Notch about mobile gaming

Yes, exactly. And it's dumb to complain that the Apple Store doesn't have the same games as PSN if you're not willing to ever go buy games there instead of PSN. It's basically saying "Devs need to make the games that I want! But I'm not actually going to buy them, of course" and then acting shocked and offended when the devs decide to make games for people who actually buy them instead.

 

No, it's not saying that at all.

You're constantly accusing me/us of not buying games, which is pure folly. I do buy the games I want. Regularly. And I pay far more for them than the average paid iTunes game asks. I just don't get them from iTunes, because as a marketplace it does not cater to me as a consumer.

Please note that I'm not "complaining" about what's on iTunes. I'm just explaining why I don't shop there much.

 

I didn't "accuse" you; you said "this describes me perfectly". Also, if you're not complaining about what's on iTunes/Apple Store/Google Play, then you're probably not one of the people I was talking about. The post you responded to was a reply to tiggus who was saying he wants full-price games on his phone instead of IAP games, and that he "would" pay for them if they existed, which seems to exemplify that attitude where people say they want something but fail to acknowledge its existence.

 

Yeah, referring to being a "core gamer" who would rather buy stuff from providers who cater better to "core gamers". You jumped from there to telling me I'm unwilling to buy games.

Anyway, in my longer post I did explicitly acknowledge that there are good games on there and that some of them probably do suit our tastes - the comment about "diamonds in the rough". The point isn't that such games don't exist on this platforms, it's that finding them is usually difficult. We're a variety of small niches, though, so there's absolutely no rational reason for either the platform or developers releasing on it to do anything differently. And that's not a complaint, it's just the things that I think are leading me as a consumer to lean towards other services. Those ones aren't bad, I'm just not the audience they best cater to when it comes to video games.

 

Hold on a sec, where did I call someone a drooling moron, or where did i question the intelligence of the person playing the game, and where did i say games have to be like the games I like? You've essentally made an ad-hominem attack over something you pulled out of your posterior. No I dont pay to not see ads because i dont play mobile games because the games dont appeal to me because they're a looming pile of turgid crap being knocked out at a gobsmacking rate by fine purveyors of snake oil with no interest other than making money. I'm happy to be educated, but instead you just attacked my character. You're making a great representation of what you're trying to defend there.

I play (or did back when i hasd time) every type of game under the sun, and I am not young, i have played a lot of games, and the whole way the mobile gaming market works is absurd. You disabling ads was the funniest comment you made in the whole post. WHY SHOULD A GAME HAVE ADS IN IT. To make money. Yeah, thats your motivation as a mobile developer, to make money, put another spin on time tested formula that promises a helthy income

Good for you, you're making money, youre also contributing to the kind of mentality rife in all media to be consumed this way, reality tv!, people love it! So it must be great!

No it's dumb and exploitative, people arent 'choosing with their wallets', theyre given lowest common denominator drivel that will make money. No matter what you say, and you're making it clear, you want to make a quick buck.

I don't watch crappy tv because i know better, why would I when theres great tv/films/or even just actually doing what i believe in when it comes to making games, which isnt 'one type of game that the mentally handicapped could not possibly understand', its any type of game that treated the game like a home-brew, nerdy, independant developer might put together after much thought and research, something that actually meant anything to you at all, especially given the sheer power of phones these days. The paradigm neatly fits into this cutesy mindless homogeonous stew of the mundane that puts me off going anywhere near gogle play for a bit every time I try and brave its harsh wastelands

It's cute that you like to defend your games on your platform but if indie games had the kind of regular punch through into a more mainstream gaming audience that, say, indie releases on greenlight can achieve, then maybe the cack can be avoided, but turn steam on now, look through the games, theres a few duffers in there but its not a hopeless mess and very easy to find out EXACTLY what kind of game it is and the facts i need to know, and how it relates to my feasible enjoyment of it

If youre a developer, im sorry, but if youre calling my appeal for an intelligent or emotionally resonant or possibly a game that stopped trying to emulate things that existed and actually explored the medium (Same could be levelleed at all game platforms atm i guess) some form of elitism, then thanks for insulting my intelligence, or your own intelligence, cause asking for game that I could find easily that ticks the boxes and provides some sort of transcendent experience for a bit instead of moving big cartoony things around the screen would be very much welcome

Those cartoony things are not there because the buyer decides with their wallet, its there because its always been there cause it doesnt seem like the mainsteam every really got over snake, and while particular publishers who have the money to slather their marketing all over everything drowning everything else with gaudy mess, i see why someone might be allowed to criticise the state of mobile gaming, wether they're notch or John Smith from Yorkshire, UK. The fact it comes from notch is funny cause of the reaction against the fact hes notch. Who cares about notch! Hes some guy who made a game about blocks. Doesnt take away some, im sorry to say, stark truths about the mobile gaming industry. Any game, that EVER puts adds in front of my face is going to be uninstalled 5 seconds later, unless it was a game by a friend

The very fact you think thats acceptable is absurd. See games as an art medium (Yes games are art, the'yre actually a meeting hub for umpteen facets of artistic endeavour) but you dont have to be an art buff to resent Popcap stickers around the frames of each work at your local charities gallery

 

Is there anything wrong with making money?

I don't see anything wrong with it, in and of itself. I do personally find some methods of making money distasteful, but I'm getting the distinct impression that you don't like the idea of (mobile?) games making money at all.

Why shouldn't a game have ads in it? You don't have to play it. You're asking to benefit from someone else's work, why should they not somehow in turn benefit from you? And if people don't want to pay (which so many people don't!) then what's wrong with instead using adverts? It's honestly not like you're being forced to watch them, because playing the game is entirely your choice.

And if the game was free and you get the option to pay not to have ads... what's honestly wrong with that? The user gets the choice of free with ads or paid without. Isn't that the best of both worlds?

 

No i love the idea of the games making money, they have to pay the people who worked their arse off (ideally) to make a superb game that deserves every penny of its income based on having extremely high production value and its value as a product be easily judged by its own merit, not slapping stickers all over it. I'd rather people got used to paying a little more for their games, so they can get some quality stuff, the point being people can spunk 30 on portal cause they know its going to be a fantastic game, so you stick advertising stickers all over it? No its crass and demeans the whole thing to distastefulness

The add revenue, the microtransactions, theyre very poisonous, why even bother making something original or groundbreaking when you can swim in a pool of ad-powered money from your flappy birds game cept with nicer/funnier graphics

The whole acceptance of ads in games is a mindblock to me, i dont understand how its acceptable, i mean sure on your flipping cartoon things around the screen game, maybe, but in something where you're actually trying to achieve something with your.. lets have a look at gsmarena a second... my phone has a 4 core cpu and an adreno 320 gpu. Why do i pretty much use it solely for messaging. The best way to make your game look trashy is chuck ads on - Take a larger format game thats say, famous for its atmosphere and you being brought into that. Take Journey, Ico, Dear Esther, The Last Of Us.. are these the same type of games? What would be the effect on you should ad's pop up ANYWHERE while you play?

The game is reduced to trash

Think of your scene graph, think of how far you can go in various directions in unity world space before precision errors make gameplay increasingly improbable, imagine you open zbrush or max or whatever you model in, if you model, and just model something great looking but you have noooo idea what it is. Keep doing that, an idea forms, its a great idea! It'll even run on mobiles the way it's set up! You have ths pal who is just an amazing writer, they have a story in mind, maybe quite a touching one. Your games got short bits of shooting and parts of quiet contemplation where you start to (gosh) get drawn into the consistent integrity and quality of the game.

'Consistency and integrity' is not a type of game, its two fundamental parts of a well designed game that has any kind of activity that isnt repeating the same thing over and over until you have 3 stars on all the levels

Advertising on a game as described is an insult to an attempt to use the media for what it's capable of, making absolutely anything imaginable, my phones got 4 1.7ghz cpu cores and a very nice gpu, why do i have so little reason to use it? Cause games can't be trusted to have any sort of substance of consequence. If a game's good you can pay the money for it (Anyone remember demos?), major games sites might even be arsed to write decent reviews for it. The very fact advertising is automatically accepted and isn't, instead... rather seen as a completely trashy exercise that undermines the whole principles of the product, the fact you cant make a game of good enough quality or strong enough concept that you cant have the plain decency to rest on its merits instead of cheapening the exercise for the extra money

It's worth saying right now i've made several mobile games, one of them even resides on google play, its a total marble madness clone, i just wanted to make a tribute to mark cerny, the original creator, who got screwed over by atari over the game so i gave it a modern makeover and credited him with the game. Nothing special, not asking for money, and ads can kindly burn

 

The Following is a mix of History Lesson Blunt Reality


I honestly don't understand why people feel the need to defend Notch, as if by defending him they are somehow defending their dream future self (for when they hit it big, right?).

Even weirder are the people who lash out at others, claiming they are "Jealous of Notch's success" and THAT is the reason they "hate on him".



In reality, Notch is what we call a "one trick pony". In other words, he created a game which went viral, and was good enough to not lose its spotlight. Whether or not he IS a one trick pony, is up to debate. This cannot be known until he releases his second video game. So far, he has admitted to pretty much relaxing on his success and lying back as other people continue to work on his one and only success.

Minecraft is a good game, but it is by no means this grand fantastic game which was inspired by genius. I'm pretty sure that if a game were to be given the title "inspired by genius" it would, according to the public's opinion, go to something like Dwarf Fortress.

The reason people can justify "hating on" Notch is because he is NOT this legendary developer. Legendary Developers have multiple titles, they have famous careers of success. Their fame did not come from the modern phenomenon known as "going viral" and the internet. Instead, their fame comes from slowly rising through game after game. They are considered geniuses because they invented entire SERIES of games, and games after those series.


For example, Richard Garriott, Will Wright, Peter Molyneux.

Even more so, these people are known as the original creators of these series. These games. They are known for revolutionizing gaming.
So what about Notch?

He did not invent the idea of Minecraft. Instead, he either borrow from or directly stole (depending on what you think) from Infiniminer and other games.
It would be one thing to say that Infiniminer inspired Notch. However, have you ever SEEN Infiniminer? One can barely distinguished it from Minecraft.




I would hardly say he invented the idea of Minecraft. That is like saying BLIZZARD invented the idea of World of Warcraft without anything coming before it (Warcraft the RTS game Everquest the MMO).

No. Instead, just like Blizzard, they copied/stole/were inspired by (<-- choose your term) a nearly identical game which came before. Then, they took that game and polished it, added some content, or changed a few things.

The result was enormous success by giving people a version that was more user friendly (arguable in Minecraft's case, unless you know Infiniminer to have awful usability).

Everquest ---> World of Warcraft
Infiniminer ---> Minecraft



THAT is why notch is considered by most as a one-trick-pony, and "hating on" him is not because of "Jealousy" but rather something closer to "Not hating but simply pointing out the truth." or if you can't understand how someone can "hate on" someone without actually being fueled by emotion, then it's because of "undeserved viral fame". If people are jealous, which they are probably not, then they are jealous of the fact his game went viral. Not because he is a genius. It is not about a stroke of creativity than it is about pure luck along with some good game design or game polishing. It is obvious Notch has some talent, seeing as when his game went viral it did not suck the life from everyone and lose its virality. However, that is like saying Angry Birds is this fantastic video game sparked by when Perfect Creativity Absolute Genius combined and imploding, resulting in success.


The legends of old (older developers who actually redefined the genre and indeed sparked creativity) never had the opportunity to go viral or to sell so many copies of a video game.
The idea of Minecraft was invented before Notch created Minecraft, and there were other games similar to it (Wurm Online being another). There was already a genre for this type of game, someone else invented the genre, and thus neither did notch invent the idea of Minecraft nor inspire a new genre.

The truth is that Notch simply made a game that was similar to every other game in the genre, but his went viral and stuck. Whether or not it stuck because of his talent or the mystical power of going viral, is up to debate. However, without the viral movement- Minecraft would be yet another Infiniminer.

Infiniminer. The game which is nearly identical to it. The game which came before it.

Sorry, but he cannot be considered a Peter Molyneux or Will Wright. He isn't even one of the nameless people who assisted "The Legendary Developers" in creating their games. He is a guy who went Viral. At most, he is a BLIZZARD. So far, that is all that it is when you take an objective perspective on what it means to create a video game in light of being one of "the greats".

 

I personally could not give less of a fig about notch, hes the guy who made that blocky game, thats pretty much all I have to say about him. I would have agreed with him in most ways (Until someone starts proving me wrong soon) if he'd been my postman who stopped to have a chat at the door about the state of mobile video games while trying to to find all my bills in the stack of envelopes

The whole concept of caring so much to write anything about him is alien to me. I quite liked your pick of some of the 'classics' although i find both garriot and molyneux very flawed in a lot of ways. They did do some great things for the scope of videogames that are very relevant to this thread, in fact you could not have picked better examples for this

Garriots problem was he wanted a lot, whole breathing ultima kingdoms, and he wanted you to have a S*** hot computer to play it on. I remember the happy days of having a 486 DX2 and being the only one of my mates who could play Ultima 8 properly (And even then it was laggy as hell sometimes) - i dont care what the critics say about U8, it didnt have the depth of U7, so what, you could climb up building walks, steal peoples stuff and throw balls around. How many games actually have the graphics and scope of U8 on mobile btw? How about U7?

Molyneux possibly similar problem! His first game was the progenitor and absolute classic example of a god game, he never stopped evangelising and making games of enormous scope, prob is he does talk a lot and a lot of it transpires to be hot air. Some dont like this aspect of him, and i was disappointed that i never really enjoyed a Fable game, but i do love his endless passion for pushing the boundaries of what games should do, how they should draw you into their world, let you see things in a new light and have you question yourself and your actions

My phone could smash the visuals to the original Fable to pieces. So er.. where's a game like that on a mobile phone

Where is any game on a mobile phone that keeps true to the enormous vision of these guys, from the visuals to the size of the areas you can explore and the things you can do and emotional attachment you can create to something made of consequence and so on. I dont think click the blue gems fast really stands up does it, although the adverts look pretty and the purple gems are only 50 cents!

You can add sid meier or david braben to the guys who have stayed very quiet, have been doing this a long long time, and both of their first commerical games i actually think might possibly still be beyond the scope of any mobile game ive ever heard of (please prove me wrong). Their FIRST published games! in the 80s!

If you think this mobile shenanigans is acceptable you need to step back and not look at mobile games, dont even look at console and desktop games, why dont you look at the software you have on your computer or have a look through the top rated submissions on the subject of your choice at deviantart.com (since cghub went down) and maybe consider how you've been bought into a very ugly thing, hook, line and sinker

 

Something I'd like to add about the pay model for mobile games - it's 100% consumer driven.

The point above about Xcom: EU being $10 while the PC version is $60 should reverberate much more strongly than it has. The fact is, consumers REFUSE, absolutely REFUSE to pay a fair price for anything developed for mobile.

If I spend 2 years making a PC game, and those same 2 years making an Android game, people will still say it's worth less on Android. Same time, same, work, same content - they devalue it because of the platform.

This is why ads and micro transactions exist. They have become a necessary evil that many developers have to employ in order to remain in business. Sure, some go crazy and get filthy rich off them, but other developers have only a few, sensibly placed ads or micro transactions that don't reduce game play if you decide not to purchase them.

If people were willing to actually spend money on mobile applications the same way they do for desktop applications, the advertising model wouldn't exist and there would be far less micro transactions.

The problem is, it's not even conscious anymore. My best friend is a techphobe. He hates smart phones and refuses to use them. I had a conversation with him last month where he said "Some idiots at work just spent $5 on an app. Why would anyone be that stupid".

I asked him "If I made a game that you would pay $50 for on your computer, why would I be stupid to offer that same game, that took the same amount of time and resources to build, for less than $50 on a phone?"

He agreed that it did seem ridiculous. But his initial reaction, even being someone who has never purchased an app, was that they should all be free.

As long as this remains true, developers have to find other methods of making money on games, or just stop making them entirely.

 

Notch is very opinionated and uses his twitter account liberally. People need to get off the "zomg Notch sez" bandwagon already. Its like a horde of trolls just follows him around, attenuating everything he says.

 

I must admit I live in unique circumstances, nontheless the attitude towards mobiles stems from perceptions of them not really changing much since snake, but the potential now in the hardware is phenomenal. My best way to describe smartphones to people is 'they are computers in the shape of a phone, making calls is one of the less interesting things it can do'. Tablets help too, in the ma and pa generation for older oiks like me, they seem to be spending more on tablets than phones!

You can't really say 100% consumer driven, its the chicken and the egg situation again. the platform needs a Jenova Chen to come and do something simple, conceptually pure and absolutely beautiful, and smartphones (based on experience, at least since the s2) CAN do this, and you you know, our Chen doppelganger can ask $2 a pop, probs make a bomb - think about the coverage. Adverts and microtransactions, hah says Jenova2, but i might do some dlc for a bit of moolah.

Thats not a microtransaction thats some proportionally scaled additional content, it's cognitive behavioral therapy in action, changing the status quo is entirely viable, the problem is the shortcomings are reinforced by development that doesn't try to do anything outside a 15 year old paradigm. The only time ive even seen graphics looking wildly flashy on my phone has been some car game and that to me is just an irritating waste. To break the idea that mobile software has less value i think means explaining to people that what they own is a very powerful computer that just happens to make phone calls, and it's small because it's state of the art, and it probably kicks their home computers' arse.

You cant imaginative inventive genius out of thin air to make these sort of products, especially ones that aren't particularly fussed about money, but i can see things changing, certainly with (It was typically glacial but oh well) say, comp graphics and comp sci students realising they can knock out whatever they're researching into a game, or see making a game as a way to have fun? fill time? hone their skills? get them a girlfriend/boyfriend? (This is becoming significantly prevalent aha, its good way to suggest a talented student i might talk to to have a go at something like this). Based on where i am communicating on the internet i can kind of get a sense of the profile of game dev, and unity, u4 etc are taking off, not just for guys like you folk, but becoming zeitgeist amongst anyone with any interest in games whatsoever

How about more clearly reasonably young but incredibly talented teams like HelloGames sprouting up everywhere with no real financial based motivation to do what they're doing, maybe hedging their bets on changing the landscape of the format will reap dividends, i can see this happening as awareness is on the rise, of both the ability to easily publish mobile games at the moment, and the unfortunate selection of the absolutely talentless (but fine mimics - i could number among them sadly) turning the mobile platform into a swamp, and being fully aware that the right product hitting the right notes could very much jolt peoples expectations and the bar start being raised a great deal.

Its not like this hasnt happened before, two simple examples are Journey and Portal (I should add that it was portal 2 that really laid the smackdown), recent, completely pure, really rather pretty in their own way. I said Journal earlier and then got accused of only liking games like that, which was bizarre, gotta love peoples imaginations i guess, but it is the type of production that is vastly different to your usual mobile fare, yes im aware it was on the ps3 and no i dont thing thats relevant, and then after that, after it happens a few times, across genre, using my fancy phone features best they can (Put a game with the graphics of a strong pc title into a pace suitable for mobile control and minds are going to change, itll start getting a bit high profile)

Things can change, however its not the customers making the games, and how many times has a customer pitched an amazing game to you in a comment instead of going "1 star - online wont work in airplane mode, rubbish"

You guys are making the games

 

Great post.

 

I wonder if it would be acceptable then to sell the mobile version ONLY if you also buy the PC version (which comes with BOTH for the price of the PC version).

I think the user would be okay with it, because they aren't buying the mobile version. In their mind, they are buying the PC version for the correct PC price, and getting the mobile version for free. So if they want to play ONLY the mobile version, they will think to themselves "I will buy the PC version, but only for the mobile version." the keyboard is I. "I will buy." "I will decide to." "I will bend the rules." So the developer is never blamed in the first place, because they don't even HAVE an android version available. There's just a nifty "experimental, unsupported" android version for free with every PC copy.

I think Indies could get away with that. Of course, that isn't to say they wouldnt miss out on 99% of the mobile market. But it is an excuse to sell their game at full price on android.

Just a thought anyway, even if it is probably a flawed strategy.

 

For me it is not the same game. Most mobile variants of PC games cannot be played in the same way because of touch controls. And all art assets are just the LOD variant of the PC games assets. So 10-20$ no problem if it is good, but not 60$.

Bought GTA for 5$, was a no-brainer. But it is not the same game if you play with touch controls. I don't understand why more phones are like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (gamepad included).

 

When you add a gamepad, it goes from being a Phone you slide in your pocket to a mobile gaming device you have to carry.

Although for tablets, it's interesting.

However, RAZER already tried that. They released a expensive windows tablet with FPS shooter-style controllers attached to it.

I am assuming it's not "all the rage" bc of both price and lack of market desirability.

Although I must admit... I do want one. Of course, I don't care to have one at the price and never will unless I want to purchase a laptop.

http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems

 

I'm referring to these statements:
"People are now used to simple games"
"how educated do you think the average mobile phone owner is about the games industry"
"how does this person ever buy anything that isnt pap when they cant actually find anything that isn't pap"
"Why are they mindless"

Your whole post is saying that they didn't vote with their wallets "really", because they don't actually like the games they buy, they're all just too stupid to search for the games that you like instead. You're saying that if they were all less stupid, that they would buy stylized narrative games instead of cartoon puzzle games, but they can't, because they're too stupid to know that stylized narrative games exist and can't figure out how to use the search function in the store.

I think you answer that in your very next sentence: "i dont play mobile games because the games dont appeal to me because they're a looming pile of turgid crap being knocked out at a gobsmacking rate by fine purveyors of snake oil with no interest other than making money"

You're saying that stylized narrative adventure games like Dear Esther are good but pretty much every other genre and art style is crap.

I hate to break this to you; it might come as a shock, but... game developers have always been trying to make money. Even Dear Esther. I find myself doubting that you're actually as old as you say, because usually the attitude that people should spend their lives making you stuff for free and not get paid for it is a younger mindset. In the real world, game developers need income to survive, so they have to charge money for games. Since everyone wants games for free, and they don't want IAP, and they don't want to pay up front, ads are pretty much the only way to make money.

I don't think you understand what "voting with their wallet" means. It specifically means that people pay for what they want, not what they say they want. You are being a prime example here. Everybody says they think reality tv is crap, and yet everyone watches it while pretending they're only doing it ironically. That is exactly what "voting with their wallet" means. It's like how everyone says they don't watch porn, and yet "somehow" billions of dollars get spent on it every year. People say they want one thing, but refuse to actually pay for it when it's there (example: you saying you "would" buy side scrolling adventure games on mobile if they existed, yet refusing to even do a simple google search to see that they exist), and they say they don't want something and yet actually do gravitate towards that thing (like how you say you hate cartoon games with ads, yet you apparently have played quite a lot of those and never played the games that you claim you actually want). That's "voting with your wallet".

 

Speaking of full-price-up-front stylized-art narrative adventure games sort of like Dear Esther that don't have ads or cash shops:

The Wolf Among Us
The Walking Dead
Machinarium
Year Walk
The Room

If you're ranting about how you want these games to exist, and how you "would" pay for them if they existed, and yet you're not actually paying for them and are instead downloading free games with ads and IAP, then you're part of the problem.

 

What?! OH NOOOO!! :cry:

 

It's not about whether you feel it's the same game. The point is that the resources spent to make it are similar abut you reduce the value based solely on the platform.

If I spend $100,000 making a pc game, then $100,000 making all the mobile friendly assets (you'd have to do a lot of work to make certain the assets don't overwhelm mobile), why does the mobile version deserve to sell for less? Why is there less intrinsic value?

 

Until Notch manages to make a second hit game that is radically different from mine craft we should just consider him as someone who got really lucky, really doesn't understand very much about video games and is actually not capable of producing logical thoughts that truly and accurately understand the nature of video games and their consumers.

 

I so want a modern phone like the xperia play!

 

Is it about the platform or the experience? I mean, seriously, you can't tell me that the experience of playing a game on your phone is the same as playing a game on a home theater setup or a gaming PC.

It might be the same game, but it's in no way the same experience. Even with other mobile platforms, the best games are the ones where the experience is crafted around the platform rather than just having a game shoved onto it. Even without special attention like that, you lose a lot of the experience when you just shoehorn something made for one form factor into another.

Consumers as a general rule don't care about the effort people put into something, they care about the value they get out of it. This isn't just a games thing, it's an everything thing. Do you value clean dishes more knowing that they were washed by hand rather than shoved in a dishwasher? When you're at a supermarket, do you even think about the effort put in or are you looking at the quality of the produce?

 

I think he's just commenting on the current status of mobile gaming in the sense that its very overwhelming, there are lots of games and apps out there, and the competition is fierce. He's probably also commenting on the whole "race to the bottom" trend in mobile markets. And he's right.

 

I think app stores play a major part in it as well. It's no longer about creating a game that will be noticed by a magazine or gamers, it's about getting to the top of the list.
Mobile gaming still fairly new, things will settle down over time - we'll start seeing more and more quality experiences coming out on top, rather than the basic 3-match/flappy bird clones. I'd expect Google to start taking references from major gaming news sites into account when determining a games ranking (if they don't already). It'll become less about quantity + downloads and more about quality + experience. Being reviewed by a major gaming site will be a huge boost to app store rankings (in addition to the traffic/download spike you'll receive).

Mobile gaming isn't dying and it doesn't need to be saved. It just needs to evolve - and that'll happen naturally

 

Hand held games didn't offer the same experience as console games, but they were priced the same. A blue-ray disk doesn't offer the same experience as an imax theater but it costs more (or used to. Imax is getting really expensive now). Still, an entire home theater system doesn't offer the same professional theater experience, but it's way more than you'll spend on a ticket.

People don't pay based on the experience, but the perception of value. People spend as much for a ring as a car. Which has more value? It's all in perception.

 

Yes, it's all in perception. Which is why a bluray is potentially worth more than a cinema ticket (you can watch the bluray many times with many people, a ticket is just once for one person) and so on and so forth.

I, as a consumer, do not perceive GTA on my phone to have the same entertainment value as GTA on my home theater.

In the case of games, the perception of value is based directly on the anticipated experience.

 

I just find it odd that he (notch) is complaining to the ether for someone to "save mobile gaming" (whatever that means) when he himself is likely in a better position to do this than most developers... Or maybe he's waiting for someone else to come up with the next great idea that he can borrow? just seems like silly pandering... hey notch, make that dream game for yourself, and us!

 

Nothing in this post bore any resemblance to my point. I didn't say I like narrative games, in fact I think the narrative in Dear Esther is annoying and i wish i could turn it off short of turning the sound off and the captions off. I said 'i dont like crappy games', yes thats an opinion but i didnt say people should buy the games I like, anywhere. I don't like rts at all but I think anyone who likes rts has a great selection of amazing rts games to choose from. I dont like them but i don't think they are bad games.

Considering I spent some time explaining that people should make money (I said this explicitly) then your post makes even less sense, wrapping up an inability to read with another personal attack (Calling me immature) starts getting rich. I said many devs in the mobile market make money with no artistic vision whatsoever. You called me immature then didn't seem to know the difference between there being a strong concept, and what that concept might look like.

Thankyou for the explanation of the phrase, although it means 'people buy what they like' and not much else. Now consider i spent a few sentences explaining why the games that are popular, are popular, and hence what people like is constructed, i would have thought you would address that instead of making a series of inane analogies

Have I said anything about side scrolling things? I don't recall saying anything about side scrolling things

I would pay for a game i liked with the money in my bank if i wanted it

I didn't say anyone was stupid? At worst I said they were not very well educated in gaming, on average. I've already said I don't play games on mobile because every time I try i feel like i'm wallowing in a swamp of exploitative trash. Have you heard of a meritocratic principle where the those who show aptitude rise to that top? Thats when they are allowed to have visibility and they make their money because people bought their game, they didn't completely soil the experience with incongruous advertising

This is quite a funny debate, have you ever read a book? If you had just bought a book that you liked the sound of and the first page was an advert for the latest mmo, how would you feel about the book and its publisher? Authors of books want to make money too. They make it by selling their books. When I like a game, i buy the game, and much like the book example, if it advertised anything other than the publisher, the developer, and any images the license of any middleware that was used required as it started, I would instantly lose all respect for the publisher and would question the demands the developer were put under (And hence the quality of what I was about to experience)

That the mobile market is in the state it is today is because it's never been different, and arguing in the favour of it on the principle that it must be right because it's never been different has been the typical opposition to almost every major advance over an existing, questionable paradigm since time immemorial

This is bugger all to do with notch and his block game. I'd have to reply to the thing about caring about notch, i do care about things that i feel are important. I don't care about notch and his block game though as it is not important. Justin Beiber and Twilight are two other things people talk about on the net all the time (although thankfully they seem to be going), i don't care about those either. This thread was a good situation to address the problem though, or at least define it outside the context of what some guy who made a block game said on a social networking thing that i also don't care about.

And yeah Justin, its a massive shame, circumstances why are still a bit unclear. I'm a regular over at deviantart but the art posted there is so inconsistent in quality it's no valid substitute if you want to go and browse some really good work (and save tonnes of it for reference/inspiration)

I am not going to argue about who da oldust on the internet, i'm also not going to make ad hominem comments towards you (makeshiftwings), but i would appreciate a reply to anything i posted that indicated you had actually read the post.

 

I do, I've worked on and I've worked as a busboy. Oddly more enjoyable than computers but it's not like farm hands and busboys are rewarded monetarily for their work. They can't even afford the food they are serving.

 

In this case, since you just must be talking about an expensive diamond ring, it's the ring you want as an investment. Because in most cases the car will depreciate will the ring almost certainly appreciate. Cars start now in the high 10s of thousands to buy it's hard to find a ring that costs that much to begin with. You don't buy a ring every 5 years the way most people buy cars every 5 years.

 

Fair enough - but that means you're not going to see the same type of games on mobile. The market of "core gamers" is much smaller than the market of "people who want to be entertained for five minutes while waiting for the bus." If a game is selling for $60, it's viable to target that smaller market. If it's selling for $2 - not so much. And also, targeting that larger market usually means IAP instead of an up-front price, because that's what people will actually pay.

 

And this i guess is a central aspect of what i consider on the subject.

Why are developers making games? What motivates them? If you want to make money, there are far, far, easier ways

 

That means that you are trying to make a game that EVERYONE would buy rather than identify a niche which would give you a comfortable income rather than be the next flappy bird. Why don't people try to make games which will sell 100k copies rather than 100m? 100x X $10 is a million bucks. That would fund a three man team for a year or two.

Funnily, and I'm well aware of the fact that it's not directly comparable, I was looking at buying System Shock 2 off GOG. I checked the requirements for it. 200 MHz processor, 32 MB ram, 200 MB hard disk space...

http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=18819&tab=sysreqs

My phone, a Sony XPeria Acro S, has a 1.5 GHz Snapdragon 800 with 2GB RAM, and Adreno GPU, 16 GB internal storage space + 32 Gb on a MicroSD. I would say that the 15 year old System Shock 2 blows every single mobile game out of the water, easily. As I said, SS 2 is probably not the type of game I would play on a phone - I just mention it to illustrate how much could be done on the so much more limited technology that existed when it was released. That it's not done today in mobile gaming must be because of something other than technological limitations.

 

Why money? Um, because we need to pay rent and eat? As far as "you should make games that are cool, not try to make money" - game development is more pleasant when you have a roof over your head. I'd rather support myself with games that actually make money and work on my stranger ideas as non-commercial side projects than try to split the difference and end up half-assed on both fronts.

How many mobile games sell for $10 (plus Apple's cut, plus the publisher's cut)? That 100k+ people actually buy? And made by a three-person team, no less? :???:

 

Maxie's point, I think, was to aim for a niche rather than try to make a mainstream smash-hit that targets "everyone". If you target "people with mobile phones" you end up competing with Angry Birds and Candy Crush and the like, and it doesn't really help you in planning. If you target, maybe, "18 - 24yo males who like pimping up cars"... you're only competing with racing games, plus that's a useful target that would help inform all of your decisions from business planning to game design to your marketing campaign (which means you can compete better).

(Or you could compete by making your target even more niche than the average racing game.)