| famousringo said: You're pretty bang on here. Apple did blunder into video games, though they were clever enough to realize what they'd stumbled upon and adapt strategy to take advantage. Not sure how hard mobile gaming will hit the established gaming market, but I think at the minimum it will cut off its growth. Dedicated handheld consoles will probably contract severely, especially if they insist on pricing them higher than an iPod Touch, but I still think there will still be a place for specialized gaming hardware in the living room. But I have to answer your concerns with a question: If people are having fun with $0.99 games, and developers of said games are making money, what's so terrible? You dismiss Angry Birds as shallow, but it actually has more depth than the game that launched mobile gaming back in the '80s: Tetris. All iOS is doing is leveling the playing field between indie developers who could never get retail distribution and mega-publishers who can. If there's demand for more sophisticated games on mobile devices, then sophisticated games will get made. If you want a kickass WRPG for your iPad, check out Avadon: The Black Fortress. |
Angry Bird can be a very addictive game, but its success, alongside most iOS games, is due to the simple fact that the game is competing with boredom, not other games. So its sales and popularity gives a wrong perception to what makes a great game in the industry.
The problem with the pricing of most iOS games (not just Angry Bird) is that they indirectly hurt the industry by not allowing much room for games with high development budget to be developed on handheld platforms, because a higher budgeted game would need a higher price point. And so I don't think Angry Bird is particularly shallow, but I think the industry, and indie developers, are getting more shallow, as everyone's trying to cash in from the iOS platform.
Searching titles like "Bird", "Tiny", "Doodle", etc. would bring you hundreds of copycats games in the App Store. I think a good example would be Gameloft and how they seem to get away with copying everything successful. You know, in the description of BackStab, it quotes a site saying "This is a game that costs £3 yet provides the same amount of entertainment and graphical brilliance as a PSP title that retails for £25", and I think that's a huge problem for the industry in long-term, because a game like this, or Shadow Guardian (which is an Uncharted clone) would make it harder for people to justify the original games' price. For example Uncharted: Golden Abyss would be at least $40, while Shadow Guardian is $5 or occasionally less, and that price disparity could potentially put the real developers out of business if they don't find success, leaving us with cheap clones and maybe an occasional great game like Cut The Rope in the handheld market.
To clarify, I know lower price is better for consumers, but here, obviously, I am talking about the overall industry.
Oh, and thanks for your suggestion, I'll try that game later to see how it is.
