iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch game recommendations

[psj3809]

Think a subscription wouldnt work, games are so cheap anyway theres no point. I mean Minter releases a new game say every 4 or 5 months, you cant have a subscription system with that.

Anyway a new game just appeared...

Rico
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=183141

Nice retro graphics, chip tune, plays well, a very good game from an indie dev. Only a few quid, well worth it, shall be playing this lots later.

[Antiriad2097]

Think a subscription wouldnt work, games are so cheap anyway theres no point. I mean Minter releases a new game say every 4 or 5 months, you cant have a subscription system with that.

Why not? If there's 3 games a year, I'd pay my £7.50 to get those. Dev then knows he has at least a budget of X amount to cover the bills, which might just give it an extra week or two of tweaking if it was needed. To me as the end user it'd make little difference, but it could help the devs to know they had at least a minimal regular income.

[psj3809]

I'd rather just vote with my wallet, if i 'subscribe' to his games for a year i might not like 2 or 3 of them. Plus many of the cheapskates wont want to pay £7.50 up front when many of these kids wait for 69p games to go free.

I like most of Minters games (Didnt like the Deflector style one). But at the end of the day its great when an 8 bit legend like Minter is still out there creating games, i heard he wasnt too happy with previous sales/profit (he had a bit of a rant on twitter about it), i think thats why this game was a quid more.

But i feel sorry for ios devs at times, people moaning about fuzzy graphics, only 'x' amount of levels, the controls etc and the games a quid or two and they expect updates forever (not talking about people here)

[silvergunner]

Super stickman golf 2 for 69p is a great deal

[CraigGrannell]

The only way to do a subscription would be to have some kind of Llamasoft app that new games get released into (kind of like the arcade emulation ones), but then there's an expectation. What happens if he gets really into a more ambitious title and only releases one new game in a year? Would subscribers get angry?

i heard he wasnt too happy with previous sales/profit (he had a bit of a rant on twitter about it), i think thats why this game was a quid more.

69p is unsustainable unless 1) you're doing this as a hobby and have another job, or 2) you get lucky and sell a few hundred thousand copies of your game. Right now, Jeff's doing this as his career and his games aren't massive iOS hits, but rather selling to a core, dedicated audience. In addition, going back and updating the apps when required (such as when OpenFeint gets canned) takes up time and yet brings in little money. When I spoke to him recently, he was hoping to shift to the 'pint' price-point and I think that's fair enough. Although a couple of his iOS efforts are quite simple, I certainly think the likes of GoatUp 2 and Minotron are worth at least the price of a beer.

At least some other indies appear to be following suit on this, and I hope it's something that takes hold. At the very least, it gives them room for manoeuvre—you can have the odd sale or special offer if your game's a couple of quid or more, but when you're releasing at the very lowest price-point, you can't do anything apart from make it entirely free, which is even worse than 69p.

[psj3809]

I still think its crazy when i go onto other forums and see people practically faint when they see a games 2 quid and then say they'll wait for a price drop.

Probably as i'm an old git from the 80's, i'm stunned theres these very good games for a few quid, which is nothing and they often give me a lot of gameplay for my 2 quid or so. But one problem is too many people expect games to be free or 69p, companies having a price drop one week after launch dont help the situation. I always thought its the opposite, cheap price at launch and then bump it up.

[Coopdevil]

I've found that Ridiculous Fishing's £1.99 price point has encouraged me to spend more time with it and correspondingly I've got into more than I would have done had it been free or 69p in which case it would have got played two or three times and forgotten about.

[CraigGrannell]

A friend of mine complained about The Room, because he finished it in three hours. He admitted it was a fantastic experience and also knew he was being stupid for feeling short-changed, but the perception of value has been totally destroyed by tier-one. There needs to be a fight back. Note that I don't believe games for iOS should be like they were at the start (ten quid for a fairly basic arcade game, say), but there needs to be a middle ground that enables indies to flourish and survive. Without that, the platform will trend towards freemium garbage and majors.

[psj3809]

I've found that Ridiculous Fishing's £1.99 price point has encouraged me to spend more time with it and correspondingly I've got into more than I would have done had it been free or 69p in which case it would have got played two or three times and forgotten about.

Good point. Thats one bad thing about MAME, i mean i cant complain too much as you get tons of arcade games but you tend to just give each game a few minutes and then move onto another. In the old days of saving your pocket money up, then buying a game for £7.95 you would give the game a good play whatever. I remember (ahem) playing quite a few times on even Miami Vice, Knight Rider and Superbowl. Tried to get my monies worth !

As you say if a games 69p i'll take a go on it (whereas lots of people wait for impressions/for it to be free) and if its crap then yeah i'll delete it after 30 mins or so. If its more expensive i will probably play it more to try and justify the purchase.

A lot of games i take my time with, just like to enjoy them whereas its funny hearing some kids completed the game at 2am (after getting the game at midnight). I still love iOS gaming, so much variety and discovering new utilities is great as well - love the way i can turn on (no rude jokes) my computer wherever i am remotely and then control it with logmein for example.

[Antiriad2097]

The only way to do a subscription would be to have some kind of Llamasoft app that new games get released into (kind of like the arcade emulation ones), but then there's an expectation. What happens if he gets really into a more ambitious title and only releases one new game in a year? Would subscribers get angry?

Alternatively, maybe it gives room for both. A small 'cheap' game and a big one once a year? I could live with that. Its not like I'd miss a couple of pounds a quarter, it won't pay my bills but it might pay Jeff's if there's enough of us.

[CraigGrannell]

Perhaps, but even then it'd need a decent number of subs and it's another app to build, maintain and get through Apple's approvals process.

[psj3809]

Talking of a similar scheme but for something quite different - I'm not really a Marvel fan but its quite interesting seeing their new app on iOS where you pay a monthly fee and you have access to a huge back catalogue of stuff. You can download i think 7 comics at a time from the vast library to keep on your device or view how many you want online.

If it was Star Wars i would be all over it !

[psj3809]

Star Warfare - Black Dawn
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=183314

Well this came out last night, very surprised as i think its really good. Never really played Borderlands at all but this is like the iOS equivalent. Bit of an action RPG game, you accept missions, go off and with a first person view you have to kill x number of baddies or pick up certain packages.

You then get your reward, pay for extra guns, level up and use other skills etc.

For the price i think its excellent, really enjoying it

[quantum]

A friend of mine complained about The Room, because he finished it in three hours. He admitted it was a fantastic experience and also knew he was being stupid for feeling short-changed, but the perception of value has been totally destroyed by tier-one. There needs to be a fight back. Note that I don't believe games for iOS should be like they were at the start (ten quid for a fairly basic arcade game, say), but there needs to be a middle ground that enables indies to flourish and survive. Without that, the platform will trend towards freemium garbage and majors.

Unfortunately, the masses are happy with freemium as they don't have to put there hand in their pockets, but this model very rarely works for indies. I just can't see how prices can be pushed up?

Minter makes £1.75 per copy so must need to shift at least 1,000 every month while it's his top game, that's hard work... I wonder how long he'll go on doing it?

[CraigGrannell]

When I spoke to him for Retro Gamer, he was pretty sick of the market, but I also got the feeling it was at least an outlet he could control. Even the PC's now becoming a big problem, given that gamers are flocking to Steam, which has a crazy practice of enabling games to be voted in. (When Pinball Arcade isn't on Steam, you know the system has problems.) I'm hoping GoatUp 2's price-point will be a success for Llamasoft, enabling him to perhaps spend a little more time on games and feel a bit less pressured. (It's also a pity there's no Zzap!64 for the modern age—no publication that could get enough people interested in fantastic indie hits. Instead, the entire market is a crapshoot and mags have very little influence these days.)