Let me start by saying I never expect to make any real money off game dev .
Working with Android has been a serious trip in frustration . I spend 3 days working on ways to stop my game from getting stuck for seconds at a time , only to then try another game and seeing the same momentary freezes , and sometimes finding a game that causes my phone to shut off .
I’m using a Motorolla triumph so its not that the phone is slow ( I can run ShadowGun , with the same freezes ) . From what I can tell for the few months I owned an ipad and the fact that apple rejects apps that don’t function well, IOS seems like much greener grass .
When the time comes for me to upgrade to Unity 4 , I’m switching to IOS, I’ll buy a mac mini and a Itouch and develop with that . I want to focus on making fun games , not working around numerous problems in the Android platform . With IOS I can make a game that works on the 200$ Itouch and know that it will work on Iphones and Itouches without too much more effort on my part .
I fully understand why Mikia Mobile abandoned android . The time spent working on the android port- they use Unity so its not like they had to re-code their engine - could be used making another game for IOS which would be more profitable .
Yeah fragmenation, the fact its 1/10th the size os IOS, the piracy rate, they dont have any “whats new category” and they have even lower standards than the IOS. I would say if your game did well on IOS it might be worth porting to droid, if it didnt (its going to be 1/10th) and really not worth it.
I’m switching as soon as I can get a mac and iOS device.
The 50 meg limit is a pain in the butt too without using external files. Along with the serious fragmentation issues.
I was looking at game sales on the amazon store (kindle fire is my base device targeted) and it was really pathetic.
I noticed Big Fish Games and other studios don’t even bother with android and they have a lot of mobile games.
On Google play there are tons of scam apps, either not a game at all but just some screenshots, or uploading someone elses game until it gets caught.
Also iOS users, having spent a fortune on appledevices, have more money to burn obviously, dropping a couple bucks on content is nothing after dropping a few grand for a computer, phone and pad… 0.o While android users are cheapskates likely to be looking for a free download somewhere before coughing up a buck.
Fully agreed
OSX is still a minority platform and the MacApp Store even more so due to the OSX version requirements and its discoverability problems which it inherited from the iOS Appstore
Like theirs a Jazz game called Tump and you get 2 levels for free , and you can pay for the rest for a cool dollar( I highly recommend it if you like Jazz music and / or Jazz history . ) One of the reviews was a complaint that the entire game isn’t free , along with some whining that everyone doesn’t have a credit card .
Apple doesn’t even let you buy stuff at the Apple Store if you aren’t using a credit-card( at least MOST of the time in the states ) and without a valid credit card your not even seeing the app store . I hate to admit it, but thats the right idea . As app/game devs we’re not a charity . Its not about giving away game for pennies a user via adds or working for months on a small project and getting 10 paid downloads. thats pointless .
I say that since I treat this as a hobby - theirs a ton of folks here who don’t understand how hard it is to make money off game dev , at least i’m aware of this . Even if I made games just to give them out Android dev is pretty aggravating .
I don’t see the issues as ever being worked out , google makes no effort to lock down the platform or even hire someone to just look at the titles and flag scam/fake apps.
If the android market is the same as it is now when I upgrade to Unity 4 I’m not going to waste 400$ on an android Unity license . Thats already enough for a used mac mini …
I do a lot of my iOS development using my Android tablet. Deploying a build is much faster, I don’t need to do it from a Mac, and everything else for me is identical. I agree that hardware fragmentation sucks, but my game doesn’t have any issues on my tablet, so it’s worth it as a development accelerator alone.
To be honest, though, I can’t see why anyone would choose Android over iOS as a release platform. If you’re going to do just one, do iOS, because it’s where the players are.
You do for buying stuff off the Android Market/Google Play as well.
User reviews that are off-base are given everywhere. I see people complaining that UPS was a day late for their widget sold by Amazon, and that therefore the product itself deserves 1 star and “the company that makes the widget sucks”. It makes little sense, but they are made by people regardless. The thing you need is to have enough positive reviews from satisfied users so that the few offbeat 1-stars are glossed over, as they should be.
I seem to remember getting into the App Store prior to having any iTunes-compatible payment stuff. I thought the same as you, but I whinged about it to a long-time Apple user who said “What do you mean? Just log in through and it won’t ask for payment.” So I did, and he was right, and it never asked me for payment until weeks later when I wanted to buy something.
Also, because of the number of free apps and the number of children (and plenty of folk just don’t have credit cards and won’t consider them) with iOS devices the App Store is required to allow people without credit cards or iTunes cards to register in the App Store (e.g. Switzerland). It’s not like the US where your life is made miserable if you don’t have the required car and credit card.
Anyone who has a job can get a credit card. And anyone who has a bank account can get a debit card. And for those who don’t have either, they can go to almost any store and purchase a prepaid card. There’s no reason not to have one, so if someone posts “can’t buy without a credit card!” here in the US, they either have no money or they don’t want to pay.
Many people do have a job but don’t own a credit card, a ec-card is enough for their daily needs and easy local access for prepaid cards isn’t available everywhere as well but for the internet you need some sort of option. Some sites are very flexible when it comes to different payment options and you can do normal money transactions, some aren’t and even offer additional obstacles for your credit card verification.
A week of using Steam with the “Steam needs to be online to update” error for 5 of the 7 days convinced me that the Mac version of Steam is a POS.
Add in all the GUI error and glitches, and Steam has to be the worst port I’v used in my 20+ years as a Mac user.
The MAS, on the other hand, just works, as long as you stay current with the OS.
