Epic: $1 apps are killing us

Epic is concerned about $1 apps.

Well, good. It'll force publishers and developers to make GOOD games to make us want to pay $60.

Doesn't the UDK Terms Of Use state that if you want to sell your game, you have to pay Epic after making enough profits?

Or it'll force them all to race to the bottom, and where will we be?

But really, isn't this old news? I swear I read about it last year or something.

I can see what they're coming from.

On the iPhone, there's this mentality that a game just has to be $1 or it'll never sell, no matter how much the game is actually worth.

edited 19th Apr '11 10:07:26 PM by Redhead

"I swear I read about it last year or something."

Reggie Fils-Aime said that the $1 apps were junkware weeks ago.

>Implying Angry Birds is junkware

Good. Last I checked, the entire point of capitalism was for old establishments to be undercut by entrepreneurs selling better products for cheaper.

^x3 You must have a hazy memory, because I distinctly recall of RFA also acknowledging that some apps were "underpriced" for games of their quality. IIRC, he mentioned Angry Birds specifically as one of those apps. Also, for every Angry Birds and Infinity Blade on iOS, there's 10 dull, uninspired apps that are either poorly programmed, if not bordering on copyright infringement on other properties. There's a reason why iOS' software library dwarfs those of more conventional consoles...

edited 19th Apr '11 10:55:13 PM by TheGinkei

No. Just cheaper products.

It's like saying if people made better crap than Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart would go out of business...completely neglecting the fact that people prefer cheap crap over anything they spend money on.

See also: 1983 and the effect of gaming bargain bins on the great crash.

Good.

Find an objective measurement of 'good' and they'll be able to. Otherwise, they have no way of knowing whether anyone will consider their game to be good or not without marketing and selling them.

@ The topic: I have yet to find a one dollar app, or even ten different one dollar apps, that comes anywhere close to rivaling any of my $60 console games in quality. I wish more people felt the same :(

This. There's no way anyone can sell a Grand Theft Auto IV-quality game for $1. The big guys have nothing to worry about.

^^ It happens in every creative industry at some level, but the iOS/Android games crank it up past eleven. There might be dull, uninspired, poorly-edited rip-off books, but they're not unreadable and they don't threaten to undercut the value of the original by selling for pennies.

The devaluation is the real problem, though. The videogame industry couldn't exist on $0.99 apps at anything close to the level it exists now, because no one buys 60 $0.99 apps for every $60 game they pass up — they buy more like 2-5. Without games that sell in the $40-60 range, the gross revenue of the videogame industry would drop like a rock, and thousands of game developers would lose their jobs.

And consumers would lose out, too, because entire genres would be completely untenable at rock-bottom prices due to the fact that sales don't scale linearly with price. I would give up on the videogame industry completely if big cinematic games aren't a part of it.

edited 20th Apr '11 7:50:39 AM by Ikkin

I'd think there's a bigger issue in iOS devices not having good controls for traditional gaming...that said, most notable iOS games are built with the touchscreen and/or accelerometer in mind, instead of shoehorning traditional games on something without badly-needed tactile feedback.

Also, most of the games in question are simple, pick-up-and-play affairs. Nothing particularly deep like on consoles and PCs.

Not saying they can't have core games, but there's a difference...Ace Attorney makes sense on iOS. So does Final Fantasy Tactics, if they changed the controls like they should have. But Street Fighter IV? What were they thinking? That's a game that people buy US$100+ arcade sticks to play it with!

So how do you communicate to casual consumers why a game is worth $60 when other games only cost $1? I don't think most casual consumers realize just how long some games can go on for......

Thing is, you don't get the same game in that $1 app as you do in that $60 console game. That $1 app is a lot simpler and a lot lower budget. People will still want the triple-A games, which will still cost more—unless you think that having Angry Birds available for $1 will make people no longer want Call Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.

Cheap games can sell for cheap prices, expensive games can sell for expensive prices, and people can pay for what they want and get what they pay for. Like I said, I don't think the big guys have anything to worry about. The cheap apps simply don't fill the same niche as the big expensive games, and people will still buy the expensive ones.

^ The problem is, I've seen more than a few people complaining about the price of any portable game over $5, regardless of the scope of the game. There's a problem when the reaction to the high-res iPhone version of Final Fantasy III (a 30-40 hr game that cost $30 on DS) is "why should I pay $16 for a game on my phone?" — and there's every indication that's starting to carry over to dedicated portables, too, considering some of the reactions I've seen to 3DS pricing. There's also a problem if people start expecting to see the dedicated portables' games ported over to iOS a year later and sold for pennies.

edited 20th Apr '11 8:43:12 AM by Ikkin

I certainly have fun with Crush the Castle/Castle Clout clones, but they're not the end-all be-all of gaming like the media seems to think...and it's clearly getting to Rovio's head. I have yet to see them prove they're not just a One-Hit Wonder.

Also, we should take note of the difference between cost and value. Not everyone realizes this. Some might, and they just don't value games the same way we do, never mind the obvious difference in gameplay and genres and such. Even those that do recognize the genre differences won't regard all of them with the same value.

For instance, the person who spends $35 on a Nintendo DS adventure/visual novel probably isn't going to regard Steel Battalion as worth US$100+ if they want a great story and not a hardcore mech simulator that needs a gigantic controller to be played. Others don't care about story and just want to step up to the challenge of piloting a war machine, so they'll pay up...or maybe just $20 for something like Rise Of Flight or Il-2 Sturmovik, then spend hundreds more on flight sim controls for the sake of immersion and better control of those twitchy warbirds once they're hooked.

edited 20th Apr '11 8:50:39 AM by NamelessFragger

Speaking of the App store, apparently Apple had to do something to stop people from gaming their rating system. Some way of getting benefit for downloading another app was being exploited I guess.

Oh boy. Cornered by used sales, pirates, indies and $1 apps. Fuck buying their games, where can I donate to those poor AAA game developers? Let's see if I have any pity left for the most whiny business enterprise on Earth with the most overblown sense of entitlement. Nope, all out.

I'm sorry, I'm not convinced that there's any cross over between the markets. I don't know of anyone who would actually BUY GTA IV, or Mass Effect, or Killzone, or anything like that who would think that Angry Birds on their smart phone is a valid replacement. You're not talking about the same thing. The people who are content playing Angry Birds on their iPhone probably don't buy the $60 console or PC games anyways.

But surely the goal is to get them to? The market needs to grow, after all...

Where does this land the crazies like me who are gaming omnivores? I bought both Angry Birds and Mass Effect (1 AND 2, to boot!), after all =)

You're still talking about two completely different niche's. Look at it this way. There's a $1 bottle of Coke and a $60 bottle of wine. Does it make any sense for the $60 bottle of wine to complain about what Coke is doing to their market share? No, because the two's market share doesn't overlap in any meaningful way. Yes they're both liquids but that's about it. People who are only looking for something like Angry Birds aren't going to buy Call of Duty no matter what you do. The markets are completely different.

Not to mention that if your goal is to grow the market then the thing to do is create games that will appeal to people outside the 12-40 year old male demographic. My wife isn't going to sit down and play Mass Effect or Sim City no matter what I do. They don't appeal to her. If you want to grow the market then you want something like the Wii, Kinect, or the Sims, or those other things that manage to appeal to a wider range of people besides testosterone fueled boys who want to watch something blow up and then have tits waved in their faces. Preferably create something to appeal to them that doesn't simultaneously insult their intelligence.

Also, the app market is a different demographic than the industry normally works with. Smartphones are everywhere. The industry has to learn how to appeal to completely new people. They also need to come to terms with the fact that for many people in this market they don't want to blow $60 on something frivolous as a video game. Some don't want to spend 60 hours of their life doing something for no real reward. Some are perfectly happy with nothing more complex than Sudoku, Angry Birds, or Tetris. That's their plateau and they're happy there.

The idea that $1 aps are killing the $60 game market is just... so... stupid.

Hey, I'm right there with you. I have multiple inexpensive game aps on my phone that I enjoy on the go and I've got a gaming PC for when I'm home. Again, the markets DO. NOT. OVERLAP.

edited 20th Apr '11 11:08:38 AM by Tyyrlym