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Monkey Island Creator Slams Corporate Control Over Game Publishing
An anonymous reader writes "Ron Gilbert, co-creator of classic games Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island 1 and 2, and many more, has spoken out against corporate censorship — the way of large companies getting a say on what does or does not get published on the distribution channels they control. Although his insightful rant applies to a number of corporations (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Comcast are mentioned), most of the direct examples single out Apple. Quoting: 'Apple has maintained an almost North Koreanish dictatorial control over the devices, becoming the arbitrator over what is good and bad, what is allowed and not allowed. They don't have this control over the Mac because it is a real computer and an open device, but they can do this with the iPhone because we (as consumers) were convinced by the cell phone carriers that they needed this control to protect their networks (in the same way they wouldn't let us own our own telephones in the '70s) and Apple was happy to jump on that ship because they could finally control everything that went on the device and we bought it into it. Apple apologists say that Apple needs this control to maintain the "specialness" of the device. I say that's a load of crap.'" He also mentions Adidas dropping out of iAds because they couldn't accept Apple's excessive creative control, and a photography app that was rejected because it used the volume buttons as trigger."
Oh man, now I'm jonesing to play Maniac Mansion.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I bought the iPhone because I know they are controlling the user experience. I'm greatly enjoying my user experience on my iOS devices. I feel like I got what I paid for, and am likely to get more apple products in the future.
And we all see how android is filled with back doors and hemmoraging data. Moreover google is now back peddling and starting to lock things down. Sometime you want freedom sometime you want security. I'll take freedom on my desktop and security on my phone. why? because in the future the phone will be my credit card and for that I want something close to trusted plat form computing.
the good news is you have a choice. DOn't buy an iphone, get your freedom, and as the singer said, perhaps nothing left to lose.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
When will Apple learn what Nintendo learned back in the 90s, consumers don't like censorship and will but their games from the platform that doesn't have censorship.
If Apple intends their iPhone to be more than "the obsolete product that started a revolution" they need to change their policies. People want to use the devices that they paid for in the ways they want, otherwise, a rival platform (probably Android) will have a "killer app" rejected from the Apple app store and Apple will pay the price like Nintendo did with Mortal Kombat.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
What the mans says is true. Yet people still buy and use the products (including many here on /.). Given that there exist alternatives, people must be OK with the compromise (design/"sexiness" vs openness).
We each have a most powerful weapon against such authoritarian control - do not buy the offending company's product. No-one truly needs an iPhone. Either go without or buy a more open alternative.
...this whole "Operator Jail Hell" part of the problem (hello, AT&T) is restricted to the American customers. Things are nothing like this in Europe.
Mod Robert Gilbert - 1 Troll for attacking apple.
.
joking
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It's a volume button. I don't have a problem with Apple with rejecting an app that subverts the defined usage of a hardware button. I haven't used (or heard of) this app, but what does it do if you try to change the volume of your music or phone call when also trying to take a picture?
If it sucks so much then fortunately we are not forced to buy it.
I don't own an iPhone and don't have a burning desire to own one. So reading this is kind of entertaining.
$30 dollar phone with pay as you go airtime for the win.
How to avoid Apple lock-in in one easy step:
1. Don't go through Apple.
Really, vendors shouldn't have any control over any of their services and be forced to whatever a whiny geek whines about. How dare stores control what they choose the sell, how much they sell it for, and how they sell it?!?
The point made repeatedly throughout TFA:
So point your browser to Android's development tools and program to your heart's content. No one is forcing Apple stuff on you.
If you look at games to be had, Apple applies only the barest degree of quality control. What exactly are the limits of the machine he is raging against that matter to game development?
There should be someone to at least say:
1) Does it run.
2) Does it run on the devices it claims to run on.
Otherwise the store would be full of applications that didn't even run, or rampant IP piracy like you see in the Android Market with a bunch of apps that make copious use of material from Disney and elsewhere...
I would think someone raging against corporate control over game delivery channels would be praising to the heavens the most open indie game development channel ever which a ton of people will buy games through.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
what did you think would happen when you signed your free artistic license away?
From the article:
Aaaaand that's where you lost me. Beaten Wife Syndrome: if you keep going back for more, after a while you have to take some responsibility for enabling the whuppings.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Corporations have only one concern, profits. Anything that harms profits is bad and anything that is perceived to help profits is good. An edgy game may help profits but more often than not edgy means risky and corporations by their nature also abhor risk. They want safe. Creativity will always suffer under corporate control. I used to work as an art director at Disney and I called the place creative purgatory.
Help save a film from corporate American. Join the fight at:
http://www.fftheuntoldstory.com/savefreakyflickermovie.html
Not a shameless promotion I don't even reveal my name I just want my film back. Check out the main link for more info and I just posted more renders. Bug the media and prove we can fight back!
http://www.fftheuntoldstory.com/
I seem to remember the Atari 2600 games that were mostly junk because of the complete lack of control over the quality of content. If you've ever played the ET and fell into a hole about a thousand times, you know what I mean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game) Extremely strict oversight might not be great, but neither is total anarchy.
Apple's controls are well known. In fact, they're probably the closest you get to console-style controls from the big three except they're open to everyone.
If you want to write code and not worry about approvals and crap like that, there are three major platforms you can write for - PC, Mac, and Android. Heck, I'm sure other than the Google Marketplace, the other marketplaces for Android probably excercise some control as well.
I guess I'm just getting tired of all these posts of "whine whine whine Apple approvals suck whine whine whine". Apple's not forcing you to code for their platform, so if you don't like it, don't. There's no law (yet) that says everyone must write for the iPhone. We all know Apple's approval process sucks. It's well publicized in many mass media publications already and has been since the app store opened 2 years ago. I know lots of people who won't write an app for iPhone out of fear of it getting rejected. (Some refuse to write for Android too, but that's more of a "I can't afford to support and test on a million different phones" than "I refuse to subject myself to Apple's draconian policies").
Or is it more a case of "I don't like to write for iPhone but it's the only way I can make money"?
As for Adidas, they did what any business would do - they withdrew, which is their right. If enough people do that, Apple may relent. If not, they risk having their iAd platform rendered marginalized. But that's a business decision only Apple can make, and if others are happy about it, good, if not, they'll leave.
Heck, I don't know what ads Adidas was trying to do, but they could've been highly annoying and distracting ones that really, no one would've wanted.
Thank you Ron Gilbert! At last someone finally gets what I have been saying for a long time and has the gonads to say it out loud. (Be careful though Ron, some blogs will ban you for such treachery. I know because I tried to say this very same thing and got my account deleted from a female blog dictator.) Now, don't get me wrong. The iThings are very nice products from a hardware point of view with the MAJOR exception of no user replaceable batteries. (Sorry, but having to spend $79 to replace the battery in a $99 iPhone 3GS is just plain idiotic.) The hardware is attractive, user friendly, and usually well designed (with another exception of the user-touchable antenna which de-tunes it.) I just have a major issue with someone else telling me what I can or cannot install for apps on my devices. If I am paying that much, I feel I have bought the right to install what I please as long as it doesn't interfere with the phone company network.
...send me a new Dial-A-Pirate. I lost mine 15 years ago. :(
I know everyone loves to hate on apple's dictatorial approach, but just for once I'd like to talk about some of the less egregious examples of corporate censorship. He mentions XBLA in passing. I want to know what he's specifically talking about.
The indie section was a mess last time I looked, the top sellers were "personal massager" programs that did nothing more than make the controllers vibrate on command. There were several "games" that just tortured your avatar. One involved just shooting your avatar out of a woman's womb and trying to make the "baby" break as much stuff as possible. The indie section of XBLA seems more like an abandoned lot than a walled garden. If MS is exerting any control over that crap pile, they should be ashamed of themselves.
The non-indie sections of XBLA on the other hand do have better offerings, but I've heard of a few cases where MS has definitely meddled. They're pushing a "gamers have no reason to expect things for free, so you can't give them anything for free" motto it seems. Valve claimed that MS wouldn't let them release TF2 updates for free for that reason. They could have charged for it, but free updates for an already watered down version of the game? Absolutely not. At some point there was also an issue of how big a file TF2 could update, though I don't remember if that was MS putting artificial limits on it or the XBLA software couldn't handle it. I'd wonder if that's part or all of the reason steam is coming or has come to the PS3 but not the 360. MS may have said they couldn't, or steam may have decided (for good reason) to not bother. Either way, we 360 owners lost out there, and any game that my computer can run I'll be buying on steam.
Anyway, I think this discussion can use some examples that aren't apple because this problem isn't limited to iphones and ipads.
Wow, where is the "+1 Insightful for the original article's author" button when you really need it?
Inevitable. After a business grows over certain size, it starts to assert its will over the market and society, instead of obliging with the wishes of the market. At this stage, the business is not a social group that is conducting business in a market anymore, but a feudal kingdom of its own self with power and clout. Inevitably, like most self-interest oriented social organizations that acquire power, they use that power to assert their own will.
gaming was not immune to this. internet, may make it immune in future.
Read radical news here
Man, the anti-Apple mods are out in force today. Fucking idiots. Offtopic my ass...
you mean these?
So if we are talking about video games, what is the point of a "North Koreanish dictatorial" attitude. It serves nothing but to lead us to name calling, which admittedly is all that most pundits can do. The reality is that video games on consoles are the definition of corporate control. They require a payment to be written, they require a payment for every copy sold. We don't hear about the games that don't make it because the cost is so great that no one would develop a game that would not make it past the corporate censors. Furthermore, a game has to sell millions, so no one is going to write a game that would piss of a large group. Just look at the pulling of the Taliban theme in Medal of Honor. This is precisely the example of self censorship that has plagued the corporate game industry.
What has changed is that Apple has provided a platform with minimal upfront costs and reasonable distribution costs. This has allowed developers to experiment with games in a way that previously only available on PC platforms. This is not being an apple-apologist. This is reality, and comparing kiwis to kiwis. The iPad is much more a console, with a relatively simple IDE, than a PC. On a PC everything is possible. The console requires a tribute. Apple requires less of a tribute. We will see what tributes are required for the Android console, and if, as assumed many times on /., developers will be putting all the games banned by Apple on Android devices. The market will decide, much like the Wii vesus xbox, if people want to have fun or bash seals brains in. I think the dead heat between the two says that there is room in the market for both, even though both are massively controled by large corporations.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I am an Apple fanboy. I have been for many many years. I believe that Apple makes some of the best hardware and software available today, and one of my biggest regrets about my current job compared to my previous two is that fact that I don't get to use Apple equipment or systems in it (all MS and Lotus and MS and RIM and MS).
But Ron Gilbert's criticisms of Apple are essentially correct.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
arbitrate
1580s, from L. arbitratus, pp. of arbitrari "to give a decision," from arbiter (see arbiter). In modern usage, an arbiter makes decisions of his own accord and is accountable to no one but himself; an arbitrator (early 15c.) decides issues referred to him by the parties.
- Source
I don't know why you are complaining. You should try posting an anti-Apple comment some time. It goes down in flames in a matter of minutes.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
the way of large companies getting a say on what does or does not get published on the distribution channels they control
This can be generalized to consider the negative impact of all forms of extra-market powers. Powerful entities distort the free market in all industries. Those distortions cost us GDP. The free market is sensitive to coercion from governments, corporations, organizations, and influential individuals. The price of a market free from bias -- free from performance-robbing distortion -- is eternal vigilance, just like democracy. Many conflate the free market with laissez faire. Adam Smith, the patron saint of free market theory, was also the first to point out the difference.
Oligarchs have been glossing over that part of The Wealth of Nations ever since. The real free market is anathema to oligarchy.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Minecraft guy has made a couple million dollars posting his early-alpha game on the Internet. You don't need Apple. You don't need EA. You just need a game that doesn't suck and an IP address.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's as if he said to Apple "Every word you say to me is stupid." He'd better get ready for them to come back with "I wanted to make sure you'd feel comfortable with me."
Companies only "learn" when they are getting their ass handed to them by a competitor. When Sony's PlayStation started kicking Nintendo's ass, Nintendo then became more developer friendly. Now that the Wii has become successful, they instantly reverted to their old unfriendly ways. They quickly forgot that being a shithead never is good strategy.
But hey, go ahead and keep thinking that typical corporations learn. Companies that are on top ALWAYS exert their control as much as possible, whether it be developer or consumer. Becoming consumer/developer friendly becomes a last ditch move to survive, not as their main strategy.
I've been testing an iPad as a work tool for the last day or so.
The findings have been not overlly surprising.
Pros:
Cons:
Sadly, I won't be recommending the iPad as a work tool.
My neck hurts. I accidentally deleted a file on a workstation I was controlling via VNC due to the klunky touchpad interface. And I had to re-purchase a BLu-ray I already own because Apple wouldn't let me mount it without buying yet_another_app.
This is not my definition of sexy.
It was 1968 when the decision came out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone
Please select a response:
You maintain an almost LeChuck-esque dictatorial control over your devices!
Your apologists say that Apple needs this control to maintain the "specialness" of your vessel. I say that's a load of carp!
Fart apps are awesome!
Yaargh!
Put yourself in Apple's shoes. They have to walk a very tight line of liability; getting bad press for "Shake the Baby" iPhone apps and being legally liable in places like Germany for any X-rated app on the phone, getting bad relationships with carriers for hogging bandwidth (let alone if there were bittorrent apps in the app store), trying to prevent people unlocking their phones and breaking the contract, trying to learn from Nokia's mistakes and prevent viruses from spreading through iPhones, and trying to prevent piracy of apps. Allowing ad-hoc distribution of apps is just begging for malware and viruses and spyware, like what Android is now feeling the pain and bad rep from.
Apple has come a long way from a "No apps allowed (but we'll turn a blind eye to jailbreaking)," to "almost all apps allowed, >95% approved, and we have codified rules and an appeals process." It's easy to whine about how Apple doesn't do what you want, but if you were in their shoes, what decision could you make that didn't worsen any of the problems up above?
Bear in mind that one big slipup and Apple will be relegated to forever third-place. If you opened the App Store to any app whatsoever, it will lead to massive user data theft because of the now-popular Farmvi11e and other trojan apps, Apple will be sued for millions of dollars and the brand will be tarnished. Allow unlimited background apps, and the battery life will plummet and people will blame Apple and your brand will be stained. If you make jailbreaking easier and piracy overflows on the iPhones, developers will leave the platform. Apple DOES understand the gripes and is working on it. You can provision your app for 100 devices, and distribute enterprise apps outside of the app store. Apple finally allowed background support where its needed and did some tricks to keep battery life good and the user experience nice.
"Apple apologists say that Apple needs this control to maintain the "specialness" of the device. I say that's a load of crap" That load of crap == fart apps
activestudios web design
http://www.djgallagher.com/games/pc/monkeyisland1/dial_a_pirate.php
Happy to help!
I wonder if she's ever heard of the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS software development is even more restrictive than iOS software development. For one thing, Nintendo doesn't want anyone working from home, so the smallest of shops are shut out entirely. See the case of Bob's Game.
or Archos
Google has made a decision not to open up Android Market to Archos devices yet. Only phones with a voice and data plan quality as of right now.
Besides being bulky and not holding much content on it's own, [an iPhone or 3G iPad] can also rack up absurd network roaming charges.
That's what airplane mode is for. Use it until you get back on one ;-)
While it is true that Nintendo isn't that indie friendly, they are the most friendly out of the 3 when it comes to homebrew development.
Citation needed. Nintendo has put code into recent versions of Wii Menu specifically to delete channel IDs used by homebrew (HAXX, JODI, DVDX, DISC, and DISK). The only official homebrew for Wii is WarioWare DIY Showcase. Compare this to Microsoft's XNA on Xbox 360, which allows for everything but real-time audio synthesis and whose structure ($99/mo to develop for your own hardware; gatekeeper takes a 30% commission on sales) Apple appears to have copied for its App Store.
Just to provide another perspective, one not often seen on slashdot, that of a "normal" consumer. I'm comfortable with computers, have used windows since 1983 and macs since 1987. As a mostly harried laborer in the vineyards of academia, I enjoy keeping up with technology though the usual surrogates, but haven't run linux (debian, mandrake) or freebsd for some time. Mostly i am busy doing things in real life. And over time I've found apple products to my liking: a good blend of power, elegance, and quality.
As for iphone apps, personally I like knowing that someone, somewhere holds the apps to a minimal standard of compliance with guidelines that tend at least minimally to insure the security of my information and the general integrity of the program. That's one reason I feel comfortable buying ios apps on a whim and trying them out. I've probably spent around 1K on the app store in the past two years and much enjoyed exploring all the imaginative possibilities that developers have provided.
My simple point is this: the iphone and ipad enjoy a large and growing audience willing to pay blindly for new apps precisely because we trust they have been vetted. It seems to me Ron Gilbert wants it both ways. On the one hand he wants the freedom to do whatever he wishes with ios devices and to allow its users the freedom to install any and all programs on the one hand, and he also wants access to the global audience of 100+ million credit-card-carrying ios owners, who spend money freely largely because they trust their devices not to cheat them with crappy apps or rob them blind through data theft, on the other.
As others have opined, what not go Android? Its users seem to comprise a fascinating set of anarchists, first-adopters, techies, principled FOOS devotees, and likely a smidgen of frustrated Verizon iphone lovers. That's a group I would have surely have joined 20 years ago (had it existed) when I had enough time to enjoy my genteel poverty.
But not now. And I'm willing to spend quite a bit of money for tech that satisfies the needs of a busy lifestyle. If developers want access to me and those like me (not a few in this world, I think), then ios is the place.
There's room in this world for both MOMA and for local art flea markets, where on a good day you just might spot a future Van Gogh lurking among the seascapes and velvet Elvis renditions.
Nintendo does require your company to have an office.
I'm working on a business plan, and I need a bit of help with this step. Imagine that my team has developed a game that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, but it doesn't fit into the typical PC mold for reasons explained by CronoCloud. Once we're ready to port it to Wii, what's the best way to find cheap office space?
the Wii SDK is the cheapest of the three
Microsoft's XNA Game Studio is free to anybody running an authentic copy of Windows OS on sufficiently recent PC hardware. It also lacks restrictions on location. So unless the Wii SDK is $1000 and includes a free PC and a voucher for a discount on office space, Xbox 360 appears to be the cheapest even if you don't already own a recent gaming PC.
they even support flash, so you can even start your game without the SDK.
XNA Game Studio is far cheaper than Adobe Flash CS-anything. Or by "flash", are you talking about using free SWF tools such as Flex SDK or haXe?
Nobody wants to play your tetris clone that you derived from a tutorial on gamedev.net.
But do they want to play a tetromino game that addresses specific problems with The Tetris Company's tetromino game? And do they want to play something like Eversion or especially Bob's Game?
Right, let me get back to you while I get done playing Sonic Adventure 5 on my Dreamcast 2.
You misspelled "Sonic 2006 on your Xbox 360". What do you get when you add a second stick to a Dreamcast controller?
Nintendo refused to go the optical route with the N64, giving the competition a leg up in the volume of data that a game could be delivered with.
Solid-state media also gave Nintendo a leg up on load times. Compare Super Smash Bros. for N64 to the more PlayStation-style loadfest that is Brawl for Wii, and compare first-gen DS games to first-gen PSP games like WWE.
the day they stop developing for iPhone (and really, you need to learn a new language so you don't become an iOS dev by accident)
You need to learn Objective-C to make the front-end of a Cocoa Touch app, but your app's C++ back-end can stay much the same as it was on the PC from which it was ported. Likewise, you need to learn Java for an Android app's front-end and use a C++ back-end. Compare this to Java applets, J2ME MIDlets, or BlackBerry apps, where you have to rewrite the back-end in Java. Or compare to XNA (Xbox 360 indie games) or Windows Phone 7 apps where you have to rewrite the back-end in a safe .NET language.
"I'll preface this by saying that I don't like non-user-replaceable batteries either, even just because you can't take a spare battery if you're not going to be near power for a while."
You can take an external battery pack that takes up no more space than a spare battery would have.
And I've yet to have to replace a battery on an iPhone, any model (I bought the first gen).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When politicians seek power to take away our freedom, people like you would willfully vote that right away. Just like you freely voted your right away to purchase apps from other appstores on your phone from any *vendor* other than Apple.
When I purchased a Playstation I voted away my right to run XBox apps on it. When I purchased a Nokia phone I voted away my right to buy iOS apps for it. HOLY CRAP! I'm just like the Germans who voted for Hitler! Someone call Glenn Beck quick!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
People have been saying this since day one. The argument on both sides is still the same: If this kind of app store is ok with you, buy it. If not, don't. I don't like the comparison of apple's control of their appstore to censorship. This would be like buying a buying a house in a neighborhood with a very active Homeowner's Association, agreeing to a contract, and complaining when down the road they don't approve what you're doing. It's stupid and counter-productive but you agreed to this.
Not necessarily enough value to justify it, but...
I have had an iPhone for a while. I regard it as a toy. I got a G2 recently. I spent a couple of hours browsing the app market.
On the Android app market:
* About a third of the things I looked at had a 5-star review which was, in fact, spam for a warez site. ("This app is awesome! Get all apps for $9.99/month from our site, ")
* Some apps had warnings such as "this app sends unauthorized text messages" or other malware-like things, apparently undisputed... but were still there.
* While I am all for freedom and creativity, it seemed that every page of search results in any of several categories contained at least one thing which was obviously based on ripped off sounds, images, or something else. e.g., tons of people, none of whom were the actual show producers or staff or anything, selling "soundboxes" based on Family Guy characters.
In short... fundamentally, while I really like the abstract notion of an open market, and I like the existence of things like tethering apps... I gotta say, the openness has gotten to the point where it makes it hard for me to find software I actually want.
I actually find that I rather miss the editorial control and basic housecleaning. I think that obvious malware should not, in fact, be staying up in the store. I think that spam should be getting removed, and spammers banned -- they shouldn't be posting comments on hundreds of apps over a period of days. I am not sure I can have that without too high a cost. I certainly do like the potential of the Android market to offer apps that Apple wouldn't approve of... but it also means that some of them are genuinely Bad Shit, stuff that harms other people by being available for download, and makes trying to find software of any particular interest or value much harder than it should be.
It's a tradeoff. But there is some real value to that moderation and editorial control, even though there's also real costs to it. If we ignore those benefits, we're never going to figure out a way to compete effectively with the target market for the Apple app store.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Just one thing that tends to bug me a bit every time I hear the "they are not paying me" argument about the Apple/Sony/Nintendo/Xbox/Steam/Etc digital stores:
It may be true that they are not paying you, but they are stores. You can't force BestBuy to carry your products even if you give it to them free on some profit sharing scheme. True, these stores don't have the luxury of "unlimited shelving" digital stores have, but there is more to the story than just shelf space.
If I go to Best Buy and buy garbage (ignore for now they yield refunds for most inventory) and I let it go and my next purchase ends up being also garbage, soon I will start to think they just carry garbage and stop buying there.
In that same line, Apple, Sony, and any other digital store handler is forced to put at least some levels of standards for the products they carry. They really don't want to force users to dig through garbage or to buy buggy and/or spyware from their stores as it will eventually lead people to stop trusting them and therefore stop buying from them.
Sure, Apple could open up the doors to other competitor stores inside their devices (entirely separate topic, though) but what's the use? How many you think will buy through those channels?
I doubt opening the doors for other stores would make the average user bother installing that additional store. Mostly just the same type of user that jailbreaks would bother getting and browsing the store.
I do not disagree [with Apple] personally about iTunes as a syncing tool. I do wish there was more programmable on how to sync my own app's files, though. App file sync is very well hidden and iTunes does not automatically sync the sandbox files, making it easy to loose things like game saves.
As an iPhone user that has jailbroken I can tell you I don't trust the stuff in the Cydia or Rock stores to spend money there. I no longer jailbreak, I used to do so to get multi-tasking, and that's no longer a reason.
I will agree there are some things Apple could improve. Some sort of Shared Document folder would be interesting, but at the same time potentially problematic when it comes to messy applications and uninstalls. Would not be shocked if that became The Big New Feature of iOS5 or 6.
The volume control is a policy thing. Apple may someday change policy, but currently they have a strict policy on the use of the volume controls. Anyone that uses the volume control for anything else knows very well their app will not be approved. I actually wish they changed that rule someday as it would be very useful for gaming to adopt the volume controls for input, but it's far from something that would make me hate them.
At the end of the day, Apple is way friendlier and open than Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft with the Xbox will ever be, and he mention these just in passing. That, just does not compute, unless Apple has personally rejected one of his apps and he are holding a grudge on it.
Steve Jobs of today would reject the contributions of Steve Jobs of yesterday.
or else!
But you cannot not because user wish it, or choose it, you can#t because of apple imposed policy. The whole point of the GP and the point of the article. Just sayin'.
What people don't understand is that Apple Make Appliances;
Apple systems are closer to consoles than computers - Everything is locked down and you can only do things they have sanctioned on it.
The advantages are that everything is more consistent, and less prone to problems because all Apple systems are exactly the same and the way the users do things on them is exactly the same.
The reason Apple has seen such an upsurge is because this 'Appliance' way of doing things is perfect for the masses of non-techies joining the computing world. People that just want shit to work and don't want to learn anything beyond that. Kinda the equivilent of the legendary AOL user surge that started the the conversion of the fledgling Internet into the Sparkly Shiny Web.
Complaining about it is just daft tho' - This is the tail trying to wag the dog. If you don't like it, don't develop for it and don't use it!
We have alternatives which are just as functional after all!
To actually run the code on the Xbox 360 you'll need a developer license ($100/yr).
Which is different from the iPhone developer program in what way? I can't see one, other than that the iPhone developer program lets a developer authorize more devices for ad-hoc because multiplayer works differently on a set-top console vs. a handheld.
Now, $ 2K is not that much if you really want to make games seriously. Go make a business plan
Can you recommend any resources for making a good business plan for a startup video game company, something perhaps more detailed than this that I found with Google video game startup business plan?
You buy Apple, you know what you get. You publish on their platform, same thing. Continuing these behaviours despite Apple's obvious faults is only going to strengthen the company and their anti-user practises.
kinda like how apple shouldn't own the letter i or the word pod.
Yes, exactly right. Thanks for agreeing with me, what was your original problem?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I bought the iPhone because I thought it would have a good user experience. I bought it the day the first phone came out, and regretted it ever since. I feel like everything I wanted to do was subject to an Apple tax and Apple law, and will not buy more apple products in the future.
Seriously, I'm not trying to reverse everything you said without merit. On day one, you couldn't have custom ringtones without buying the song through iTunes. You had to pay extra for an unzipper, and a pdf viewer, etc. And you still can't have Flash. When I moved to a different country for 6 months, I finally gave in and had to jailbreak the device just to make a phone call.
I'm an Android man now and haven't looked back.
Poor Mods can't handle the essential truth...If you use someone's channel to distribute your stuff, you have to play by their rules.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
There are hundreds of shipping Android apps that have copyrighted material - the one you found is not in the App Store, pulled most likely within a week. Sure every now and then something can slip by a reviewer but if it's really wrong it's not allowed to stand.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley