iPhone Gaming Continues To Grow

1Up reports that the popularity of gaming on smartphones is growing, particularly on the iPhone. In fact, gaming on portable devices is growing even at home, where users presumably have access to more powerful platforms. CNN points out that the developer for Trism, one of the first popular games, has raked in over $250,000 in profits through the App Store. Apple exec Bob Borchers and various game developers recently discussed the future of games on the iPhone. "Patrick Gunn, director of marketing for EA Mobile, showcased Need for Speed Undercover, which will be available next month. Gunn says that EA has 'taken full advantage of all of the unique elements ... like touch, flick, accelerometer, and motion sensitivity' — and graphically, the game appears to be roughly on par with a PSP title."

Comments

Sorry Apple

[nawcom]

I'm not getting an iPhone until I know Frontal Assault has been ported. Until then, eat my shorts Steve!

Re:Sorry Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

eat my shorts

1. Steal underpants.
2. ????
3. Profit!

If you don't get it, you must be new here.

Re:Sorry Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

You just made my day, thank you.

Re:Sorry Apple

[Samurai Crow]

Doh! I thought you meant Frontal Assault!

I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[deft]

I'm not suprised its "growing" faster ...because at the home gaming has been around for years and is highly saturated, popular, and is now just pushing out slowly after its major strides.

Smartphone gaming is new, and has everywhere to go now, being pretty darn new.

If phone gaming can approach at home gaming, then that will be news.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[renegadesx]

Exactly, mobile phone gaming was very cheap and flimsy until very recently, now we are seeing phones that can churn out some ok visuals.

Last gen you had the PS2 alone rack up over 140 Million units, then the Gamecube and Xbox racking about 24 Million each plus Gameboy Advance.

The N-Gage had alot of potential but was held back by design issues like taco looking side talking, game slot underneath the battery and screen taller than it was wide. Otherwise if you had a phone more like shaped more like GameBoy Micro with a retractable numeric keypad you would have a winner.

The iPhone has a real chance to succeed where the N-Gage failed, but it hasn't succeeded yet.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said it's growing faster? (popularity''(t) > 0)
The summary only claims that it's growing. (popularity'(t) > 0)

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[binarylarry]

The iphone doesn't have hardware buttons.

It sucks for most games as a result.

Tactile feedback is a must for most games.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Graff]

The iphone doesn't have hardware buttons.
It sucks for most games as a result.
Tactile feedback is a must for most games.

Actually, it doesn't suck and it's not a must when you are talking about games on the iPhone.

You need tactile feedback when you are looking at a screen and your hands are not in view. If you are playing on an Xbox, computer, or a similar device then tactile feedback is important because it's incredibly difficult to watch both the screen and your hands at the same time.

Playing a game on an iPhone is very different since your input device and the screen is the same object. You can easily see exactly where you are putting your fingers and still follow the game action. Not only that but since a lot of games involve tilting and moving the iPhone you do get tactile feedback, albeit a different kind of feedback from how a button would feel. Many games are also taking advantage of the vibrate feature of the iPhone to provide tactile feedback.

There are tons of cool, fun, and definitely viable games that thrive on the iPhone despite the lack of physical buttons. It's a completely different gaming experience and the old saw of tactile feedback being necessary for games just doesn't apply.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[SerpentMage]

I don't have the iPhone, but iPod Touch. iPhone without the phone. And initially I was VERY VERY skeptical of the iPhone paradigm.

Now I am totally amazed... Apple hit this one right out of the park. I was very very critical on this topic and have said so. But I was wrong.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Dan East]

The iPhone comes out, and suddenly everyone forgets that touch-screen devices of the exact same form factor have been around for over a decade. All of this has been hashed and rehashed. I ported Wolfenstein 3D, Quake 1 & 2, and a Gameboy emulator to Pocket PC, as well as doing extensive game development on new projects. For analog input, touchscreens are okay. However for binary input, aka fire / jump buttons, d-pad, etc, it sucks tremendously. I think you're confusing "tactile feedback" for "knowing where the virtual button is". It's not just about knowing where to hold your thumbs, but knowing that you've pressed the button hard enough to trigger it. The very first ARM Pocket PC, the Compaq iPaq, which had the horsepower and RAM to do some serious gaming (like run Quake), had a terrible design flaw. The D-Pad and 4 hardware buttons all resided on a daughterboard with its own microcontroller. Some bone-headed engineer had a serious lack of foresight, and the hardware was designed such that only one switch could register at a time. Thus if you were holding the D-Pad in a direction, then none of the 4 hardware buttons would register.

So the only solution to make things like Gameboy emulators playable was to throw virtual A and B buttons up on the screen. These were of course huge, so finding them wasn't a problem. However I can tell you that playing games like that, without real tactile response, sucks, sucks, sucks.

There's a reason that the Timex Sinclair's membrane keyboard didn't catch on back in the 80s, and why to this day people like the big IBM keyboards that you can hear click half way across the room when a button is pressed.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[mcfatboy93]

i am acutaly very supprised because the same companies that have the stay-at-home games also have released a handheld gaming system and they usaly do well with the younger age groups (its hard to make a violent game on a 2 inch screen) but now that games have come out for the iPhone they seem to be taking off. (i jailbroke my iTouch mounths ago so i had games when others did not so i feel sort of wierd)

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Graff]

The iPhone comes out, and suddenly everyone forgets that touch-screen devices of the exact same form factor have been around for over a decade. All of this has been hashed and rehashed. I ported Wolfenstein 3D, Quake 1 & 2, and a Gameboy emulator to Pocket PC, as well as doing extensive game development on new projects. For analog input, touchscreens are okay. However for binary input, aka fire / jump buttons, d-pad, etc, it sucks tremendously. I think you're confusing "tactile feedback" for "knowing where the virtual button is". It's not just about knowing where to hold your thumbs, but knowing that you've pressed the button hard enough to trigger it.

First of all, the iPhone uses a capacitive touchscreen. This means that next to no pressure is needed to press a virtual button so there is very little need for feedback when you press a virtual button. The iPhone's screen is also multi-touch and has a high touch resolution and it can accurately measure the size and shape of the areas pressed.

Secondly, the algorithms that the iPhone uses to measure where you pressed are very advanced. The iPhone puts all this additional data to good use and it can accurately predict where you pressed and even how hard based on the size of the pressed area (your finger spreads out more if you press harder).

All of this means that the iPhone is a ton more responsive and forgiving with input via touchscreen when compared to past touchscreen input devices. Give it a try, games on the iPhone work very well without needing much tactile feedback.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[samkass]

I'm trying to determine whether to put any credence in what you posted, and to that end I have to ask: have you actually tried developing for the iPhone, or is all your experience with previous-generation touch screens?

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Anonymous Coward]

How did this get modded insightful?

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Hognoxious]

This means that next to no pressure is needed to press a virtual button so there is very little need for feedback when you press a virtual button.

Way to miss the point. This is like saying it's OK for blind people to drive, but only in pitch darkness with the headlights off.

What that actually means is that there's no way to have tactile feedback on that hardware, not that there's no need for it. Sure, there are other kinds of feedback - audible, visual - but the great thing about tactile feedback is that you don't need to look at the control and it doesn't get drowned by background noise.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Anonymous Coward]

Graff, grab some coffee. You completely misunderstood gp's point.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Altus]

I think the point that the poster was trying to make is that the tactile feedback is your finger touching a surface.

I think the idea here is that rather than resting your fingers on buttons and then getting tactile feedback from pushing them you hold your finger just above the screen and the tactile feedback is from your finger touching the screen.

If there is no doubt that a slight touch will trigger the action then that should be enough tactile feedback for a button press.

Sometimes in technology things change. There was a time when people thought that big joy sticks were the only way to interact with a game and D-pads (or even thumb joysticks) were a terrible idea.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Altus]

Adults wont buy a PSP or a DS but they already wanted an iPhone.

The gaming market on the iPhone is likely to be a good one to exploit, especially for casual games because your not counting on people spending 200 bucks on a portable gaming system. Instead you are exploiting the fact that many have already spent 200 bucks on an iPhone.

I have been waiting for gaming on phones to take off here. I think the iPhone and the next gen of smart phones that it has inspired might just be the platform to do it.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[iamhassi]

"Sometimes in technology things change. There was a time when people thought that big joy sticks were the only way to interact with a game and D-pads (or even thumb joysticks) were a terrible idea."

think tactile feedback will be around awhile. I don't see touch screens replacing keyboards for long time, and I don't see touchscreens replacing buttons on controllers anytime soon.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone comes out, and suddenly everyone forgets that touch-screen devices of the exact same form factor have been around for over a decade.

3 words: Appstore, audience, performance.

Apart from DS, tell me a device that had more than 1 of the above. Why would I attempt to code a killer game for say, Motorola A1000?

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Venerable Vegetable]

Really? I guess that means that the Nintendo DS won't be a success then either...

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[binarylarry]

Way to comprehend, genius.

I said LACK OF HARDWARE BUTTONS, not THE ADDITION OF A TOUCHSCREEN, that makes the iphone an extremely poor device for most types of games.

Try this experiment: Play the first level of Super Mario Brothers on the NES emulator for the iphone.

It's excruciatingly terrible and hard.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Graff]

Graff, grab some coffee. You completely misunderstood gp's point.

I saw two points in there and I addressed one.

The first point, the one I addressed, was that you need tactile feedback to know when a button has been pressed. This is usually due to there being a trigger threshold of a certain amount of pressure to activate a button. On an iPhone there is nearly no trigger threshold due to its technologies so there is much less need for tactile feedback.

The second point, the one I did not address, is that some games need to have a d-pad or other type of button input that is separate from the display. With those kind of games you either have to simulate the effect of those buttons, for example press the side of the display that represents the direction you want to travel, or you can partition the screen into an input section with buttons and a display section. Changing the input paradigm is very viable but it does have a bit of a learning curve. Partitioning the display solves the problem perfectly except now you have no tactile feedback on a touchscreen and you can't rely on your vision since you are watching a different part of the screen for the game action.

So no, I think I properly understood his points. I feel that there are good answers to the problems he raised and I've seen quite a few great games on the iPhone that have addressed these problems and have come up with even better games as a result of the challenges.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Graff]

I think the point that the poster was trying to make is that the tactile feedback is your finger touching a surface.

This is one of my points. My main point is that the iPhone has inspired many other ways of providing tactile input. How about using the tilt of the device as input, making it feel like you are using a steering wheel in a racing game. Or holding the device and tilting it like one of those old put-the-ball-in-the-hole games in order to move your character through a maze. Or shaking the device at certain points in the game to do a special attack. Or using the current orientation of the device as the direction of gravity for falling objects.

All of these ideas and more are being used in the current iPhone games. Yes, it doesn't have a fixed set of buttons and that makes some kinds of games more challenging to program for the iPhone but these new input methods have opened up many more games than it holds back. Your last statement sums up the way I feel, "Sometimes in technology things change." The iPhone has opened up new types of games and that's one of its greatest strengths. The programmers who embrace these changes are going to be the ones that rake in the cash.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[RMH101]

"How about using the tilt of the device as input, making it feel like you are using a steering wheel in a racing game"

Man, I had a Quickshot joystick back in the 80s that worked this way with my ZX Spectrum. Used mercury tilt switches. It was cool'n'all but sucked in use.

Asphalt racing on the iPhone looks nice graphically, but steering the car by tilting or by using the onscreen, non-tactile steering wheel, also sucks.

If you want to be able to reliably press buttons whilst directing your attention at the action, you need physical feedback. And this is without considering the problem of how you look at the action if your fat fingers are all over the screen.

Don't get me wrong, there are some great games that work brilliantly on the iPhone, but they are typically ones that don't need this sort of control.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[mdwh2]

Although you could say exactly the same thing with "phone" instead of "Iphone". Phones have been doing games for years - and one would expect games to get more advanced, and gaming on phones to become more popular. I'm not sure why it's suddenly news just because Apple show up late to the party.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[Altus]

Because the iPhone is a much better game platform than many of the phones that have come before. Its a very popular phone so there is a large installed base and previous phones which had good gaming were targeted at gamers (a small installed base) rather than at everyone like the iPhone is.

Its not because its apple, its because someone finally made a popular phone that was a good gaming device instead of only getting half of the equation right for this market to grow.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[CountBrass]

And if you tried to play Super Monkey Ball in a NES (assuming it existed) it would be excruciatingly terrible and hard to play.

So your point is that games not designed for the platform they're run on makes for a poor experience?

Water is wet and the sun rises in the east.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[binarylarry]

So, you reply about a game with a gimmicky control scheme?

Nice.

Re:I'm not suprised its "growing" faster

[CometRico]

Mobile gaming, specifically that on the iPhone is growing because of the exact features you mentioned (tactile touch, vibrate, etc) - the features that make it interactive.

Gaming so far on a mobile platform has succeeded because it has found a way to match the game play of popular console / PC games. You can find it in many different instances, with ports of old arcade games, reinvented ways to play racing games, as well as more interactive games such as Tap Tap Revenge, which could most similarly be described as "Guitar Hero for the iPhone."

However with the advent of new consoles (read: Wii) and new technology, the level of interactivity provided by consoles has increased many user's expectations for all platforms of gaming; these expectation simply cannot be met on a mobile platform (try creating a Wii Sports experience on today's phones).

Will mobile gaming continue to be popular? Of course. However, one has to wonder if it will continue to grow at the level that we have seen recently.

It's more convenient

[rubypossum]

I don't have an iPhone (I've got an N95) but I have noticed that I play more games on my mobile then on my XBox or PC. Mainly because it's always available and it's easier to get addicted to a game. Also, the mobile graphics have gotten good enough (at least on a small screen) that there's not really any reason to bother. With 8Gb of storage you can have some fairly immersive games.

CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

That CNN article is strongly biased. Consider this quote: "The overhead and barriers to entry [for iPhone development] are so low that virtually anyone can afford to take a crack."

Yeah, sure, compared to the ludicrousness of consoles. But how about PCs? Or even Mac OS X on anything other than an iPhone? The barrier to entry on any of those platforms is zero.

Also quoth the article: "The iPhone and the App Store have helped democratize game development by opening the field to any software coder."

Sure, yeah, a platform where you have to pay a fee to even be allowed to develop for it, then have all applications you make subject to Apple's approval for distribution is so democratic!

Also quoth the article: "It's also become a potential gold mine for entrepreneurs who create games for the device. Just ask Steve Demeter, developer of the popular puzzle game "Trism." ... Priced at $5, "Trism" earned Demeter $250,000 in profits the first two months."

I continue to be astonished by how people consider getting rich off of digital downloads to be at all a good thing. I respectfully submit that anyone who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few months of work "in their spare time" is being grossly overpaid. And when you really think about it, paying any price for a digital download is simply price gouging anyway, since the cost of reproduction is zero. That means at $5, Trism is marked up 500 times. No wonder he got so rich, huh?

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Quantos]

Consider this quote: "The overhead and barriers to entry [for iPhone development] are so low that virtually anyone can afford to take a crack."

Does that mean that the first "HIT" is free?

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

And when you really think about it, paying any price for a digital download is simply price gouging anyway, since the cost of reproduction is zero. That means at $5, Trism is marked up 500 times. No wonder he got so rich, huh?

Stop being bitter and pulling numbers out of your ass.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

Does that mean that the first "HIT" is free?

No, actually. I know your comment is in jest, but Apple charges $100 for that "first hit" (the SDK). You have to pay them money for the privilege of developing an application they reserve the right to deny you the ability to distribute.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[abigor]

How do you suggest he be compensated? He wrote the software with the expectation of at least some financial reward, and he hit the jackpot. What's fair, in your opinion?

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

Stop being bitter and pulling numbers out of your ass.

I'll show you where the numbers come from.

The price of anything is determined by the cost of reproduction plus any additional markup. Software is digital information, and digital information has a marginal cost of reproduction of zero because copying digital information with a computer costs nothing.

So at $5, the price is entirely markup. None of that price is accounting for the cost of reproduction, because there is no such cost. So if the full price is pure markup, then it is valid to say that it is marked up 500 times, because $5 is 500 times one cent, the minimum price he could have set without making it free. (Incidentally, one cent would still be marked up one time higher than the cost to redistribute.)

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Quantos]

So it really is like digital crack.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

How do you suggest he be compensated? He wrote the software with the expectation of at least some financial reward, and he hit the jackpot. What's fair, in your opinion?

A business model which doesn't depend on artificial scarcity. Many iPhone applications are free and use advertising as a business model. Another option is subscription services (this works well for games) in which you pay a recurring fee for the service of receiving a steady stream of new content (think MMORPGs). Merchandising is another option, though less relevant here.

The inevitable reply to this post is somebody whining "none of those are as profitable!" Okay, sure. But you must remember that artificial scarcity isn't a sustainable business model in the long term. If I want Trism, I can get it without paying for it with relative ease. Anything can be pirated, even iPhone apps.

There are only two things which stop people from pirating his game: 1. Ignorance of how to do this, something that will surely fade with time as piracy gets easier and easier, and 2. Guilt over piracy not compensating the author. The second one is a tougher nut to crack, but it's cracking.

The bottom line is artificial scarcity cannot be technologically enforced. Only legally enforced. So, unless Trism's author is willing to sue pirates like the RIAA, he's not going to be able to enforce his business model. Even the RIAA cannot enforce their business model to anywhere near 100% coverage, even with all their legal shenanigans.

And at the end of the day, it's not the consumer's responsibility to subsidize an obsolete business model. If this business model cannot be enforced without suing any customer who chooses to ignore it, it's obsolete. And as more and more people are beginning to realize this, reason #2, guilt, will go away too.

Once you have a culture that embraces p2p and rejects artificial scarcity, making any kind of money by charging a consumer for a digital download won't happen anymore. Monetization will have to be accomplished via one of the alternative business models I suggested, or one I've not thought up yet.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[jcnnghm]

The problem with free software zealots, such as yourself, is that you have no concept of business. The only thing you're accounting for is the download distribution cost. What about the equipment that Demeter used, the opportunity cost, the training and experience. None of those things are free.

You also don't understand the concept of risk. Demeter's application could have never been approved for sale, his concept could have proven to be boring, or he may not have been able to promote it. If any of those things happened, Demeter wouldn't make any money. If I'm going to invest $10,000 in a project that has only a 10% chance of succeeding, if it does succeed I need to be able to generate revenues of at least $100k just to cover the cost. There is no way that I would give an iPhone app even a 10% risk assessment, that's way too generous, considering all the potential risk factors.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[jcnnghm]

So 0 times 1 is $0.01, times 500 is $5, ergo there is a 500x markup. You really are a moron. It's not about the cost to duplicate, it's about the cost to produce.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

Your argument is a red herring. Development costs should play no part in how a price is set. I might require only $20 an hour and 40 hours to develop something that would require you $40 an hour and 80 hours to develop the same thing. Thus development costs are arbitrary. Prices should only be set based on cost of reproduction plus a reasonable markup for profit. Nothing marked up hundreds of times is reasonable. It would be like me charging $2500 to mow your lawn. That's the standard $5 an hour wage normally paid for an hour of lawn mowing work times 500. So, it follows that any consumer cost is not an option for an economically abundant good, because a reasonable markup would only multiply out to a few cents. Thus, digital information should be monetized using a business model that doesn't depend on artificial scarcity. See this post for more substantiation and details.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[abigor]

Fair enough. But in the meantime, hats off to him for making a bundle.

Come to think of it, the "alternative business model" could simply be the App Store itself. It's convenient and easy for any non-technical person to buy stuff there very cheaply. Maybe it's simply worth paying the five bucks for the sheer convenience of it all. I mean really, five dollars? It's just not worth it to look for the app elsewhere. It's not like he's charging $100 for the thing.

Anyway, it's here to stay until market forces say otherwise. Your argument boils down to "it's ethically wrong to make money from artificial scarcity", but the market doesn't care about your personal ethics.

And anyway, it's certainly not unethical to charge very little for a lot of convenience, which is what's happened here. People pay five dollars and have a lot of fun; the author makes a decent bundle and puts a down payment on a house. Everyone wins.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

I've addressed that argument here. And ad hominems are immature.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[jcnnghm]

So a company spends 4 years and $100M to hire a team of 1,000, provide them with office space, equipment, and resources, and you believe that all they should be able to charge for the game is the cost to press the disks. You're either a troll or hilariously naive. And do tell where you can higher people to mow lawns for $5 an hour, the companies here cost much closer to $25 to cover the cost of the equipment, trucks, staff, profit, and management. Perhaps you'll understand the real world a little better when you have some bills to pay and are on your own.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[jcnnghm]

No you didn't. You just said that $0 x 1 = $0.01, such that to go from nothing to $5 is a 500x markup. Kind of hard not to call a spade, a spade.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Yeah, sure, compared to the ludicrousness of consoles. But how about PCs? Or even Mac OS X on anything other than an iPhone? The barrier to entry on any of those platforms is zero.

On the PC or Mac there are costs for any practical, commercial venture. You need to pay for hosting the downloads, processing payments, and marketing the product. All of these can be done on the cheap, but you're not going to pull in $250K in a couple of months that way. The iPhone cost a hundred bucks to put an application up, but then it is in front of all the users and the download costs and payment processing is taken care of. It's a decent cost proposition in comparison to shareware on the Web, for example, and easier for many developers than trying to manage all those admin and marketing details.

I continue to be astonished by how people consider getting rich off of digital downloads to be at all a good thing. I respectfully submit that anyone who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few months of work "in their spare time" is being grossly overpaid.

That's capitalism. You don't honestly think most CEOs making a thousand times what their median employee does works that much harder to earn that money do you? The difference here that catches people's attention is the opportunity for the little guy to make it big, something becoming more and more scarce in our current economy.

And when you really think about it, paying any price for a digital download is simply price gouging anyway, since the cost of reproduction is zero.

But the development cost is not. Some of us have heard of this newfangled idea called "copyright" that allows people to create novel works without being paid in advance and profit from a (theoretically) limited monopoly on distribution of that work.

That means at $5, Trism is marked up 500 times.

Umm, interesting math.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

The market may not care about my ethics right now, but inevitably some day it will. Obviously most people aren't going to be thinking in terms of whether or not artificial scarcity is ethical. What's going to happen is people are going to prefer the free download over p2p venues rather than the not free download from things like the App Store as is the case right now with Bit Torrent vs. the iTunes Music store. It's just simple competition. You can't compete with free, and less and less people are finding p2p unethical. Because it isn't.

As for convenience, piracy is pretty convenient and getting more convenient all the time. Really what prevents the critical mass necessary to abolish artificial scarcity is a highly sophisticated anti piracy marketing campaign put out by big content shaming us all into thinking p2p is somehow unethical. Remember: it isn't. It's not our responsibility to subsidize obsolete business models.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Dutch Gun]

And when you really think about it, paying any price for a digital download is simply price gouging anyway, since the cost of reproduction is zero. That means at $5, Trism is marked up 500 times. No wonder he got so rich, huh?

Among those likely to own an iPhone, we could guess that $5 probably represents somewhere between 1/2 to 1/8 of an hour of work. It's about the same price as a McDonald's lunch, and less than the price of a movie ticket. Those who purchase a game like this are indicating that the entertainment value of this game is worth the indicated price to them. Tell me, is it so outrageous to trade 15 minutes of your workday for a product which may keep you entertained for many hours?

I understand your argument, but you're looking at digital downloads from a purely technical viewpoint. By the same sort of reasoning, someone might determine that vacations are completely pointless because it's a one-time expenditure with absolutely nothing physically gained. There are many criteria by which to determine the value of a product.

 

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

I did not say $0 x 1 = $0.01, I said 1 cent is the lowest you can set a price before making it free. Thus, 1 cent is the basis for my markup calculation.

You can't use zero, because $0 x anything is $0, so if you're contending that there's zero markup on a $5 app, I'd call that a pretty ridiculous statement. But I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I'll simply ask how would you calculate the markup?

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Dutch Gun]

The price of anything is determined by the cost of reproduction plus any additional markup. Software is digital information, and digital information has a marginal cost of reproduction of zero because copying digital information with a computer costs nothing.

You forgot overhead and labor.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

you believe that all they should be able to charge for the game is the cost to press the disks.

No, disks are not economically abundant goods. They cost >$0 to press because physical resources are expended making the disks. An internet download, on the other hand, expends no physical resources and costs almost nothing to transmit.

And do tell where you can higher people to mow lawns for $5 an hour, the companies here cost much closer to $25

Thanks for the correction. You do realize this only helps my argument, right? In this case, the standard wage for one hour of work multiplied by the 500x markup Trism is using is $12,500 instead of my original apparently gross underestimate of $2,500.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[yetijoe]

I think that it is important to ask our selves what something is really worth. And in a free market that is simply how much another is willing to pay for a good or service that another provides.

As for the iPhone/iTouch growing in mobile app use, I would highly doubt that it is only because of the low cost of entry but do to the fact we are able to have a phone, a popular music player, and games with what was at the time innovative inputs (motion sensing). I feel that the real reason is nothing more than ease of use for the user. They can buy their music, games, and movies from one place (Apple's iTunes store). Then access weather, news, and maps/directions from one place. There are other devices that accomplish some of this but none that have archived all these goals plus the same market share as the iPhone/iTouch.

So is this person really being overpaid or have they just provided a very convent and inexpensive tool? So I ask, how can something be price gouging when there are those who are willing to pay for it when as you said there are plenty of alternatives - PC and Mac OS X.

Of course if we want to argue the merits of the capitalist system, I will leave that to the academics as it seems that argument is not going to end any time soon.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

You need to pay for hosting the downloads

A negligible cost.

processing payments

Cheaper to do it yourself then let Apple take 30%.

and marketing the product

You still have to do that on the App Store. Sure, people will stumble on your app, but the real top contenders have external marketing.

All of these can be done on the cheap, but you're not going to pull in $250K in a couple of months that way.

You haven't substantiated that.

But the development cost is not.

That argument is addressed here.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

You're ignoring the physical resources expended in the production of the McDonalds hamburger which have a much higher cost of reproduction than digital information.

As for "how we value products" you're making a pretty standard "people charge what the market is willing to pay" argument and I think you'll find that can change very quickly. Many, many people no longer believe mp3s are worth even $1, so they turn to p2p.

The same is happening with all forms of digital downloads. Everything from books, to software, to films. And as p2p gets easier and easier and people slowly begin to realize p2p is not morally wrong, what monetary value people place on digital downloads will, for better or worse, slowly crash to zero.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

I have not forgotten, I have deliberately ignored it as it isn't relevant. I've covered that argument here.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[fredmosby]

The bottom line is artificial scarcity cannot be technologically enforced.
 
Yes it can, with a game that only costs $5 most people will pay just because its more convenient than pirating the game. Why spend time cracking a phone and risk getting a virus when it only saves you a few bucks.
 
  Many iPhone applications are free and use advertising as a business model.
 
When given the option I prefer to pay a dollar or two if it keeps me from having to watch advertisements.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

Yes it can, with a game that only costs $5 most people will pay just because its more convenient than pirating the game. Why spend time cracking a phone and risk getting a virus when it only saves you a few bucks.

The inconvenience of putting pirated apps on the iPhone will not always be so. In all likelihood, Apple will be forced to open their platform due to competition and general outrage over it being closed, in which case pirating apps and putting them on your phone will become far less inconvenient.

In the broader scope, pirating stuff in general is getting easier and easier and will continue to do so until anyone can do it.

When given the option I prefer to pay a dollar or two if it keeps me from having to watch advertisements.

You won't be given that option though. Because if you were, you wouldn't have to pay the dollar. You could just pirate the version of the app without ads.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

And you wanted to change this because⦠?

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[farnsworth]

because copying digital information with a computer costs nothing.

So running all the datacenters and having all the staff and paying all the electricity bills and designing and building the app store app all "costs nothing"?

The price of anything is determined by the cost of reproduction plus any additional markup.

That's not correct. The price of anything is determined by the amount the buyer is willing to pay.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Vskye]

I continue to be astonished by how people consider getting rich off of digital downloads to be at all a good thing. I respectfully submit that anyone who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few months of work "in their spare time" is being grossly overpaid. And when you really think about it, paying any price for a digital download is simply price gouging anyway, since the cost of reproduction is zero. That means at $5, Trism is marked up 500 times. No wonder he got so rich, huh?

Really, so the guy/gal made some money off a game that people bought? No big deal to see here. Maybe your just pissed off cause you didn't think of it first? Lame.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no concept of what it takes to produce and distribute something do you?

What about bandwidth, hardware, TIME.

You have failed to even consider what it takes from a technical perspective let alone a business perspective.

Worse, you begrudge someone for trying to make a fair living from their work.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

So running all the datacenters and having all the staff and paying all the electricity bills ... all "costs nothing"?

Red herring. An alternative business model can more than adequately subsidize such costs. Being efficient doesn't hurt either, e.g. using Bit Torrent. I wrote in more detail regarding alternative business models here.

That's not correct. The price of anything is determined by the amount the buyer is willing to pay.

That argument is addressed here.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

You have no concept of what it takes to produce

That argument is addressed here.

What about bandwidth, hardware, TIME.

That argument is addressed here.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Flentil]

I don't think it has anything to do with scarcity. It's about him choosing to charge people $5 to buy his game. Nobody said it was in limited supply. How much do you charge to let someone kick you in the nuts? Do you base that price on scarcity?

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Graff]

And as p2p gets easier and easier and people slowly begin to realize p2p is not morally wrong, what monetary value people place on digital downloads will, for better or worse, slowly crash to zero.

At which point people will virtually stop producing content because only hobbyists can afford to make stuff available for no cost. Professionals depend on making a decent living off the content they produce in order to be able to eat and have shelter over their heads, not to mention covering the costs of producing the content.

This is the part of P2P that is morally wrong. Apply the Categorical Imperative to the act of freely distributing content without the author's permission. If all produced content was distributed against the author's will then eventually the quality and quantity of content will dwindle. At that point both consumers and producers suffer. Consumers are not able to easily get quality content and producers are not able to use their talents in order to make a living. Wanton P2P just leads to stricter content lockdown and makes using content harder, not easier. It is therefore morally wrong to distribute by way of P2P content without the author's consent.

Why do you think we have to suffer through stuff like Macrovision, CSS, AACS, the Broadcast Flag, HDCP, and many more? All of these technologies are in reaction to people going overboard with copying content. These technologies make our goods cost more and get in the way of the ease of use of content but the content providers feel the need to protect their livelihoods from overzealous copying of their content. I'm sure that if people restricted their copying to purely personal uses then most of these technologies would never have seen the light of day but the truth is that most copying is done in order to get around paying content producers for the work they put into making the content.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[KDR_11k]

Red herring. An alternative business model can more than adequately subsidize such costs.

No, that's bullshit. You can always subsidize any cost but that doesn't make the cost go away, it just means you take the loss because you think it's acceptable to further another goal. The markup is still sales price - unit cost and the unit cost still includes the systems needed to run the download. Whether there are other ways to make money is the real red herring, there always are but this specific method is being used and apparently successful.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Graff]

Development costs should play no part in how a price is set. I might require only $20 an hour and 40 hours to develop something that would require you $40 an hour and 80 hours to develop the same thing. Thus development costs are arbitrary. Prices should only be set based on cost of reproduction plus a reasonable markup for profit.

What about the cases where there might only be 10 consumers of a product that takes thousands of man-hours to produce? You don't think that that the development costs should be included at all? There are quite a few products out there where the development costs are significant compared to the production and distribution costs and any real business HAS to include ALL of the costs in the prices of its products.

It's a completely unreasonable position to take that a business shouldn't include all of its costs when figuring out what to charge for a product.

Now if you want to talk about the viability of that product at that price then that's a different matter entirely. Obviously in the case at hand this developer's price is more than viable since he's sold many thousands of copies at $5 each. If you want to do him one better then by all means make a similar game and sell it at a lower price. That is, after all, one of the cornerstones of a free market.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[KDR_11k]

In all likelihood, Apple will be forced to open their platform due to competition and general outrage over it being closed

No. Really, no. This is the cellphone market we're talking about, "open" is a foreign term there. Even the Google phones are getting locked down.

In the broader scope, pirating stuff in general is getting easier and easier and will continue to do so until anyone can do it.

It has ALWAYS been easy yet people kept buying software.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[KDR_11k]

Prices should only be set based on cost of reproduction plus a reasonable markup for profit.

There is no should, there is only what does happen and what does not happen.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked on a WiiWare game and got 13% royalties. 13% of zero is still zero. The game sold like shit, and I got zilch out of royalties. Fact of the matter is that the game's design was just bad. Not my responsibility, and I did get paid an hourly wage for working on it. (I didn't exactly rake in the cash, and I worked for free for about a month (yes, I regret taking pity on the fools)).

But the fact is, the guy deserves a fair bit of cash for coming up with an idea that sells. He doesn't deserve to retire on it, but that's not what $250k does for you. It just lets you rest for a few months, and let you know you did good. And for the record, that's a couple of years of salary for me. But I think the guy earned it. Coming up with a game idea that people will buy is a difficult proposition. It's not that the WiiWare game I worked on was terrible. It was just decidedly mediocre.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[dougisfunny]

End Price - Cost To Acquire - Cost to Stock - Cost To Distribute

You are making the assumption that cost to stock and distribute are ~0; I won't argue that, since I don't know what it costs to run the store selling the App, and Tax et al. Interesting that you ignore the 'cost to acquire' since its fixed and you only have to pay that once in this case (ignoring maintenance and support) but it is still notable.

It's kind of like you're talking about the efficiency of an algorithm, constants are always ignored.

O(n) = 1 being the business model.

That's a great algorithm right? Oh, forgot the constant c, which is 10^238.

Just because there is a fixed front end costs doesn't mean that there is no cost, or that it is not valid.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Oooskar]

And when you really think about it, paying any price for a digital download is simply price gouging anyway, since the cost of reproduction is zero. That means at $5, Trism is marked up 500 times. No wonder he got so rich, huh?

You seem to have a moral objection against high mark up percentages. Your first error is discussing margins in terms of percentages of costs. The only case where this is meaningful is when there is a risk involved with the cost. Since you disregard development costs, marketing costs and write-off costs, the remaining cost (distribution + "replication") carries no risk.

The markup percentage has nothing to do with how "rich" you get. Your profit comes from absolute margin times volumes sold. An acquaintance of mine runs a business with a "mark up" of < 5 % and they are still able to make loads of money. Are they saintly in your eyes?

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Philotic]

If prices are based solely on the marginal cost, then no revenue is being devoted to recouping fixed or operating costs. By definition, the investment will be a net loss. Part of the "reasonable markup for profit" will have to be spent on costs incurred by producing the original good and running the business.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[SerpentMage]

I read your argument that the price should rely solely on the cost of production. That is wrong.

When wondering about what to charge what you base it on is the internal rate of return. This determines whether or not you should invest in a project.

Scarcity or whatever else plays a role insofar that it allows you to increase or decrease your IRR. The advert model is not a means to an ends. In fact the advert model makes it very difficult to know your IRR. It is a leap of faith and in these difficult times maybe a wrong leap of faith.

Though please do read some econometrics books...

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[SerpentMage]

Dude you have no clue here...

Again read about IRR (Internal Rate of Return).

The basis of IRR is the question would I be better off putting this money into a fixed rate return investment, or putting it to work in a project.

If the IRR indicates that I am better off putting this into a treasury or corporate bond then I don't do this project.

So here is the thing, if the project costs are (example illustration only)

100 USD to develop
20 USD per year to maintain
10 USD per year to run the business

and the life of the product is 2 years (before I need to invest again) and I want an IRR of say 8%. Then I need to earn approx 86 USD per year (base investment + return)

Of course my numbers are off because I did not calculate the discounted cash flow.

To understand this topic please get yourself the book "Valuations".

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Richard_at_work]

His business model doesn't depend on artificial scarcity - his time to develop the application certainly is scarce, and he is more than entitled to ask for money in return for it.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Richard_at_work]

No, his argument isn't a red herring, and development costs most definitely should play a part in how a price is set - its called 'overhead'.

Take a basic course in business economics some time.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Richard_at_work]

And you are ignoring the physical resources expended in the production of Trism - time, energy (heating, electricity), overheads (rent, hardware costs) etc.

You are blissfully ignoring all of those things in your own argument - Trism didn't just 'appear' out of thin air, just as the burger didn't appear out of thin air.

Production costs are a lot more than the very last step of actual distribution.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the most moronic comment I've read on Slashdot for a long time. Stupid, factually incorrect, flawed math, utterly biased, and a wilful ignorance of how business works.

My favourite is that you think that a reproduction cost of zero and a $5 ticket price equals a markup of 500 times. Way to divide by zero!

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[SimonTheSoundMan]

So 0 times 1 is $0.01, times 500 is $5, ergo there is a 500x markup.

Zero times one is zero. Therefore, times 500 is zero.

Stop being bitter and pulling numbers out of your ass.

This is Slashdot, you must be new here.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[AvitarX]

But what is the cost of an hour of lawn mowing?

perhaps $.50 - $.75 in food and $2.00 in gas (you appear to not want to calculate person time, or overhead into costs)?

That means the person charging $25.00 (still way low, I charged that when I was a kid, the pros get closer to $50 or $75 if they have real equipment) is marking things up 10 times, and when gas was cheaper it was closer to 15 times.

Your argument about pay can be flipped around too you know. Anybody who makes something that tens of thousands of people find worth it and incredibly enjoyable in a matter of a few months is grossly under-paid (you see, when a luxury item is purchased both sides benefit from the transaction, not just the seller. Buying luxury goods is not a zero sum game).

The developer is not even the person making the money from the digital download, they are making it for the content. Apple makes the money for the download.

This is similar to CDs (which are economically abundant) costing a few cents, which goes to a pressing house, a few dollars go to the shipper, a few more to retail store, and the rest paid for the content (usually owned by a record company).

If you take out the $10-$12 spent on distribution/retail profit, you are left with an even bigger rip-off taken by the content owner than the few dollars in the $5 game example.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[samkass]

And if you can't make that $100 back in short order, you're not really trying. Seriously, $100 is cheap. I know Google subsidizes their development program all the way down to $0 by diverting funds from their advertising business, but that's a business decision that doesn't really change the basic economics.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Kethinov]

That isn't the point. The article contends that the iPhone developer program "democratizes" game development. Closed platforms are not democratic in nature. The size of the fee or how quickly a developer could possibly make it back is irrelevant.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Hognoxious]

Marginal cost isn't the total cost. Did the app write itself?

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[ShadeOfBlue]

You're absolutely right that it is not our responsibility to subsidize obsolete business models. However, if you don't want to subsidize a business model, then buy from competing business models or don't use products from that market at all.

Piracy is not a competing business model, it's just piracy. Just because a business model is obsolete doesn't make it ethical to do whatever the hell you want. You don't walk up to a newspaper stand, say "hey look, the Free Times right over there pays for itself with just advertisements" and then steal a copy of the New York Times while feeling all smug.

I think people have taken the music industry example and run too far with it. With the music industry there were/are legitimate concerns that the giants in the RIAA were fixing prices, intentionally squashing competition, and using the artists' popularity to further entrench themselves in the recording industry rather than paying a fair share back to the content creator.

In this case, however, the content creator is getting his cut. If you don't feel his content is worth his price, just don't use it.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Hognoxious]

I have not forgotten, I have deliberately ignored it as it isn't relevant.

I hope you don't design aircraft: I have not forgotten about drag or gravity, I have ignored them as they are irrelevant.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Thus development costs are arbitrary.

So is the value of the software.

Development costs should play no part in how a price is set.

Wrong.

It would be like me charging $2500 to mow your lawn.

No, it wouldn't. Lawn mowing != unique software. If you don't want to pay $2,500, you pay the neighbor kid $20 to do it. Provide Edward Scissorhand's service and you can charge that much.

Thus, digital information should be monetized using a business model that doesn't depend on artificial scarcity.

It's not based on artificial scarcity. It's based on value and that is determined by what people are willing to pay. Maya, for example, should not be a $50 app. It solves a million dollar problem. I'm not sure why I even have to explain this.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[gyrogeerloose]

Apple charges $100 for that "first hit" (the SDK). You have to pay them money for the privilege of developing an application

That's not quite accurate. The SDK is available after a free registration at Apple's iPhone Developer site. I got a copy just out of curiosity even though I'm not a developer.

You do have pay them their ninety-nine dollah if you want to distribute your software through the App Store, though.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[The End Of Days]

It's only irrelevant if your purpose is upholding ideals rather than making software.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[ShadeOfBlue]

And at the end of the day, it's not the consumer's responsibility to subsidize an obsolete business model. If this business model cannot be enforced without suing any customer who chooses to ignore it, it's obsolete. And as more and more people are beginning to realize this, reason #2, guilt, will go away too.

My grocery store's business model is to stock food and charge me money for any items I take from the store. This business model can not be enforced if they don't press charges when I shoplift. Therefore grocery stores are obsolete.

Any security measures they might put in place may make it harder to shoplift, but this is artificial. As I get craftier, and start wearing bulkier coats for the winter, I can get food without paying for it with relative ease.

Of course, food scarcity is more or less real scarcity, not artificial. I know food != software, but your argument that a business which uses the law to prevent people from taking the product of it's work is just dumb.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Things can cost less than $0.01 I could very easily sell something for $0.005, it would just require that I sell them in multiples of 2 or that you and I have an account of some sort set up. So, your basis is off.

I think you have to use some sort of "as X approaches zero situation".

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Lars T.]

I've addressed that argument here. And ad hominems are immature.

So is repeating the same stupid argument over and over again.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[randyest]

You're misinformed. The SDK is free to download and use. It's only $100 to publish a game on the app store.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

And do tell where you can higher people to mow lawns for $5 an hour, the companies here cost much closer to $25 to cover the cost of the equipment, trucks, staff, profit, and management.

Immigrants or children will mow lawns for $5 an hour...

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[allanc]

Your argument is a red herring. Development costs should play no part in how a price is set. I might require only $20 an hour and 40 hours to develop something that would require you $40 an hour and 80 hours to develop the same thing. Thus development costs are arbitrary. Prices should only be set based on cost of reproduction plus a reasonable markup for profit.

Why not? If a company spends $50,000 developing a program (A reasonable price for 1 cheap developer employed for 1 year) and then distributes it digitally, you're saying they should only sell it for like $.05/copy? They would have to sell a million copies just to break even.

Not to mention that when a program is shipped, ongoing costs don't just stop dead. There's maintenance, support, sales, advertising, and other such ongoing costs you have to deal with.

And incidentally, unless your app is featured in one of Apple's commercials, the average sales of software in the App store is about 16/day. Assume you price it at the App Store minimum of $0.99 (the only lower price point being 'Free'), which you apparently still think is an enormous markup since you're only taking into account reproduction costs. Apple takes its 30% cut, leaving you with about 70 cents. Times 16 is $11/day. Times 365 is about $4000/year. So to make up that $50,000 worth of development cost would take about 12 years, and God help you if you need to fix a bug, because you can't afford to keep your developer employed during that period or it adds another 12 years. Oh, and this assumes that people keep downloading an app at that rate when you can't afford to debug it or market it in any way.

Software prices aren't based on "artificial scarcity". They're based on scarcity of Programmers, and decent programmers are a very scarce commodity indeed.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[RMH101]

"Way to divide by zero!"

Don't blame him, blame his aging Intel CPU..

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[mdwh2]

I am in full agreement - but as always, anything that isn't praising Apple gets modded down. Also note how the iphone doesn't even support industry standard cross-platform methods for running games, that almost all other phones support.

Games have been on phones for years, and there is nothing special about the IPHONE here - it's a shame that the media (including Slashdot) give free advertising to Apple, as if they were the only phone company around.

It might perhaps be an interesting statistic that games usage among Iphone users has grown the most, but that doesn't say anything about market share as gaming platforms, or usage overall. Also, since Apple is a late-comer to the market, one would expect growth to be higher, as it is starting from a smaller amount.

I don't recall having a Motorola V980 Gaming Continues To Grow article on CNN, not to mention an article for every other phone.

Re:CNN's article reads like Apple propaganda

[mdwh2]

as always, anything that isn't praising Apple gets modded down

And the mods prove it - brilliant!

I'm still waiting for a Motorola V980 Gaming Continues To Grow article, btw.

Sure...

[Quantos]

Gaming grows, but when is the breakthrough in battery life gonna hit?

Why do people want to do things with a PHONE that will make it so that they can't use it as a PHONE?

Hang on, I was playing a game and my batteries dying.
How often have we all heard that one.

Re:Sure...

[Paradigm_Complex]

Why do people want to do things with a PHONE that will make it so that they can't use it as a PHONE?

You've seriously never had a situation where you were idling, wishing you brought a book? Say, waiting at a dentist's office or during a 45min break between classes because of scheduling issues?

Having entertainment on-hand can be pretty damn useful, even if it comes at the cost of limiting the phone's usefulness before the next charge. Pre-smartphone I did my best to keep a book on my person 24/7, but now I can just pull out my blackberry and browse slashdot et al, even though that eats into my battery pretty quick.

Re:Sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true, and it's why I have a grand total of ONE games on my phone.

Re:Sure...

[pandrijeczko]

Say, waiting at a dentist's office or during a 45min break between classes because of scheduling issues?

Here in the UK, they ask you to turn your mobile phone off when waiting in a surgery for a doctor or dentist whereas I've never been asked to put my book away.

Re:Sure...

[randyest]

Two words: airplane mode.

Turns off all the radios and possible sources of interference and still lets you play games.

Check out the pic!!!!!!!

[blake1]

Scratch the gaming news I think the real story here is how 1UP got their hands on an iPhone that has Flash installed.

Please can somebody tell me where I too can get a copy of Flash, I need to look at redtube NOWWWWWWWW

Similar to Trism...

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to Trism, this other game is pretty intriguing, too.

Re:Similar to Trism...

[dameron]

That game sucks ass, I liked it better back in the day when it was called "You do not have RealPlayer installed on your computer".

BTW...

[Creepy Crawler]

Trism is done by the same guy who translated and did romhacking for the NES and SNES.

God ol Neo Demiforce still at it, after all these years.

Similar to Trism...

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to Trism, this other game is pretty intriguing, too.

An idiot two ways over

[SuperKendall]

I was wondering how you arrived at your odd conclusion that there was a 500% markup on what you maintain is a cost of zero. In that case of course, the markup was infinite. So then I figured you were just an idiot.

But then you decided to try and justify your lunacy, and show that not only are you bad at math, but that you have no ability to research things:

because $5 is 500 times one cent, the minimum price he could have set without making it free.

The minimum price you can set (without making it free) is $.99.

Now don't you feel like an absolute heel? Undoubtedly the answer is actually no, but the rest of us know how you should be feeling right about now - your punishment then shall be your inability to learn just how to remove the foot from your mouth as you wedge it in further.

You could have at least used Apple Hater Math, and worked out the markup starting from the development registration cost and the 80-Core Quad Blue Halogen Mac your kind claims you need for iPhone development.

Re:An idiot two ways over

[Kethinov]

I was wondering how you arrived at your odd conclusion that there was a 500% markup on what you maintain is a cost of zero. In that case of course, the markup was infinite. So then I figured you were just an idiot.

No, 500% markup would be 5 cents.

Let's walk through it. 100% of 1 cent is 1 cent. 200% of 1 cent is 2 cents. 500% of 1 cent is 5 cents. 1,000% of 1 cent is 10 cents. 10,000% of 1 cent is 100 cents, or $1. 50,000% of 1 cent is 500 cents, or $5.

Actually, I like your percent approach better. 50,000% markup sounds a hell of a lot more heinous than "marked up 500 times." Thanks. :)

I don't appreciate the ad hominem though. :(

The minimum price you can set (without making it free) is $.99.

I wasn't talking about the App Store's arbitrary limitations, I was talking about the minimum price anyone can set for anything before making it free. I suppose you could get into fractions of a cent, but I wanted to keep it simple.

Re:An idiot two ways over

[Anonymous Coward]

SuperKendall:

He was obviously mistaken. Why do you have to point that out in such an unreasonable way? Why the mocking, insulting speech when you could have just clearly stated he was wrong? Does it really make you that much more witty or clever to tell him off in such a rude fashion? Would you like a hug?

Re:An idiot two ways over

[Anonymous Coward]

SuperKendall:

He was obviously mistaken. Why do you have to point that out in such an unreasonable way? Why the mocking, insulting speech when you could have just clearly stated he was wrong? Does it really make you that much more witty or clever to tell him off in such a rude fashion? Would you like a hug?

You are a dope.

Re:An idiot two ways over

[Anonymous Coward]

"ad hominem"

I don't think that means what you think it means.

It would be ad hominem if he was saying "You're an idiot, therefore your argument is wrong" whereas in fact he is saying "Your argument is idiotic, therefore you're an idiot" which is far more reasonable.

Re:An idiot two ways over

[Kethinov]

Okay, firstly, the latter is not what you actually said. Second, even if it was, it still wouldn't be reasonable because it implies ad hominem. An "idiotic" argument could be fallacious or flawed in some way, but there is a burden of proof on you to specify what fallacy or flaw there is. You can't just call me an idiot, or even my argument idiotic and call it good.

Re:An idiot two ways over

[mjeffers]

Okay, firstly, the latter is not what you actually said. Second, even if it was, it still wouldn't be reasonable because it implies ad hominem. An "idiotic" argument could be fallacious or flawed in some way, but there is a burden of proof on you to specify what fallacy or flaw there is. You can't just call me an idiot, or even my argument idiotic and call it good.

You're an idiot, your argument is idiotic. The preceding statement is nothing but goodness and light.

Seriously, when your starting premise for a business model doesn't take into account the cost of producing the object you want to sell because you think it's "unethical" you're an idiot. Running a business with both hands tied behind your back doesn't get you extra brownie points for doing it on "hard mode". The guy behind trism had a great idea and with a minimal investment and some effort was able to capitalize on it. Why does it cost $5 for the game and not $.01? Because people will pay $5 for the game and the number of people who would buy it for $.01 and not $5 aren't worth $4.99 to try and get as your customers.

Crazy talk man...

[SuperKendall]

A business model which doesn't depend on artificial scarcity. Many iPhone applications are free and use advertising as a business model.

You are the first person I have ever seen that proclaims an advertising model beats advertisement free work, both from the producer and consumer side.

My hat is off to you for having let go of reality with both hands and then giving it a good kick to send you further away as fast as you can go.

Once you have a culture that embraces p2p and rejects artificial scarcity, making any kind of money by charging a consumer for a digital download won't happen anymore.

In reality the truth is that you can (like Apple) quite happily sell and endless amount of product to people even when they can easily download it for free (see: The Entire Music Industry). Enter, the App Store.

I write iPhone apps myself. Of course they will be pirated. It doesn't matter because in the end it's far easier to buy them than to pirate them, and to boot most people are not dishonest pricks who would steal a program just to make a point. In fact most pirates aren't even in that category, they just like to collect things and you'd never have made a cent from them anyway even if piracy was impossible.

Furthermore you know pretty much nothing about "Free Software", at least not the Free part. The Freedom is not what you think it is.

Re:Crazy talk man...

[Kethinov]

You are in deep denial about where this is all headed. Your argument assumes that the percentage of users of your iPhone applications who are pirates will not rise and that the percentage of people will not find piracy unethical will also not rise. Both are rising right now and will continue to do so until artificial scarcity is unsustainable.

Re:Crazy talk man...

[GateGuy]

Interesting enough, I clicked the link to your homepage. I notice at the bottom web page there is a copyright notice.

Why should I respect your notice?

The cost to you for me downloading your images and reusing them are zero.

Iphone gaming? Continues to grow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dan Quayle! Still. gaining. acceptance.

Hey, dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

The price of something in a free and open market is what people are willing to pay for it. How hard it was to create has jack shit to do with anything.

When you ignore basic economic principles, you end up with... well, let's not go there.

Alleged Apple hater math

[tepples]

You could have at least used Apple Hater Math, and worked out the markup starting from the development registration cost and the 80-Core Quad Blue Halogen Mac your kind claims you need for iPhone development.

That might be a slight exaggeration. Someone who already owns a desktop PC running Windows or Linux doesn't need the 80-core Mac, just a Mac mini, a KVM switch, an iPod Touch, and a developer certificate, and possibly a cheap USB keyboard or mouse to replace a PS/2 one. This $1,000 is more than an impulse buy for an underemployed programmer like myself but still a lot cheaper than what's needed for a game console. The real Apple hater math involves the money spent feeding and housing oneself while developing an application that Apple ends up rejecting.

I recognise automated meme-ing when I see it.

[kieran]

You just failed the turing test.

Thanks to Mono!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unity3D and Mono seem to be making it easier for developers to write games for the iPhone, this is just awesome.

Especially since Unity3D will be ported to Linux afaik.

DSi

[Midnight Thunder]

Looking at the iPhone and the new Nintedo DSi, I was surprised to see that the DSi did not include motion sensing technology. Maybe the DSi2 will end up having it, since IMHO this is going to become a big part of mobile gaming.

If you call them games

[Anonymous Coward]

These... entertainment pieces... are not "gaming". They are pathetic shadows using themes from real games, or gussied-up remakes of games from 1980-something. And when you are playing this thing on your iPhone, I would say your activity is best called "squinting". The day I hear someone claim the label "gamer", and all they own is a fucking iPhone, I will make them eat it. (reasons: 1 - they are doing gaming wrong, 2 - they are lately-come wannabes who think they can talk like gamers with 20 years of history, 3 - they are fad-following fanbois who wouldn't be touching a game if it wasn't suddenly cool to do)

Burn all iPhones!

Retarded.

[trouser]

The biggest problem with gaming on the iPhone is that only retarded people have an iPhone so the iPhone games are all retarded. Also, Nintendo has Mario, Donkey Kong and Link. Apple has Steve Jobs, so Super Mario 64 DS, admittedly not a great name though certainly a superb game, becomes Super Steve Jobs iPhone, which is a retarded name for what would surely be a retarded game. What would Super Steve Jobs do? Would there be a magic kingdom? Who are his enemies and who must he rescue? Worst game ever.

Easier Math

[SuperKendall]

The real Apple hater math involves the money spent feeding and housing oneself while developing an application that Apple ends up rejecting.

The truth is anyone can tell what kind of app might be questionable, and work on something you know can be accepted. The fear of Apple rejecting apps is vastly overblown, there are just a few categories to be careful of.

It assumes nothing

[SuperKendall]

Your argument assumes that the percentage of users of your iPhone applications who are pirates will not rise and that the percentage of people will not find piracy unethical will also not rise

Not at all. It only assumes that buying the application will be easier than piracy, which is basically always true. No matter how easy you make pirating it involves extra steps.

As noted, you are the one in utter denial about market forces. You are obviously one of those people who would have claimed iTunes would never have worked. Keep up at those windmills Quixote!

In Soviet Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple propaganda reads like CNN's article