My Random Blog
Posts tagged Gaming
Apps, Apps and Apps
01 year ago
by Phlashman
in Technology
Apps are everywhere. It’s the tech buzzword of the year and the year before that. There are loads, loads and loads. 300,000 apps on the Apple app store alone, 50,000+ on Android, Facebook apps, Blackberry apps, Google TV apps… so many just getting seen is a major task. But when you do, and if you app is good enough you can strike gold. Angry Birds has been downloaded over 36 million times in 10 months. To put this in perspective all Mario games (including games that he’s just appears in, like Smash Bros.) have sold 210 million over 30 years. Sure, Angry birds costs a lot less than a Mario game, but it was also much cheaper to make, quicker to make. 36 million downloads at $1+ each for a outlay of $100,000 max.
The current status of apps reminds me a lot of the internet boom, there are some great apps making us rethink how we do basic things. But there’s also a load of crap and finding the gems in an ever grown mountain of poop isn’t getting much easier. The app ecosystem feels very much like the web pre-Google. Yeah, there are Apps and sites that try to help out on this front, like Chomp.com or appshopper.com, but much as we had Yahoo! and askjeeves.com finding the apps you want is still a chore.
So how to fix it? Android Market place and (more importantly) the Apple App Store have to take the lead in solving these problems. First they have to allow developers to have more flexible pricing structures supported by the API. For example, half the detritus in the app stores can be removed with support for Demo modes, clearing out the junk ‘lite’ and ‘free’ versions. In app purchasing of extra levels doesn’t seem to go far enough for me, I either want a free demo version or to buy it and have it all. The model used on XBLA where every game has a trial mode would be good. Or a time based demo which would be good for non-gaming apps.
Subscription models, these seem to be on the cards in the next few weeks, but it’s very late. The app stores are already clogged with more than a year or so monthly new apps. Off topic for a moment, it’s rumoured that the launch of subscriptions for apps will come with the launch with a new tablet only paper. I’m not sure if it’s doomed from the off or not. I’ll blog about it once the facts are out. I hope they allow subscription models to be used with any app and not just magazine/newspaper apps as this might be a good way for other services to work, MMO games and media services could be good uses too.
These things would allow users to try more apps to help them find the right apps. Currently some apps chances are restricted to those who have the money to take the chance on a app if they don’t have a ‘lite’ or ‘demo’ version.
Lastly, the app stores have to get social. The best recommendations come from friends. Game Center is a good start. I’ve played more new games on my iPad since getting 4.2 as I can see what my friends are playing and what they thought of certain games. But this needs to be universal for all apps. Ping should of been this, It should of imported your twitter/facebook/contacts and centralised and shared your likes not just in music, but films, TV, books…. and apps. If it was all free to try too, I’d be trying more apps and if they are good I’ll be buying more apps.
Myself, I’m itching to get developing apps. I just haven’t the time or equipment at the moment. I’m hoping that the app stores solve some of these problem. It’s still early days in the new world of apps, the best it yet to come but when it does I hope it’s easier to find it.
Ashley.
Gaming 2010
0
Looking at the rest of the release schedule for 2010 it appears I’ve got to the end of my gaming year already. For a guy who founded one of the biggest Xbox sites in Europe I play and have time for very few games. This year, Borderlands, Bioshock 2, Heavy Rain, Red Dead Redemption, Bayonetta and Starcraft II are all games I’ve managed to miss. So, in no way is this a thorough review of the year. Merely a opinion on what I have played this year.
This mainly consists of 5 games, there have been others but these 5 got the most hours logged.
The start of the year was dominated with Modern Warfare 2, yes, it was released last year but for the first 4-5 months of 2010 I was addicted. The map packs hit just at the right times to keep me going. I mainly played with my brothers, we’ve got pretty good and we’ve had some good fun. People seem to have problems with it, but they tend to be the ultra competitive types.
I did find a game that drew my attention from MW2, Mass Effect 2. For me this game is without a doubt the current pinnacle of gaming. The story telling is better than 99% of current films and TV, add the improved gameplay over the original and it really is perfection. Later in the year the Shadow Broker DLC was great but just makes the wait for the third and final part of the story even harder. I’d love to see the series go MMO as the universe is set up in such a way that there could easily be a thousand stories told over many years from many different points of view and I could easily lose myself in it.
Then the gaming year only got going again during this final quarter of the year, marked for me with 3 big shooters all with huge hype in tow. Halo: Reach, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty: Black Ops. Halo: Reach delivered, it was truly worthy of being Bungie’s swan song to the franchise, though in the multiplayer I felt it was hard to adapt after such a heavy CoD addiction earlier on the year. Halo 1 will always have a special place in my heart and maybe it’s nostalgia for it that keeps me from loving it’s sequels as much. I don’t envy whoever has to make the next Halo game.
Then there was Medal of Honor and Black Ops. Two games that looked like they were going to head-to-head for the exact same market. First up was Medal of Honor, and it disappointed, badly. It felt rushed and heartless, buggy and unoriginal. It was a clear example of how not to make a game, luckily weeks later Black Ops turned out to be the exact opposite. The single player, which I finished just yesterday, is a prime example of story telling in an action game. Building to an epic final act. Sure there wasn’t the depth that Mass Effect had, but for a shooter, a genre that’s pretty devoid of story-telling, it’s up there in the top 5 easily. I’m still digging into the multiplayer, it’s early days, the good news is my CoD online addiction and the warm feeling it give is coming back.
So that’s my gaming year, I really wish I’d had the time to play more games and maybe of the xmas period I’ll get something else in, regardless 2010 has been a good gaming year.
Ashley.
P.S. in other news: We beat Derby 2-0 at the weekend which was glorious, I saw Jackass 3D which was good (I still think 3D is a gimmick though) and Apple have a big iTunes related announcement tomorrow! Should I get excited about Steve Jobs Reading my blog?