Absolutely a must read, based on my experiences and those of many developers of much much better games than mine, for those getting ready to jump into the App Store.
Interesting article…
There are for sure issues which need to be addressed but beside of this i still think a big part of the problem lurking in the background is that we’re flooded with games these days and with all the emulations, conversions, clones, budget titles or free games it’s only getting more and more. Except a few rare ones you really care about, systems and games got highly exchangeable and as long as you don’t come up with somthing hip, outstanding or an interesting content/concept, your weapons stay blunt in the longterm.
On the other side it’s interesting to see how this situation seems to strengthen a few of those who care about content. TTG for instance was doing well on the PC already and now they’re also delivering their games for the Wii and they’re selling.
There for sure are different and individual reasons why some games sell whilst others don’t but i just find this an lasting aspect.
I somewhat agree with Taumel that we are flooded with games. My guess is that the AppStore is seeing similar issues to what the video game industry saw during its nadir in the 80’s - over saturation.
However, that said, I think the article was a good one, and I think their solution works as well. It seems that Video Games are the perfect product to be marketed through online communities. Bioware does a good job at this, and it seems to be a big goal amongst many other companies.
After all - aren’t WE on a forum dedicated to a piece of software?
I think the guy’s plan could work out well and it would be well worth other iPhone devs here to check out. I however am just speaking from the sidelines so take it all with a grain of salt.