durangojim
Android Enthusiast
With 160,000 activations per day, it seems like a lot of us are using android devices, but there aren't many great or addictive games like there are on the iphone. Anyone have any reasons why?
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Why do you think game devs have been slow to develop for Android?
- Thread starter durangojim
- Start date
It confuses me also. I do realize that android has caught fire recently with the number of sold phones. And i feel like its only growing.
But the slow growth of the android games has me baffled. I can only assume that android market hasnt been profitable for game developers. I know the iphone has a huge base of teenage users and these are the heavy game down loaders. But it seems like a game designer would rather release a game in a market that has less competition. If you make an iphone game it has a better chance of getting lost in the thousands and thousands of games. But if you make an android game you will stand out since their isnt as much competition.
Plus the same games sold on android cost 4x as much as on the iphone due to competition.
But developers still are staying away.
Maybe the recent flood of 4inch android phones will make them want to design for us. I think a user of a 4.3 inch phone is more likely to play a game than a user of a 3.2 inch phone. I know since owning the EVO i have downloaded many more games. Its just a better experience.
But the slow growth of the android games has me baffled. I can only assume that android market hasnt been profitable for game developers. I know the iphone has a huge base of teenage users and these are the heavy game down loaders. But it seems like a game designer would rather release a game in a market that has less competition. If you make an iphone game it has a better chance of getting lost in the thousands and thousands of games. But if you make an android game you will stand out since their isnt as much competition.
Plus the same games sold on android cost 4x as much as on the iphone due to competition.
But developers still are staying away.
Maybe the recent flood of 4inch android phones will make them want to design for us. I think a user of a 4.3 inch phone is more likely to play a game than a user of a 3.2 inch phone. I know since owning the EVO i have downloaded many more games. Its just a better experience.
The iPhone is still a larger target market and it continues to catch developers' eyes. The space limitation of Android devices will have put many developers off Android, in particular off porting an iPhone game to Android, something which I'd wanted to see a lot more of (if you have the design and art assets, why not?). Thankfully this will be in the past, but it'll be many months before a significant share of the Android community is on Froyo or newer. Which is another reason, fragmentation. Only now are we getting to the point where multitouch is widespread and it's still a long way from ubiquitous. If you're making a game, do you support multitouch? Do you demand multitouch? If your iPhone game uses it, you've got a tough choice between redesigning your whole control mechanism and cutting a very large portion of Android users. Multitouch should have been in as standard since 1.0 
H0odlam, does the X10 have multitouch? I've read conflicting reports on this.
H0odlam, does the X10 have multitouch? I've read conflicting reports on this.
As of now, no. I purchased mine right when it came out of the factory. the US releases will be updated when it comes out and the update will be available for download. release will be around Q3 so i just have to wait for now. but no complaints for me, I love my phone
ari-free
Android Expert
I remember the amiga days when all the cool games came to amiga or atari ST first and the PC got a crappy CGA/EGA version. Today the amiga and atari are no more and the PC has all the awesome games. What happened? The closed systems just couldn't keep up with the innovation of so many PC OEM's. But you want to talk about fragmentation? There is much more fragmentation in the PC world and yet the games come to the PC and not the Mac.
Apple thinks they have found a new frontier with the iPhone. But Android is catching up very fast. It's not going to be left in the cold like WebOS, WinMo or Symbian.
Apple thinks they have found a new frontier with the iPhone. But Android is catching up very fast. It's not going to be left in the cold like WebOS, WinMo or Symbian.
RawlingsSc
Android Expert
It's only been in the last year or so that I boxed up my Amiga 3000 and put it to bed. I still played it a little, but it was having hard drive issues.
Game developers want to sell a lot of games. Android has two things against it in this regard. First, there are tons of hardware variations out there. If they want to make high-end games, they will be limiting themselves to handsets with dedicated graphics chips and higher-end specs. If they want to make the games available for most handsets, then they have to program simple games that most people won't want to pay much for.
Beyond that, Google also has a 24-hr return policy on App/Game purchases. This means people can buy a game, beat it and return it within 24 hours. Most developers don't want to take that chance.
Beyond that, Google also has a 24-hr return policy on App/Game purchases. This means people can buy a game, beat it and return it within 24 hours. Most developers don't want to take that chance.
ari-free
Android Expert
all of this was the same for the PC game industry. It started out crappy but in the end the Macs were the last to get great games even though they have less fragmentation.
I never heard of any game that you can 'beat' in 24 hours. Most of the games that I've played on PC and console last for months and years.
I never heard of any game that you can 'beat' in 24 hours. Most of the games that I've played on PC and console last for months and years.
MisterMixelpix
Android Expert
I think it's just a matter of truly understanding the scope of the market. Give it time and they'll come around. 
Very correct. It doesn't help that a lot of countries have no way of purchasing games through the market, thus limiting the customer base further.
Fixed that for you.
Whatever the reasons, the real issue is that volume of sales on iOS remains much larger than the volume of sales on Android - even for the same games. Professional developers go where the money is.
Doesn't really matter as long as the revenue from Apple ads >= revenue from non-Apple ads. I doubt this will be considered much of a problem by iPhone developers.
In addition, the ad model is not the primary revenue model on iPhone, the way it has become on Android. And it will - without a doubt - be a lot more difficult to block ads on iPhone than it is on Android, which means that even for ad-funded games, developers will probably be earning more on IOS than on Android.
I agree that the refund policy will have hurt developers but of course the easy way of combating that is to make the games last longer or give you a reason to repeat play it.
Of course the problem then is the OS itself having my desire for only a few weeks i cant believe how small the onboard memory is and how quick it filled up , this means of course that developers have to watch the amount of space the games have taken up.
If Google and Mainly HTC get get it sorted quickly and get Froyo onto a good few devices then hopefully this issue will be a thing of the past and lets look forward to some truly good games in the future.
But looking as it is the the desire may get it in Q3 then i cant see it changing anytime soon
Of course the problem then is the OS itself having my desire for only a few weeks i cant believe how small the onboard memory is and how quick it filled up , this means of course that developers have to watch the amount of space the games have taken up.
If Google and Mainly HTC get get it sorted quickly and get Froyo onto a good few devices then hopefully this issue will be a thing of the past and lets look forward to some truly good games in the future.
But looking as it is the the desire may get it in Q3 then i cant see it changing anytime soon
As for the 24-hour return. There will be some people who buy a game, complete it and return it, which I think is unethical. On the other hand, there will be plenty of sales because of the 24 hour return policy. I can think of quite a few apps (especially games) that I've bought although I wasn't sure, because I could return them: Steel-shot, MyBackup Pro, Age of Conquest, LogicPic, TasKiller, Magnetic Soccer and more. Plus another load that I've bought and have returned.
If you write a good game, the 24h return policy won't affect you much and will possibly help by taking the risk out of purchasing for customers like those titles I listed did for me.
Huh? It will be a lot more difficult to block ads on the iPhone?? How on earth do you figure that? Apple has iOS locked down and can block whatever they like whenever they like. Or do you mean people blocking them by editing the phone's hosts file - which make up a tiny, statistically irrelevant fraction of players.
Incidentally, blocking 3rd party ads is in the Apple T&C, but they haven't enforced it and I doubt they will because they'll be hauled to court and I'm pretty sure get defeated quickly (relatively speaking). It's more about posturing than actually forcing iAds to be used. iAds are extremely expensive at present anyway ($1m+) so AdMob and Google Mobile Ads aren't in the same market. Yet. I expect iAds will calm down in a few months.
If you write a good game, the 24h return policy won't affect you much and will possibly help by taking the risk out of purchasing for customers like those titles I listed did for me.
Huh? It will be a lot more difficult to block ads on the iPhone?? How on earth do you figure that? Apple has iOS locked down and can block whatever they like whenever they like. Or do you mean people blocking them by editing the phone's hosts file - which make up a tiny, statistically irrelevant fraction of players.
Incidentally, blocking 3rd party ads is in the Apple T&C, but they haven't enforced it and I doubt they will because they'll be hauled to court and I'm pretty sure get defeated quickly (relatively speaking). It's more about posturing than actually forcing iAds to be used. iAds are extremely expensive at present anyway ($1m+) so AdMob and Google Mobile Ads aren't in the same market. Yet. I expect iAds will calm down in a few months.
Or buy the game, copy it off the phone, return it, and then re-install. A little too easy to do, unfortunately.
Perhaps not. But it probably does affect why some development companies don't see much point in developing for Android. I do believe that the trend has improved (the latest returns percentages I'm hearing are more like 10-15%, where last year it was closer to 30-40% returns), but read developer blogs/mailing lists discussing the problems with the Android market and I guarantee you most of them will mention the 24h return.
The latter. And it is not quite as difficult as that, though the "easy" way does require people to trust apps a bit more than is probably entirely wise.
My point was, in any case, that for various reasons, the ad market on the iPhone remains just as lucrative - if not more so - than the Android market. Admob is still there as well - they're just not allowed to extract information from the phone (i.e., location, etc) when serving ads - that is a power that Apple reserves for its own products.
Bottom line (and the answer to the OPs question), in any case, remains the same. Money on Iphone >>> money on Android. Pragmatic developers will focus their effort where the return on investment is highest.