'I Was an App Store Games Editor - That's How I Know Apple Doesn't Care About Games' (theguardian.com) 63
Apple has taken billions from game developers but failed to reinvest it, leaving the App Store a confusing mess for mobile gamers, writes Neil Long, former App Store editor. The Guardian: Late last year, the developer of indie hit Vampire Survivors said it had to rush-release a mobile edition to stem the flow of App Store clones and copycats. Recently a fake ChatGPT app made it through app review and quickly climbed the charts before someone noticed and pulled it from sale. It's not good enough. Apple could have reinvested a greater fraction of the billions it has earned from mobile games to make the App Store a good place to find fun, interesting games to fit your tastes. But it hasn't, and today the App Store is a confusing mess, recently made even worse with the addition of ad slots in search, on the front page and even on the product pages themselves.
Search is still terrible, too. Game developers search in vain for their own games on launch day, eventually finding them -- having searched for the exact title -- under a slew of other guff. Mobile games get a bumpy ride from some folks -- this esteemed publication included -- for lots of reasons. [...] However, finding the good stuff is hard. Apple -- and indeed Google's Play store -- opened the floodgates to developers without really making sure that what's out there is up to standard. It's a wild west. Happily things may be about to change -- including that 30% commission on all in-app purchases. After a bruising US court battle between Apple and Epic Games over alleged monopolistic practices, government bodies in the UK, EU, US, Japan and elsewhere are examining Apple and Google's "effective duopoly" over what we see, do and play on our phones.
Search is still terrible, too. Game developers search in vain for their own games on launch day, eventually finding them -- having searched for the exact title -- under a slew of other guff. Mobile games get a bumpy ride from some folks -- this esteemed publication included -- for lots of reasons. [...] However, finding the good stuff is hard. Apple -- and indeed Google's Play store -- opened the floodgates to developers without really making sure that what's out there is up to standard. It's a wild west. Happily things may be about to change -- including that 30% commission on all in-app purchases. After a bruising US court battle between Apple and Epic Games over alleged monopolistic practices, government bodies in the UK, EU, US, Japan and elsewhere are examining Apple and Google's "effective duopoly" over what we see, do and play on our phones.
Money (Score:3)
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What's news to a lot of people is that they are incompetent at it. They'd make more money if they'd just fix their search algorithms. People don't understand that Apple doesn't have to be competent to shear sheep.
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What the hell does "MacBook Air think" even mean?
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Perhaps they could make more with more effort, but why bother? They would rather milk the cow and invest nothing. It is MBA think all the way.
If that's how MBAs think, remind me to petition my local state hunting regulators again. Rather obvious that herd of dumbfucks needs to be culled.
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Being the best at something, and having much room to improve, are not mutually exclusive.
Yeah, the thing is, the Apple users are getting restless. My non-iFanboy Apple-using friends are all disappointed in OSX since Tiger. Some of them are moving to Windows, most are just complaining. But as soon as they feel like they can jump ship and have the same software, they're gone too.
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Nah. Snow Leopard was the peak quality-wise. It's just a shame that it was never released for PowerPC.
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im failing to understand how the biggest richest most successful company in history is incompetent?
oh right, this is slashdot. ill let all the neckbeards tell me how it should be done. proceed.
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They can be incompetent and still be one of the biggest companies on the planet. Just look at Microsoft, Facebook, etc.
What people are pissed off about is the fact that Apple chould (should) be (a lot) better in some areas. They're just being lazy because they're still successful anyway. As others have said, why waste time and money when you're still at the top?
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As others have said, why waste time and money when you're still at the top?
Those at the top know how hard they had to work to get there. Only idiots fail to recognize how many are working just as hard if not harder to take them down, and assume they can basically stop trying.
And today, the winds of consumer change happen with but a single viral message. Just ask Kanye West.
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im failing to understand how the biggest richest most successful company in history is incompetent?
What is it, your reading comprehension that's lacking? Here, let me help from TFS you didn't even bother to skim over:
Search is still terrible, too. Game developers search in vain for their own games on launch day, eventually finding them -- having searched for the exact title.
Let me know how competent Google would look if it suddenly started performing that badly. I'd sure as hell call it a sign of incompetence. 20+ years after internet search came online, the biggest richest and most successful company in history still can't manage to even get that shit right?
And to clarify Apples success, they are not a technology company. They are a fashion accessory compa
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And yet if I said this...
> im failing to understand how the richest and most powerful country in history is incompetent?
[Breaks woke fingers jumping to the keyboard to complain about the US]
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So, all Apple cares about is making money. This is news?
Uh..
"Search is still terrible, too. Game developers search in vain for their own games on launch day, eventually finding them -- having searched for the exact title..."
I'll bet Google likes to make money too. How much you want to bet THEY recognize the value of a working search engine.
Hard to believe Apple likes to "make money" when they literally make it next to impossible to make money via app sales. If you know it should be there and you're searching with exact precision, you'd be frustrated as hell and give up rather quickly, creating zero revenue.
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Play store isn't much better. What they like more than a working, good search engine is higher monetization on slightly worse search engine that forces companies to bid on top results.
Given the ultimate responsibility of THE app stores being the gateway to virus fantasyland, I'd think it's rather critical to run a proper search engine. Proper as in regulated.
When game designers are searching using exact strings and still can't find their unique game title, you're not running a search engine. You're a pimp advertising your top 20 paying attention whores. How long before searching on "Rust movie shooting" results in zero hits for Alec Baldwin? When the world educates themselves online
Re: Money (Score:2)
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Garbage (Score:2)
Most mobile games a glorified slot machine garbage, that don't pay out.
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It didn't used to be. Mobile games where once a fantastic space where it was possible to be that lone wolf coder who puts out games and makes a fortune like the C64 days. Complete with wild creativity and a focus on short fun gameplay loops.
Then the marketing and gambling people turned up and brought all the shady tactics of those industries and mobile gaming is an absolute wasteland of exploitation , deceptive marketing , microtransactions and lootboxes.
And I think thats a tragedy.
Jail (Score:4, Funny)
today the App Store is a confusing mess, recently made even worse with the addition of ad slots in search,
Good thing they have a walled garden so you don't get ads.
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hey, it's not just "ads". it's "a curated selection of ads delivered at a premium".
No Steve (Score:2, Insightful)
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Most people aren’t buying Apple hardware to run linux.
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Most people arenâ(TM)t buying Apple hardware to run linux.
Most people are dumb enough to get stuck in the Apple ecosystem.
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And most of the rest of people are dumb enough to get stuck in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Re: No Steve (Score:2)
At least they don't have to buy their PC from Microsoft. And their phone doesn't even run Microsoft software and isn't made by Microsoft.
Only Apple users are so deeply locked in.
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So, point me to a system that'll do what I want while staying out of my way, and I'll consider it.
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A lot of this is down to Jobs. The walled garden was his idea. Turning computers and everything else into disposable appliances, with non replaceable batteries and only able to run software signed off by Apple.
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I don't think you can blame the lack of Steve Jobs for Apple messing up their gaming platform. For as long as I can remember (and I go back A Ways), Apple have either been apathetic toward gaming or, a few times, completely inept when they did try to get into it. This seems to be deeply embedded in Apple's culture, and I can only assume it must have come down from Steve Jobs.
Re: No Steve (Score:2)
If you can afford a mac (Score:2)
If you can afford a mac, you can afford a gaming PC to run your games on. Leave the mac to content creators and iOS developers.
Which is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Other people complain that Apple is too locked down, effectively forming a monopoly.
These two things are simply not possible at the same time. Which is it? Oh, and if you say "both" you instantly lose 15 points of credibility.
This is a rhetorical question. I know the answer already. When a business catches a bunch of hate no matter which way they turn, they stop paying attention to the chatter. Apple reached that point about 10 years ago, as well as pretty much every internet company. They can't make ANYONE happy, so they just plow ahead with their business.
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before we analyze your pretty silly theory made on false assumptions, let's clear this out:
1. apple failing to flag scam apps is news because one of apple's walled garden selling fads, sorry, points, is that it doesn't allow scams through.
2. apple failing to flag a troll game by chatgpt is news because one of apple's walled garden selling fads, sorry, points, is that it is a curated selection of quality software, which this insider just proved to be false on principle, at the process level.
see? the basic ne
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Next you’re going to tell me the Play Store never lets any scam through, right? There’s always a battle between scammers and the people trying to prevent scams.
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of course. and when it happens we like to make fun of it too! :)
then again google doesn't use content policing as an excuse to completely lock down the device and charge a hefty premium for ... wait for it: nothing.
but yes, scammers are going to scam, and it is just natural that apple's marketplace becomes a prime target for it likely having the highest concentration of dupes with money to shake off them in the whole scene.
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They have a system to detect fake and scam apps. To detects most of them, but there are some false positives and some false negatives. Nothing unusual about that.
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These two things are simply not possible at the same time.
Logic fail.
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He clearly didn't try quantum logic.
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Ten years? Those people have been reflexively hating on any and every thing related to Apple for at least forty years.
"Only an idiot talks to a computer with a mouse instead of the keyboard."
"I'm going to take it over, shut it down, liquidate, and refund the money to the shareholders."
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
Do any of those look familiar?
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These two things exist at the same time very easily. You're comparing two different problems and assuming they must be somehow combined.
The Apple Store has a walled garden making it impossible to get in unless you are allowed in through the one and only gate. But it's not that hard to get through the gate if you have the money. Inside the garden is all manner of weeds, stumps, dead trees, and worthless shrubbery along with a few pretty flowers and wonderful plants. But they can all exist in "harmony" becaus
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People on the outside see all the crap choking the app store and think it's because it's "easy" to get in. But the people complaining about how hard it is are the ones with actual insider knowledge who have fallen foul of Apple's content policing where you're just not allowed to do certain things and <<list_of_apps_that_already_do_it>> is somehow not evidence to their content police of why YOU should be allowed to do what someone else already does.
This is what the starry eyed developer doesn't u
BREW/J2ME and curation vs. not so much (Score:2)
Once upon a time when phones ran BREW or J2ME (or Symbian), there were two views by carriers on how to manage what apps were available on their networks. In the West, carriers went for a walled-garden approach where you had to beg to get your apps on their decks. The upside is if you got on and especially if you got premium placement you'd sell a lot of apps. But there was not a lot of choice and the carriers were the gatekeepers. In Asia, however, they eschewed both walled-gardens and also any notion of pr
So what (Score:2)
Sacrifice (Score:2)
Apple and Google game store with their apparent lack of concern for the instant game clone industry remind me of ancient Ultima Online, where causal players were offered up as sacrificial lambs for pk player killers by the game itself. Yet it was not portrayed as such. It was an adventure out in the world game, not run from dragon class bad guys roaming the noob countryside.
Yup - finding games sucks (Score:2)
I just started my "3 months of free Apple Arcade" this past weekend. It seems obvious that they could make something useful with a very small team. By useful I mean decent search, recommendation, browsing interface, user ratings, ratings matches with others, etc. All the stuff Steam has been doing for decades.
I guess that Apple isn't really interested in helping you find games you will like. They just want it to be easy to buy a bunch of games - that's where they make money, after all. And if most folk
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The built in assumption (Score:3)
Game developers search in vain for their own games on launch day, eventually finding them -- having searched for the exact title -- under a slew of other guff.
Of course, they're assuming their guff is superior guff. But if you release your game into a bunch of undifferentiated crap the problem might be you chose a saturated market - so much so that you can't search for your product in a meaningfully differentiated way.
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They have a sophisticated curated discovery system (Score:2)
Things will be better if the duopoly is broken? (Score:3)
It's a wild west. Happily things may be about to change -- including that 30% commission on all in-app purchases. After a bruising US court battle between Apple and Epic Games over alleged monopolistic practices, government bodies in the UK, EU, US, Japan and elsewhere are examining Apple and Google's "effective duopoly" over what we see, do and play on our phones.
Right. There won't be rampant piracy, knockoff stores with knock off or out right ripoff games, more subscription vs buy and own to try to combat piracy...
Sarcasm aside, I suspect only the big game companies will be able to move off the App Store and host their own, and I doubt they'll be nay more benevolent with developers than Apple is currently. I suspect Apple will end it's "free apps only pay developer fees" to make up for any lost IAP revenue; and do so that the big companies feel the hit.Simply charging d/l fees and hosting for apps d/l over a certain threshold would be a start.
The only feature that matters (Score:2)
The only feature that matters insofar as games and app stores are concerned would be the ability to suppress the visibility of games that have any form of in-app purchases at all. I won't hold my breath, but unless and until that happens, phone games are mostly dead.
If they did this, two things would happen to the benefit of game developers:
1) There'd be almost nothing left in the search result, so your game will show up!
2) There might be a renewed amount of interest in both generating app-store revenue and
No punishment, no incentive. (Score:2)
We have to force competition for app stores. On the same device options.
And when someone fails...punish them. If it's the author? Charge them. If it's the store, pay out a fee to ALL other apps. Increase the fee over time or for each occurrence.