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John Romero's Doomy View On Android and Ouya
An anonymous reader writes "Romero is willing to give Ouya the benefit of the doubt, but he sees it filling a niche for neither gamers nor developers. 'I think it's cool that they're making a platform, but it's not really the answer that's coming from Apple about the next generation of consoles. Developers really want to invoke the spirit of the Apple II, Android isn't the operating system with which to do it,' Romero said. 'There are two platforms: [iOS] makes money [and] is still very programmable, like the Apple II, and then the other is Android, which is a piracy platform, and you're not doing anything new with it.'"
FUD. Ouya will keep a tab on piracy by storing the titles in the cloud, similar to iTunes and most likely selling subscriptions instead of individual titles.
I used to program the Apple II. All you had to do was turn it on. You didn't have to buy a second, unrelated, $1000 computer just to write programs for it, nor pay $100 per year to the company that makes it. You didn't have to submit to sudden, arbitrary and anticompetitive censorship of the programs you could RUN ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER.
Apple may make many cool things, but lets not bullshit -- their devices are about neither creativity nor freedom -- they are about consumption, censorship, and control.
Microsoft ripped off lots of Mac OS features, and made their OS available to many hardware vendors. Look where it got them.
But perhaps not that surprising considering Romero has moved to 'social' game development. Considering the dreck that falls under that category, such as Zynga's games, you might ask whether it really is all about the money now? That is, at least until he decides to do something else entirely different next year - his Wikipedia bio suggests he changes gaming studios and wives about as often as he changes underwear.
This article is nothing but FUD / misdirection / bullshit from a jackass that only cares about his own agendas... Shame on Slashdot for posting this flamebait.
...Why Romero or anything he says is still relevent?Yeah, he used to be kind of a big deal, but the last time he did anything relevant was Red Faction. If you really want to stress it then you could put down Area 51 but honestly Romero just seems to be a name these days.
As millions of Slashdotters' heads kerploded attempting to reconcile their love for Romero with their love for Android and disdain for Apple...
#DeleteChrome
It's great when you've fallen from Grace. What's next? Daikatana for iOS?
Oh that's cool, maybe next we can get Rico Suave's view on current music trends as well...
"John Romero's About To Make Ouya His Bitch"
Piracy is not as big a problem as some devs are making it out to be. The vast majority of Android users wouldn't have the slightest idea of how to pirate an app. The main group involved in piracy is young, techie gamers, but even then it is not a huge portion of users, and I believe that these users buy some games too.
I think the piracy problem is over-blown by game developers who are dissapointed with their Android sales, often due to (a) their game just isn't that good, or (b) Android users are more cost conscious then iOS users and generally spend less online, or (c) they are coming to Android late and the apps that got their earlier have the advantage of incumbency (which I find to be a huge advantage, though less so with games).
Moving away from games (where the Android test suite does better) to general apps the big problem is bugs. Android has tons of bugs (and a very lacking test suite). Since phones don't get update regularly, developers must work around old bugs indefinitely. Look at the average Android app and you will see various users complaining that the app simply doesn't work on their platform. That's the bugs.
Check out the Android bug list
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list
and you will see an astonishing # of bugs, and lots of comments from frustrated developers who are shocked that important bugs can take years to even be acknowledged by Google, let alone fixed (sorry for the bad grammer).
The most recent release (4.1.1) still has lots of bugs, but it appears to be much more solid then previous releases (like 4.0 and 2.3.0 which were shameful, in my opinion), so I hope this is an indication that Google is moving to get the bug infestation under control.
Finally, let me add that this problem has nothing to do with openness, open-source, or fragmentation. If Google would just start focussing on killings bugs, and extend the Android Compatibility Test Suite (the official test suite) so that manufacturers will stop introducing so many new bugs, then fragmentation would become diversity, developers would become more productive, and users would have a better experience.
So speaks John Romero. He should know what he is talking about, things like making money and such, right? Oh wait. He was the guy who managed to bankrupt his company and failed to deliver several games for which he had received money in advance, and the games he did delivery were failures.
He also bought offices with marble floors, opening ceilings and all kinds of ostentation whilst trying his very best to destroy his company.
The only thing he did right in his life was trusting John Carmack in the beginning.
Piracy is a big problem on iOS, too. Maybe not quite as Android - but it's certainly pretty bad. The real advantage of iOS is it's not as ridiculously fragmented as Android. It's quite practical to test an iOS app on most/all supported devices. With Android, where there's hundreds and hundreds of devices, the best you can do is test on a few and hope for the best...
He makes it seem like people don't buy anything on Android. While piracy may be relatively easy, being legal is still easier. I know quite a few who pirate stuff on PC, but no one I know bothers with Android piracy. One of the top reasons? Mobile apps get tons of updates, and being legal gets all those updates for free. That said, I actually know more people who've jailbroken and run pirated apps on iPhone. Also, there are plenty of things that can be done by the developers to stamp out piracy on their own. For instance Madfinger games, who recently claimed the reason they dropped the price of Dead Trigger from 99 cents to free was because of piracy, had every install phone home. Ok, if you're having the app phone home for approval on install, then you can deny approval. (Also of note, their claim may be somewhat skewed, since they have sold 250k copies on android before the release, and require in app purchases to progress in the game.) Also, Google has decided that with Jellybean, the apps from Google Play market will be signed, and only work on the device it was downloaded on. I wouldn't be surprised if that feature gets backported to older versions (wouldn't be the first time they've backported market updates to older versions). I dunno, to me just seems like he's not putting much effort into things, or thought. Plus, he's bitching about Android being so piratable? Romero is the king of PC gaming, where shit is pirated way more often (partially due to cost. People will pirate a $60 game way before pirating a dollar game).
Samsung with their record 5.9B profit is laughing all the way to the bank.
On one hand, I find it hard to think Romero has something meaningful to say, as he has not been meaningfully involved in driving innovation in the gaming business for over 16 years
The Apple II was one of the biggest piracy platforms, so I find his choice of comparison to be somewhat faulty.
On the other hand, I can't help but think that the Ouya will not be successful for other reasons. I get the impression that it will produce more tablet-style games for the tv set rather than the rich gaming experience that's worthy of the living room
The meter shows me the mods' absolute indifference.
...and you don't get automatic updates. I don't know how cheap a pirates time is but mine isn't.
Chances are a person who pirates a 5$ game isn't going to be a customer anyway.
Instead of calling PIRATE and cowering in the corner I would rather expect from a respectable and sage person of John Romero's repute to take a look why anybody would pirate a 5$ game.
Is it because it's a kid with no bank account/credit card? As a kid I more than once skipped lunch and bought comic books with the money. Because I had the cash. If I could only buy the comic books with a credit card I would propably had eaten instead.
In this case I'd rather go with Newell who says that piracy is a service problem. Newell makes a killing selling games at 10$ or less. Could be he is on to something.
Posting this I've already put more thought into this issue than Romero has. Could it be that he is living up to his reputation? Just a wild stab in the dark. Banish the thought.
20 minutes into the future
Id started on Apple and no doubt John Romero has always wanted to go back there. Better luck than last time, John, you'll need it.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Piracy is not as big a problem as some devs are making it out to be.
I agree. The real "problem" is that (many) developers just don't get it that their fart app really isn't worth $.99 to most people. Clue: your weather widget... it's a fart app. Your uber-mega-clock? It's a fart app. Battery Gauge Max++ Professional Edition is... a fart app. If you really dig on Google Play, you're going to see thousands of "apps" almost all of which are just superfluous fluff. Even most of the games are roughly equivalent to the freeware of the Windows platform circa 1990.
Developers... get this: unless you're making either a top-tier game or a truly powerful app like Documents to Go or Repligo PDF Reader, you're making crap we don't need. Some of your fart apps we might kinda-sorta want, a little bit, maybe. And sometimes someone of us might bother with your token microtransactions because we're bored. But don't think counting on that income is a valid business plan. It's not. There are five other stock-ticker apps out there that are actually free instead of almost-but-not-quite-free. Sure, maybe yours comes with a blue icon and sure, maybe that's enough motivation for someone to pirate yours instead of using one of the free ones with green icons, but don't kid yourself... you didn't get pirated because Android blah blah platform for piracy blah blah. No. You got pirated because your product really, truly isn't worth $.99 (With the notable exceptions mentioned earlier.)
"Oh no... he found the
Just ask this developer how he feels about the (nonsense) claim that there isn't piracy on ios - Romero is just clueless.
http://blog.gameized.com/2011/07/12/the-huge-success-of-an-appstore-failure/
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Well, I suppose Daikatana will be coming out for iOS but not for Android, then?
Well it's kind of related to fragmentation, because even if Google fixed all the bugs ever it would mean fuck all as long as the device manufacturers refuse to update their devices.
Shame on Romero for not knowing about Copy ][ Plus. Half-tracks, variable-density tracks, tracks past the "official" end of the disk, screwed-up clock data, Copy ][ Plus did it all. I pirated SO MUCH stuff on my //GS...
I didn't pirate Infocom anything, however, because their packaging was super awesome. Maybe if Daikatana included a few Zorkmids in the box, it would have sold a few more copies. Also, it wouldn't hurt if it would have been, you know, playable.
...and you don't get automatic updates. I don't know how cheap a pirates time is but mine isn't. Chances are a person who pirates a 5$ game isn't going to be a customer anyway.
This times a million. Yes, in my younger and broker days I did pirate Windows applications. As a matter of fact it was quite the habit. But now with Android, there is no way I'm going to put the time and effort into chasing down a 5 dollar app on thepiratebay. There aren't enough hours in the day. I'd rather just buy it and if I don't like it within 15 minutes I can get a refund. If I keep it and it still ends up sucking, whoopdey freaking do. It was five bucks. If the dev puts anything else up, I just won't buy from him/her again. Speaking of which, Google should put something in the play store to where you can keep track of devs you like and be alerted to new stuff by them and also be able to note devs you don't like so you don't accidentally buy from them again. Maybe I should patent that shit.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
What's always amazed me about all of this is the idea (and I've heard some really bad app developers tell me this) that all you have to do is put your product in an app store, be it iTunes, Android, or anywhere, and just sit back and collect the money. On what planet do these people come from? It's a fair question, because here on earth, the paradigm for selling software hasn't really changed a lot since the 1990's. You have an app to sell? Awesome. Get online, get yourself listed everywhere, build a support ecosystem where you engage your users and make them feel like the product was worth it, be awesome, and then collect the money. You see it time and time again. Those that succeed do some variation of this. Those that don't... well, they're rightly upset that they're stuck with a bunch of eggs that never turned into chickens. That's what you get for counting them before they hatch.
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> "There are two platforms: [iOS] makes money [and] is still very programmable, like the Apple II, and then the other is Android, which is a piracy platform, and you're not doing anything new with it -- you're making a bigger phone that connects to your TV."
Just like Windows is a "piracy platform", but last time I checked there are plenty of games for Windows. And despite efforts like SecureROM and other DRM crap, it's still is a "piracy platform".
Nothing new? Except a gaming console. Have fun try to do that with the iPhone and iOS. The iPhone is also nothing new, just a PDA with a better interface.
> And with all Ouya games being free to play, "you have to basically make a microtransaction game to make any money on it."
So he is just afraid that with all the free games he can't compete and can't make as much money.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
I think the misconception may be that when android first came out, "pirates" knew it was the better platform, for them. Therefore from the beginning android has had the rep.
However, after the early adopters, the pirate issue probably leveled out. I would wager that "piracy" has remained fairly even in the playstore and its predecessor even though devices accessing said store has risen massively since then.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Is that a problem or a feature? I hear horror stories about people with 2 gen old iphones getting forced upgrades, and being slow due the the hardware not being able to handle the new software.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
...or keep track of companies you don't want to do business with.
For instance Gameloft, which is reputedly nothing but a sweatshop. Go to their web page(which I conveniently didn't link) and take a look at the number of games they have. They crank out stuff like crazy. Crunch time follows crunch time. And I haven't yet met any of their devs in the underground billionaires club. They also very much don't show up at Ascot or adorn their arms with a Paris Hilton on both sides.
20 minutes into the future
I haven't seen any new computers in the Apple store that go for less than $1200...I suppose I could be wrong about that.
The Mac mini is $600. It is perfectly fine for iOS development. But lets go wild and spend $650 to get the RAM to 4G. I used a 2008 era MacBook of similar configuration for a few years. Technically the mini would be better since the CPU and RAM are of more recent designs.
It was me. I've come up with a mind control scheme that involves satellites and pinpointing people with mod points.
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Interesting, how did you distribute your apps back then? Was there an store that distributed your applications and took less than a 30% cut?
Up front costs:
1. You bought a second floppy drive so that you could more easily duplicate a floppy.
2. You had a local print shop print stick-on labels and 8.5x11 heavy paper stock for cover and manual.
3. You bought a case of blank floppies and and a case of zip lock bags.
Manufacturing:
1. You duplicate the floppy and apply the stick-on label.
2. You put a floppy and a page or three of cover art and instructions into a ziplock baggie.
3. Repeat 1-2 as necessary.
Distribution:
1. You load up the car with 50 to 100 baggies.
2. You drive to a mom-and-pop computer store.
3. You do a demo for mom or pop.
4. You offer the product at 50% off retail, mom or pop probably insists on 60% off.
5. Repeat 2-4 as necessary, until you run out of baggies or all the stores are closed.
6a. In the evening you use phone books, newspaper ads, magazine ads, word-of-mouth, etc to locate mom-and-pop stores beyond driving range.
7a. Mail a demo copy to long distance mom-and-pops.
8a. Repeat 6a-7a as necessary.
9a. Check for orders in the mail.
10a. Arrange for UPS pickup on days you are doing development. Drive by UPS drop-off on days you are on the road selling.
OR
6b. In the evening attend local user group get togethers, well those whose copying parties don't include pirated software.
7b. Do a demo/presentation for the group.
8b. Offer to sell directly to attendees at 25% off retail.
9b. Repeat 6b-8b as necessary.
OR
6c. Get a publisher/distributor.
7c. Collect 10-15% royalty on what the store pays. Remember the 50-60% off retail, so maybe you get something more like 5-7.5/4-6% of retail.
I agree. Surely some random guy on Slashdot with no experience developing games must know more about the subject than a lifetime game developer with numerous classic titles under his belt and who made John Carmack's tech demos fun to play.
Because, Android has bugs! Therefore, piracy isn't a problem!
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I used to program the Apple II. All you had to do was turn it on. You didn't have to buy a second, unrelated, $1000 computer just to write programs for it, nor pay $100 per year to the company that makes it.
With iOS you don't have to either. You can jailbreak and develop right on the device. On you can run a hackintosh. Or if you already have a Mac (very likley for the younger members of the technical crowd) you can develop on that and again deploy to a Jailbroken phone all day long.
If you're technical, you can do ANYTHING on iOS with the permission of no-one - AND the iOS system is way more hackable in the real sense of the word, thanks to the jailbreak mobile substrate you can add small bits of code to other apps in the system with great ease.
This notion that iOS is not for the technical is something that rabid Apple haters cling to with all thier might, ever repeating as you have the falsehoods long shattered - why is it people like you cannot learn?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
it comes with 2 gb by default? That's insane. I suppose it's cheaper to get the 2 gb version, and buy your 8 gb from someone who charges 66% less than apple.
Okay, no bullshit. Apple is about iMONEY
This attitude is exactly why you will never understand Apple's success.
It's a dangerous attitude to have, because it totally blinds you to where the computer market as a whole is going (well, dangerous if you are in any kind of technical field for a living).
Does Apple enjoy making money? Sure. But if Apple were only about money they would be having the same level of success all the other greedy companies are enjoying currently - i.e. not much.
The rapid growth Apple has seen and continues to enjoy derives from the people inside Apple really being into building great projects, with money being a side effect of building something really cool that people enjoy using.
That's the truth of it, you will deny it but the proof is there plain to see for anyone that uses and enjoys Apple products, in success that multiplies long after a marketing push would have faltered with no substance behind it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
it comes with 2 gb by default? That's insane. I suppose it's cheaper to get the 2 gb version, and buy your 8 gb from someone who charges 66% less than apple.
Actually 2GB works. At one client we have a 2GB Mac mini as a build system for ad hoc releases and app store submissions. It exists to make sure we have moved all necessary assets (code, art, etc) from our systems to theirs. I've used it on occasion for a couple of hours at a time, iOS and Android development, and it seems fine.
Still I'd recommend popping the extra $50 to go from 2GB to 4GB to be safe.
John R. probably annoyed that the initial port of Doom to Android -- that was added to the Android Market -- included the Final Doom iwads by accident (the person porting it assumed they were free).
On the other hand, about all he had to do with Final Doom was calling the developers a day before they were set to release Evilution online and offer them a deal...
John Romero of "dai kaitana will make you his bitch" fame ? John romero the guy which went to social gaming like Zynga ? OK, normally attacking the guy bringing a message rather than the content is a fallacy, ad hominem. But in this case there got to be status limitation on this fallcy, and can we make romero our bitch and ignore him ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Some company will make a game that is amusing. Nothing revolutionary, but an amusing title and it'll be worth a buck. Then 10,000 other developers will release their half-assed knock off versions of it. "Oh people like that kind of game so clearly ours will do well! We don't need to spend any time actually having even a semi-original thought, just copy someone else!"
Phone app markets are some of the lowest quality shit I've seen out there in a long time. There are good apps, but there are just an amazing amount of completely shitty ones. It seems many people just want to slam something out with minimal effort and then feel entitled to millions of dollars.
We are talking about Android a platform that uses free software to program on on any platform and runs on devices that are sub $50. Skip 5 years where hundreds of millions more in third world countries will have access to phones of all manner of designs (as well as TVs and stupid little multimedia spheres and "chrome" computers) All these seem to be converging.
Just consider the following simple fact.
Android: You have open access to the actual source code all the way to the metal and no restrictions writing any manner of apps.
iOS: You are not allowed to write an app that will compete with an existing apple app.
Apple has almost 100% of the market that counts - people who spend money. See: http://brianshall.com/content/are-android-users-simply-cheap
So developers develop for the platform where they can make money. That's iOS. See: http://scobleizer.com/2011/12/12/viral-coefficients-store-feature-branding-influencers-cool-apps-on-ios-first/
It's a self-sustaining cycle. People who have money and are happy to spend it gravitate to the platform that has the coolest apps. The coolest apps get made for the platform from which developers can make the most money. Apple ensures that the developers can write the coolest apps by supporting old hardware for YEARS after obsolescence, and maintaining a system whereby most users upgrade to the latest version of iOS within days of release. What's ICS userbase now - has it made double figures yet? Hell, it's already an OLD version of Android.
Until Android stops being a fragmentation fuckfest, it's always going to be the platform of choice for poor people, hackers, and freeloaders. That's not a market that matters to a business. Therefore, while Apple has a minority share of the overall phone market, it totally dominates the segment of that market that counts. People who have and spend money.
The classic pattern repeats itself.
Our company is developing apps for ios, android and windows phone In my opinion all 3 platforms are in its infancy. windows phone : only allows silverlight & xna apps (no native apps?) android : too many SDK and OSversions, too many different devices and very bad development toolchain ios: lacking a good OS community Erwin
I'm pretty capable of piracy. To tell the true, I "pirated" the MegaDrive emulator the same exact day that Sega managed to withdraw it from Market. (bastards).
But that was the only occurrence.
I had brought some of the (few) games I have on my Android phone (the others being free or shittywar^w adware), and I have very few games on my smartphone (paid or not) because a smartphone is a shit of a gaming system - just like that.
It's nice to be able to play in in some little "emergencies", but consider that I must rely to the same battery to make some weird things as making and answering phone calls, I choose to have a PSP tagging around to do the playing thing.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
The real piracy platform is iOS: you get shafted first by Apple hardware sales (50% profit margins on the hardware), then by Apple's inflated iTunes prices ($30 for a TV season you get included in Netflix), and then by iOS's "app store", where you pay top dollar for tiny little apps with tons of restrictions. Oh, and Apple "pirated" most of the technology and design of iOS from other companies.
(However, having said that, Android does need better support for native software development.)
Doom doom doom doom doom,
doom doom do DOOM,
DOOOM doom do-doom,
DOOM do-doom doom doooom,
doom doom dooom, do-do-DOOOM!
(6 months later)
Doom doom doo doom doom,
DOOMY-DOOMY-DOOM,
doom do do DOOM,
Do do DOOM,
doomy-doomy-doomy,
Doom doom doom THE END
Low sales on Android aren't just down to bad games, the payment methods for Android are very restrictive (credit card or bust) and not remotely competitive with something like iTunes, Amazon or hell, even the Nintendo eShop. iTunes and all console download stores offer gift cards in retail stores, Amazon, iTunes, Steam and a few others allow direct debit and some other regional payment methods. Most of Europe uses some non-CC method for paying online and most Europeans have no CCs. That means a paid app on Android is practically off-limits to most of Europe. I don't know how prevalent credit cards are in other countries but even then you have issues with teenagers and such.
Which is harder: Figuring out how to pirate on your phone or getting a credit card?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
What can he afford? You can't pay on Android without a credit card, does he even have one of those?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I'd expect Ouya to move to JellyBean before launch, and likely embrace the facility to encrypt purchased apps and bring technical barriers to copyright infringment on par with iOS. Ouya may be able to do better than Apple, in Apple illegal copies can participate in the leaderboard facility with impunity. I could see Ouya linking things such that social gaming is precluded by server-side awareness of the actual purchase.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If Romero thinks piracy is a reason why Android is not like Apple // he'd better start talking to a doctor about the possibility of early onset dementia. Piracy was rampant on all those early microcomputers.
John Romerwho?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, seriously, who the fuck is John Romero?
What if that platform is iOS, you are going to port from Objective-C/C/C++ to Java in two weeks?
A port of an application whose application logic is written in a C family language (C++ or Objective-C) won't take long because Android has the NDK. You'll probably have to write a little Java code to handle some of the UI, and then you can just call the native code.
What I said is that given the choice between porting and creating something new, it's dumb to port.
Different skills are required for porting vs. creating something new. Because different personnel tend to have different skills, it becomes easier to have one team do the ports, have another team creating something new, and do that in parallel. That's how the fighting game market worked back in the early 1990s: one team would make an arcade game, and another team would port it to Super NES and Sega Genesis while the first team would make the next arcade game. Or what am I missing?
An iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad doesn't come bundled with a $62 iControlPad. An Ouya console or Xperia Play phone, on the other hand, does come with a game controller. So if you develop a game designed for an external controller for iOS, your market is people who have bought a Bluetooth game controller for an iPod touch, iPhone, or IPad. But if you develop a game designed for an external controller for Android, your market is people who have bought a Bluetooth game controller for an Android phone or tablet plus Ouya and Xperia Play owners.
The iControlPad accessory for iPhone and iPad doesn't have much user base either, as I understand it. But I'd love to see sales figures to the contrary.
Jellybean is already shipping with the ability to encrypt market downloads with a device specific key.
A commendable step, but not yet a bullet point for the platform as long as most potential customers' devices are still running Froyo or Gingerbread.
Well most developers typically tend to own the platform that they program on.
For people who currently program on a PC running Windows or Linux, iOS development requires them to own a Mac in addition to the PC on which one normally programs.
XCode can be had for free.
If your Mac OS X is outdated, you can't get the latest Xcode that targets the latest iOS. Then you have to upgrade to a new version of Mac OS X, and with pre-2009 Mac mini models not supporting Mountain Lion, that's likely to require buying a whole new Mac.
There are two platforms: [iOS] makes money [and] is still very programmable, like the Apple II
installing an application on OS X is simpler than any other platform I can think of
True. It's far simpler than installing an out-of-App-Store app on iOS, which is the subject of the article.
The Mac mini is $600. It is perfectly fine for iOS development.
So what should you do when Apple is no longer making new versions of Xcode for your version of Mac OS X nor new versions of Mac OS X for a not even four-year-old Mac mini? That's between $150 and $200 a year (amortized over three to four years) to keep your Mac mini current in addition to the $100 a year for a license to run programs that you wrote on a device that you own.
There are two platforms: [iOS] makes money [and] is still very programmable, like the Apple II
You don't need a seperate computer to write software for a Mac
You do for a device running iOS.
Money is a byproduct of what you do to enrich the lives of others, no by controlling peoples consumption. Consumption is just a word to demean the experience of the customer finding things they like while compensating the creator for there direct contribution to that experience.
To the app developer it doesn't matter too much, pick a minimum api level (os version) and write for that
Unless a particular device model's GPU doesn't support, say, the complexity of one of the vertex or pixel shaders or one of the texture compression formats that your game uses.
you can develop on a $500 Mac Mini just fine (I do)
Apple's cheapest Mac mini lists for $599 new. If you buy used, you run the risk of Apple very quickly dropping support for your older computer: a pre-2009 Mac mini can't run Mountain Lion.
In some ways I think the term "feature-phone" is a slur
Could people working at home develop applications for so-called "feature phones"? They couldn't for phones that ran BREW; those had to come from the carrier unless the developer bought a (very expensive) unlocked developer phone and the (also very expensive, even more so than iOS) testing certificate.
If someone will pirate instead of paying 2 dollars for an App this person wouldn't buy the App anyway
In the early days of Android Market, phones were sold in countries in which paid applications were unavailable. So in order to reach users in those countries, application developers had to make their applications ad-supported. This expectation of a zero price lingered in Android Market, and I'm not sure whether it's gone today.
And even though look and feel can't be patented or copyrighted
I thought Tetris Holding defeated Xio in court about a month ago.
so poor that 5$ means eating this week or not
Or living in a country where the $ itself is expensive because the country's export industry has not yet matured. (Balassa-Samuelson predicts that economies without a lot of exports will have undervalued currencies.)
has not got a credit card or other electronic payment system(possibly a kid; find another way to pay like for instance bill per telephone bill => a service problem)
Anyone with cash can buy an iTunes gift card at retail price. Google Wallet, on the other hand, requires a MasterCard or Visa gift card, and those carry service fees.
Another that you forgot: trying before you buy. Consider a customer who doesn't know whether a particular game will be fun, whether he can accustom himself to the input method used to work around the completely flat touch screen of a phone or tablet, etc.
The Mac mini is $600. It is perfectly fine for iOS development.
So what should you do when Apple is no longer making new versions of Xcode for your version of Mac OS X nor new versions of Mac OS X for a not even four-year-old Mac mini? That's between $150 and $200 a year (amortized over three to four years) to keep your Mac mini current in addition to the $100 a year for a license to run programs that you wrote on a device that you own.
You were misinformed. Various 4+ year old machines with old Intel video chipsets are ineligible for Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), it is not Mac mini specific. Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) has not been end-of-lifed. It is still supported and patched. The newly released Xcode 4.4 does not require 10.8, it runs just fine on 10.7. My 2008 MacBook is running Mac OS X 10.7 and Xcode 4.4 works just fine. A Mac mini at work is also running 10.7, has been upgraded to Xcode 4.4, and is working just fine. There is currently no need to upgrade an old Mac running 10.7.
There are no forced updates on iPhones.
Not that I support Apple's IOS versions making older phones unusably slow, which did happen.
What's always amazed me about all of this is the idea (and I've heard some really bad app developers tell me this) that all you have to do is put your product in an app store, be it iTunes, Android, or anywhere, and just sit back and collect the money. On what planet do these people come from?
I don't know about that. I put an app on the Android market and then I am just sitting back and collecting the money. After I make a couple more games I would be surprised if I don't make even more money. It's not enough to quit my day job yet, but it's a start. And the game has only been out there a year and I have done no advertising at all. The reviews average out to 5 out 5 stars, so quality and addictiveness helps.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Dude. That's awesome. What's your secret?
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No secret. I just made a game that I wanted to play.
I had a game on my previous phone, a Palm Treo, that I played often. It is similar to the free and open source Einstein. When I couldn't find a similar game on Android I decided to make it myself. By the time I finished the book on learning Android from the library, I had the game done. It helped that the main example in the book was a Sudoku game and mine is also a grid based logic game. Change the numbers to pictures and add a horizontal scroll view and first pass at it was done. Check it out, Einstein's Logic. I find that many of the comments from people show that they are as hooked on it as I was. It is a niche game though as not everyone likes logic puzzles. Plus, there is a bit of a learning curve to understand the clues. I could use some sort of tutorial mode to help people learn to play.
Recently I did find my game out on some Android piracy site. Rather than cry about it, I figure I should be proud that my game is played enough to have made it into the piracy world. It's not like the pirates would have bought it anyway. I have payed for apps that were free with a donate version in the market and I have pirated apps that I did not think were worth paying for. Assassin's Creed to name one - crappy company policies and no fun on an Android device anyway. So glad I didn't buy that one.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.