Comments on: Gaming on the iPhone: Natural Selection In Real-Time

By: El Clérigo Urbatain

El Clérigo Urbatain — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:36:00 +0000

It seems the good gods are listening:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/965/965440p1.html

World of Goo Cost, Sales Breakdowns.

By: Rubes

Rubes — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:03:00 +0000

I'm using the Torque Game Engine from GarageGames, which does offer multiplatform support. Right now, it's simple enough to develop for both Windows and Mac platforms. Linux is possible, although GG stopped supporting Linux at an earlier version of the engine, so it would take a good deal of effort to get it running on Linux (not to mention someone who is more familiar with Linux than me).

The Torque engine is also made for Wii, Xbox, and iPhone platforms (and also directly within web browsers), but I haven't looked into that much. It would probably require upgrading from the "old" Torque Game Engine (TGE) to the "new" Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA) in order to gain access to the other platforms. That wouldn't be a trivial process, though. I'm also not convinced that TGEA is mature enough on the Mac platform yet to warrant the move, but I haven't had the time to look into it deeply.

The other issue is that, at least on the Mac platform, TGEA would require an Intel Mac to run, so that would forsake the remaining G4 and G5 Mac users, which I'd rather not do (I'm still one, after all).

Finally, there is the issue of text. The game will still require text input, and I'm not sure how that would be done easily on the Wii or Xbox platforms (not to mention the iPhone platform, although that's at least conceivable).

By: El Clérigo Urbatain

El Clérigo Urbatain — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:25:00 +0000

And port your product for Wiiware, Xbox, PS3… of course this is not a free and easy bussisness, to port a game to multiple platforms, some money must be invested in that. Maybe for future projects, to have a schedule with that in mind; or already selling the game for PC, investing the profit to build another release in other platforms. Keeping the idea simple: “I have this great game in PC, now I’m gonna offer it on Wiiware”.

Rubes: Could you tell us again the multi-platform characteristics of the engine you are using? Maybe is already available for Xbox or PS3, or they are planning to, in the future.

Being sincere, I always not seen PC indie market as “profitable” as console market. It could be quite interesting to hear from guys such 2D boy if the sales they made for World of Goo are more relevant in one platform than another

By: Rubes

Rubes — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:31:00 +0000

Well, that pretty much nails it, yes. I can only think that the developer was counting on the nostalgia factor for sales, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either.

I'm pretty sure Vespers (the text game) does not qualify as public domain. But I gather I should probably still try to stay as cockfuck-free as possible.

Urbatain: Great idea, but not quite. It would take some serious work to port Vespers to the iPhone platform, given the graphics and memory requirements. It would be cool to see, though.

By: Jason Scott

Jason Scott — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:56:00 +0000

I think most people can agree that taking a public-domain game, doing minor changes to it, and releasing it on a platform for money is pretty cockfuck to begin with. And then charging a relatively high price for it, especially considering all the hard work (gameplay testing, creating the puzzles, ensuring the functionality of the space) was done by people long before you, well… cockfuck extreme.

People will pay for a good item; and some people will never pay. But a LOT of people will not only never pay for a bad/mediocre item, they’ll feel insulted you even tried to foist it on them.

By: El Clérigo Urbatain

El Clérigo Urbatain — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:26:00 +0000

So, you are trying to put your eggs in different baskets, Rubes?

I think is a really good advice. Having the expensives assets of the game to reutilize them to make a product in quite quick sounds pretty good to me.

An IPhone Vespers sounds pretty good to me, because your game it's no a clone, for now it's quite unique, so you should take advantage of that.

What about a Flash Vespers? (just joking). But for games for not such quality as yours, I will try to make a Flash, and Java for mobiles of all my games.

By: Mike Rozak

Mike Rozak — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:54:00 +0000

It applies to any software business.

By: Rubes

Rubes — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 05:51:00 +0000

Would you say that applies primarily to the casual games business, or the video game business in general?

By: Mike Rozak

Mike Rozak — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:45:00 +0000

Software is inherently a monopoly-oriented business... which means: The way to make money in software is to have a monopoly on software that people want. If you have more than 2 competitors of equal quality and features, you'll probably make nothing.

Which is why cloning games/software tends to be a bad idea.

And why games that take 6 months to write are a bad idea, because someone will quickly clone it.