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Anyone else just feel like the e-shop is too damn expensive?

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MegaByte:
Outside of the Humble Indie Bundles, I haven't bought any Android apps despite having hundreds. There's lots of good free stuff, but Amazon's pretty much obviated any need to buy any since almost all of the best apps eventually come up as one of their free apps of the day (and lots of junk too). It's not really sustainable except that apps are hot right now so there is currently a surplus of developers.

Uncle_Optimus:
Uncle Bob, you describe an interesting circumstance and in my mind it is illustrative of the current iOS platform in several interesting ways (warning: fun with bullet points imminent)

* First is that the race-to-the-bottom has forced many developers without some well known property to adopt one of a range of free-to-play models. This has served games like Draw Something, Hero Academy and Temple Run very well...but these are certainly few and far between! Achieving that kind of critical mass seems to almost require some form of marketing serendipity on top of a tightly executed and well presented game.
* Second is that the low barrier of entry has caused waves of product to roll in and this has certainly made discover-ability an ongoing problem. iTunes lists are not good enough yet and honest-to-Bob good games are just buried. (Hopefully the developers of a good game earned their money in the first week or two). Sites like Touch Arcade have let me cut through some of the bullcrap...I downloaded personal favorites like Dungeon Raid, Battle for Wesnoth and Bar Oasis thanks to their coverage. But Touch Arcade can't do it all and a lot of what they cover is way out of my range of interest.
* Third is that the iTunes market does indeed cater largely to a casual gaming audience and this has the effect of repelling many customers in the higher-end "core" segment. One of the main reasons here is definitely lack of game sophistication... which may be another way of saying "lack of buttons" :p
* Fourth the attitude of large game publishers wrt mobile platforms is evolving but the current evolution is certainly rather low-end. Your experience with the Skylander's app seems indicative of this...another example would be many of Capcom's offerings (lookin atchu Mega Man), i.e. ports with shoe-horned control schemes. As platforms like iTunes mature I am curious to see if we see a reverse pricing effect or at least a steady segment of viable game productions priced at more consistent levels. Square-Enix would be my prime example here, with original efforts like Chaos Rings. Even their shoe-horn ports seem to reside in relatively more expensive realms (looking at 'Trigger and Tactics).I would like to reiterate on point number two however...I think many established gamers could find worthy products for their money on mobile, as long as their gaming tastes intersected with genres that play especially friendly with touch screens (i.e. Adventure games, puzzle games, board games, RPG, strategy and action games that need only simple inputs). Discover-ability is not a problem on 3DS as of yet, mainly perhaps because of the size of the library - as of now, any release feels like news!


The main promise of the 3DS to me is its wealth of control options tho, but I am still worried it won't see significant developer interest. I actually hope Nintendo actively courts more of those proven small teams in the mobile space and it does NOT have to be for 3DS versions of their mobile games!


edit: Ninja bullet :D the Android market puts the iOS' Wild West to shame...it looks chaotic over there and recent news stories suggest an even higher magnitude of piracy...I wonder if Google can (or if it ever wants to) rein it in somehow:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/169124/Sports_Interactive_reveals_Football_Managers_high_piracy_rate_on_Android_.php

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