollar here, 5 dollars there for ammo or consumables of some sort.. Simply put, this is how it works: Subscription. You want some more energy so you can go shooting people then it’s gonna cost you between $1.99 and amazingly $39.99 depending on how much “energy” or “dog chow” you want for your battle suit or virtual pet, respectively.
Having played Eliminate Pro I can honestly say the control system needs work (and many players I have spoken to repeat this complaint), but it’s eye catching and well presented. It seems to be predominantly populated with inexperienced players, which is explained by the developer chat I reported on earlier this week with the Ngmoco team, where they discuss their matchmaking efforts : (Ngmoco Gives Interesting Talk on How Eliminate Was Built | GDC 2010) However, I found I was in rooms with lots of people scraping along walls most of the time, and fragging people was somewhat satisfying simply because it was so easy! I seemed to do less “wall scraping” than my competitors at times, that’s all I guess! I am forced to wonder what the turnover of new players that never come back is. And unless you are paying you are not getting much for free.. Although if a player simply waits a fixed amount of time their energy will trickle fill again, and after a period of time they can play again for free.. But overall a lot of people find this frustrating as these kinds of comments bear out..
“This game is great. The graphics are good, frame-rate is good, gameplay is good, upgrades are good. Although, I must mention the controls don’t really work until you buy the first unlock-able weapon.”
“They really nickle and dime you for this.”
“But 4 hours to recharge for enough energy for 1 game is insane.”
After reading these comments I wondered what percentage of people who downloaded these free titles actually enjoyed their “freemium” experience, or simply left frustrated, as simply another statistic for marketing purposes. It seems that overall consumer views are split on these titles. If you look at the star rating there are a lot of high stars and a lot of low stars, very few in the middle! Which is interesting. And even the positive reviews for Eliminate (outside of the new main stream mobile gaming media) all state that it’s not really a good game *unless* you are paying for it. Again, and again.
It’s also worth noting that there are ads running on the front page of these games now. Something which is also available to any developer via AdMob and other similar services. Are Ngmoco still experimenting with where the bulk of their revenue will come from when the venture capital money runs out?
Back in the heyday of arcade games you fed 10p / 25c into a slot to keep playing. Now it seems that the plan is that you should attach a credit card to the AppStore and trickle feed your play habit that way. From a cash flow perspective this is very attractive. But as someone who enjoys his craft and is certainly not an up and coming Bill Gates with aspirations for world domination I am left feeling a little empty inside by this business model.
There are other titles out there that work on similar principals. “Baseball Slugger”, which although a paid game, offers you the option to either buy special packs for your player for cash or earn more “gold balls” to unlock those same upgrades. It’s a little similar to how Scoreloops coins work. This is a skill based model. Those players that don’t want to buy in have the option to progress based purely on skill, and at the same time I am guessing drive some other less “skillfull” players to buy upgrades to keep up. Of course I am sure many people simply buy the upgrades anyway. But at least the choice is there, and there is the satisfaction that keen players can get from having all the extras without having paid a dime!
Another slightly different example of exploiting this free to play model is our Editor (with obviously way too much free time) who takes great delight in playing “Skies of Glory” and beating players who have bought all the upgrades (“Cool bombs and a fancy plane worth $9.99″ – as he puts it) with his basic aircraft “with no upgrades at all”!
Overall these two examples, and to be fair, to a small degree Eliminate (as more skilful players can hang onto more energy each game and play for longer before they are depleted and benched), offer something for nothing without driving the need for players to pay for something. But the bottom line is they are all mini-systems designed to get the majority of players, either through friend envy, social pressure or sheer laziness, to pay a subscription of some kind to continue playing. Those top tier players who get it all for free are the constantly moving target that drives the less skilful to pay up. They are an important integral part of the overall business model. It kind of reminds me of the major players in the new SciFi (ScyFy – ugh) TV series “Caprica”, who play in the “one death and you’re out forever” VR Caprica world. Now that’s a gaming model I’d like – and one I’d pay to play in. But I digress…
“Tap Tap Revenge” is one of the standouts in this growing bunch of initially free to play apps. They provide a large number of songs with the free version, and do not seem to be pushing you to need to upgrade simply because base product is very satisfying. And yet they still make a lot of money. Part of that is they are now an established brand. But part of it is also that they provide a competitively priced, high quality product that people enjoy and want more of. Perhaps they see a friend with a cool avatar. Or perhaps they just want more variety. But either way it’s really their choice to upgrade, and they really don’t need to in order to be competitive, or to advance through any score table, or enjoy the game. In my opinion there is something to be learned there.
Now, I am not saying we shouldn’t make money from our software. Far from it. I write games myself, because I love games. I also need to eat though.
What concerns me is the way both mobile gaming and home gaming is slowly moving towards a rental model. Companies increasingly aim to push out as many products as they can in a year, all fairly formulaic, and now it seems with “Project 10$” from EA, and something similar from Sony (except twice the price!), that the idea is to turn games into revenue streams rather than outright purchases. Including when they are sold second hand. And all this by exerting more and more control over content in terms of the access to it, and the volume / timespan of that access.
With the “Freemium” App model consumers may be getting something free initially, but it’s little more than an advert / demo they would get for free anyway back in the day with more traditional models.
One individual reviewer put it very well with regards to another “freemium” title: “I’d rather pay $10.00 now and play as much as I want, than pay $1.00 every day to play.” If someone is paying a $1.00 a day to play it’s very simple maths to work out how much they might pay in a month even if they only play every other day. When compared to a one time sticker price of $10.00 (or more often $1.99) in the AppStore this starts to make real sense from a financial perspective for a publisher.
What worries me is that we are looking at a lot of energy and development time being put into a very fast moving market for the next great marketing opportunity, to sell more credits, and hook more people. Rather than crafting quality challenging and enthralling experiences for players which have some shelf life for the developers. But hey, if that’s what the market wants who am I to argue. My concern is that the market knows no better simply because they are not getting offered anything different going forward.
From a small Developers perspective keeping up with this market you are either going to have to do a lot of work to setup a system like this for yourself with server support, and lay out quite a lot of cash on bandwidth and so on to service a successful “Freemium” model. Or you are going to have to sign up with the likes of Ngmoco, OpenFeint or Scoreloop. I don’t see Ngmoco providing their networked multiplayer for free (but I’d love to be proved wrong). I also wonder how long OpenFeint and Scoreloop will continue as they are before they have to charge in some way – despite what they say to the contrary. In any case (as a developer) your future, and your potential fortune is in their hands to some degree if you go down that route. My only advice if you are leaning that way is to pick your partner carefully. Scoreloop and OpenFeint have a more focussed and mature business plan, and are in a different market than Ngmoco, as I’ve already pointed out.
Ngmoco are courting developers right now with possible publishing deals. Which is great. Lots of opportunities. But I am not convinced that this is really the creative freedom I am looking for as an Indie myself.
An alternative to all this is to craft a quality standalone game and charge a fair price for it. But as we all know it’s very hard to get exposure in the App Market these days, especially with “the race to the bottom” in pricing.
Which brings us back full circle, it seems, to the free demo, paid upgrade model – which Apple introduced with StoreKit in OS3.0. And other bigger publishers on other platforms have been doing for a while too. This is something all iPhone developers can do quite simply themselves with StoreKit, and a “Lite” version of their App which can offer in game purchases or full upgrades as part of it’s features. Or as a set of standalone “Lite” and “Premium” titles.
So have we really moved that far forward from then? I don’t think so. I just think we’ve put some lipstick on the same old pig.
Indies still have to work hard. Big venture capital startups and major publishers have the clout and existing IP to get market awareness. We all have the opportunity to produce both free and premium titles and sell them ourselves, or go with a publisher. What everyone really needs to focus on is producing quality products that people want and then getting the best exposure and marketing possible to share their idea with the world.
Disclosure : Where I work we use Scoreloop in our titles, and we too sometimes wonder how they make any money! But overall in our experience they are the most approachable and enthusiastic company for Devs and gamers alike in this industry.
Services Referenced in this article:
Social Networked Gaming Services with SDKS and various levels of Push notifications and in App Purchase.
Scoreloop : http://www.scoreloop.com/
OpenFeint : http://www.openfeint.com/
Promises Social Networking and possibly global networked play. But SDK pending.
Plus+ : http://plusplus.com/
Push Notifications and in App Purchase system. (Limited free model and premium model)
Urban Airship : http://urbanairship.com/
Monetising games with in game advertising.
AdMob : http://www.admob.com/
There are a number of iPhone games that use music as a backdrop for game play. Tapulous’ popular Tap Tap Revenge series immediately comes to mind. The thing about games like Tap Tap Revenge is that they require you to buy content to play with which, on an iPhone full of music, might seem like a needless expense. The upcoming game Tune Runner from Appy Entertainment takes a more revolutionary path, using your existing music library as the in-game content.
In Tune Runner, the player must make their way through various environments by drawing the shapes that move from right to left on the screen. Successfully draw the shape through touch on the screen and your robot Grov-ee continues on his journey, unsuccessfully draw the shape and your robot loses a little bit of his life. If you miss enough shapes your life meter drains and your mission is over. As I alluded to in the beginning though, Tune Runner’s revolutionary aspect is in the creation of the game environment. Tune Runner scans the music on your iPhone and for each level played you select a song. The game then generates the level dynamically based on that song. Every level is different, no two plays are ever the same. Even two plays on the same song are different.
Tune Runner for iPhone also implements some nice extras in addition to the solid game play. Tune Runner implements full OpenFeint support with global high scores and achievements. Additionally, after you complete a song, your score is submitted against all other scores for that song. This is an interesting twist on social gaming since usually overall global high score is usually king.
The other interesting extra is how game play and game price are connected. Instead of pasting banner ads to every empty space in the application or charging more for the game, Tune Runner takes another approach. Each new game is allotted a certain number of plays of the game. To earn more plays of the game the user can either purchase them or earn them the Recharge mini-game. Purchasing them is a straightforward proposition. The Recharge mini-game is a little bit more interesting. Play is the same as the main game but instead of Grov-ee, a battery is displayed. Each shape that is successfully drawn places a bit more energy in the battery. When the battery reaches full charge an additional play is earned. To subsidize this, banner ads are displayed during the Recharge mini-game which is a small price to pay for this fun little mini-game and additional plays of the game.
I look forward to playing the final version of Tune Runner. It looks to be an innovative game with a fun and interesting interface. I think Appy has a winner on its hands.
Previewed By: Erin Peterson
Early Screenshots
