Hey Gang,
So my wife buys me the G1 for X-mas,( poor excuse so she could buy herself one also but oh well… )
I spent half the day playing with its features and studying the apps and games. One major thing I noticed was all of the games and apps were FREE.
FREE!? I wasn’t sure why, considering the Iphone is all a la carte. You pay for the things you want and if not, you dont buy them.
Considering the G1 is now in direct competition with Iphone, I am under the impression that it is a marketing scheme. “Never pay for apps or games when you buy the G1 Google Phone!”
If that is the case, then whats the point of us the game and app developers to make content for Google Phones ? I am guessing the most logical answer is, Google is paying for the content, upfront. Giving developers a set amount of money for their content. The goal being, to provide more features at no additional charge to the consumer to set itself apart from the Iphone.
If thats true, then how do you properly gauge what is worth " value wise " to what ? Who makes the rule that Tetris gets X number of dollars and Pacman gets Y number of dollars.
Now I can be completely wrong, I have just scratched the surface of the Google Phone but, I have been looking hard and long and I dont see a single app yet that I have to pay for and their are alot of good ones.
Any idea why this is ?
I think those free apps are just there to hook you. There are free apps for the iPhone too, right?
Looks like EA has some games for the G1 and they are priced similarly to iPhone games. http://www.g1apps.net/uncategorized/eamobile-release-tetris-and-monopoly-games-tmobile-g1-android/
Right, but as the link point out… “Dont expect to see the big names like EA in the Android Marketplace”
Why ?
Because I am guessing that the Android marketplace from what I can tell is for FREE Content for the consumer. The big names in game development dont want anything to do with the word FREE. So they will probably host paid games on their own sites or Mobile Game shops.
If thats the case, then us indie game developers should be trying to take advantage of the Android Marketplace.
The real questions are,
How do you place content on the Android Marketplace ?
Who is placing the content on the Android Marketplace ?
and
What are they getting paid to do it ?
Ah, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that you had found only free apps for the G1. I see now.
Maybe the initial free batch were just “paid” from the Android Developer Challenge? http://code.google.com/android/adc_gallery/index.html
I can’t imagine that Google would continue to pay developers for apps without making something themselves, so I still think that the free ones on the Android marketplace are there for enticement. Eventually you’ll see a price on newer apps, I think. I mean, it’s still called “marketplace.”
Take my opinion with several grains of salt, though. My personal cell phone is just that: a phone.
Android is still a new platform. The App store for Apple wasn’t really ready for a year after the original release and there was very few apps for download for it. After Apple had put out 2.0 and opened up the store for selling apps through it did you see it become something great. Android is still on that path and I expect something closer to Spring for folks to start pushing out more content. Not sure how well the device would work for game development with Unity. I don’t think it has the hardware to handle it. Maybe the G2(Ha, not even announced) will be able to support 3D.