{"id":20008,"date":"2018-01-02T16:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T21:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=20008"},"modified":"2018-01-19T16:29:49","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T21:29:49","slug":"the-ios-gaming-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/02\/the-ios-gaming-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The iOS Gaming Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simogo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This year we spent a lot of time updating our old mobile games, to make them run properly on new OS versions, new resolutions, and whatever new things that were introduced which broke our games on iPhones and iPads around the world. We’ve put months of work into this, because, well, we care that our games live on, and we want you to be able to keep playing your games. Had we known back in 2010 that we would be updating our games seven years later, we would have shook our heads in disbelief.<\/p>\n

This year, a lot of time we had planned to spend on our current project, ended up being spent on just making sure that our games would not be gone from the app store. Because sadly, the platform holder seems to have no interest in preservation of software on their platform. We can criticize and be angry and mad about it all we want, but we don’t think that any efforts we put in can change that direction. <\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The ease of mobile game development drew us to making iPhone games back in 2010. But, it’s getting increasingly financially unviable, tiring and unenjoyable for us to keep on making substantial alterations for new resolutions, guidelines, and what have you, as they seem to never end. The appeal of the mobile platform is less evident today than it was a few years back. Before we started Simogo, we had made console games, and had grown really tired of the clunky processes, politics, certifications and primitive development environments that was involved in making a console game. Today, a lot of that clunkiness is gone, and sadly, for a small developer like us, mobile has become more difficult to support than consoles. Releasing a mobile game means supporting it perpetually, and justifying that is tough for us, at the moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Craig Grannell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Apple should treat this as a body blow. Simogo has consistently been one of the best developers on the platform, pushing the boundaries of gaming in new and interesting directions. Device 6<\/em>, in particular, remains a masterclass in touchscreen game development – a strange puzzle\/adventure hybrid, where you explore corridors composed of the very words in the game’s narrative. Sure, it could<\/em> be made for a traditional console or PC – but it’d make far less sense.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I’ve heard similar from other developers. It’s such a shift from when I visited an EA developer press event around 2012, when indies they’d got on board were brimming with excitement about iOS gaming. Then, it was a breath of fresh air – less hassle with platform issues and gatekeepers alike. But iOS has become a moving target in a way it never used to be.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Matt Birchler<\/a>:<\/p>\n

7 of the top 10 selling games on Amazon last year were Nintendo exclusive games. That’s positively nuts!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Lukas Mathis<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Telling Nintendo to abandon its hardware platform for iOS was never a good idea. It doesn’t help Nintendo, and it doesn’t help iOS. There is no sustainable market on iOS for really good, non-abusive, fairly priced mid- to high-budget games, and Nintendo can’t fix that. The only company that can fix that is Apple.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously: Super Mario Run’s Disappointing Profit<\/a>, Nintendo<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2018-01-19): NintendoSoup<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

In a NPD research, the Nintendo Switch is the best selling console in history when comparing the console’s first 10 month sales data with every other console’s first 10 month.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simogo: This year we spent a lot of time updating our old mobile games, to make them run properly on new OS versions, new resolutions, and whatever new things that were introduced which broke our games on iPhones and iPads around the world. We’ve put months of work into this, because, well, we care that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[575,91,101,418,31,1472,1573,554],"class_list":["post-20008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-64-bit","tag-appstore","tag-business","tag-game","tag-ios","tag-ios-11","tag-iphone-x","tag-nintendo"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20008"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20250,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20008\/revisions\/20250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}