Steve Troughton-SmithCapcom putting a stake in the ground and saying Resident Evil 4 for Apple platforms is a $60/€69 game, but supports iPhone & iPad 'for free’, is a good move for the App Store IMO. Developers have priced themselves into the ground for the past decade and honestly paid-upfront software needs to start going back up. I think we've all spent way too long optimizing for the people who don't want to buy our software instead of the ones who do. Expenses and the cost of living sure aren’t going down 💸
continuousorbit@stroughtonsmith - The 99¢ + subscription model killed the small developer no matter what anybody says. Yes, it changed the landscape…by cutting down all the trees and installing plastic flamingos all over. - “Pay for software” needs to be the model. Period.
Wesley Hilliard@stroughtonsmith Biggest thing I'd note about free up front with IAP means the game must be purchased multiple times within a family. I wonder how this will work out, as families aren't likely to buy it multiple times.
I'm very excited to see full $60 games on iOS and hope it means software can be priced what they are worth again.
@HilliTech no it doesn’t. IAP has supported family sharing for years, if the developer chooses
@stroughtonsmith True, but somehow I believe this won't be the case here. If they do, then I think that would be a win for the developer and families.
No room for bad press on such an important launch.
Christian Kündig@stroughtonsmith thats the same price as any other platform the game runs on (steam, gog, psn, xbox). The fact this makes news just highlights how different the App Store works to typical game store fronts.
If Apple is serious about gaming they’d probably should emphasise this difference and create a separate storefront with different rules and expectations, where e.g. consumers can actually build up a digital library instead of expecting devs to update old binaries every x years and OS updates breaking old games needlessly.
Bynkii@stroughtonsmith @flargh I have paid for both the Mac and Windows versions of BG3 and am thrilled to do so. I want devs to make proper money (along with everyone else.)
If that means paying more than a pittance for the stuff I use, I am DOWN with that.
Craig Grannell@stroughtonsmith I’ll bet sooner or later they’ll do a Civ VI-style buckle and we’ll see a 50% off sale or something. And then the dam is forever broken for that title. (And you’re right. iOS gaming screwed itself long ago. Apps also.)
🟦🧙🏻simp@stroughtonsmith @johnvoorhees those subscriptions are unattainably expensive, while paid up front is dirt cheap. Yeah, there is something wrong with AppStore pricing
Antwan van Houdt@stroughtonsmith My original indie app died because I charged 0.99. It was way too niche and I couldn't justify continued support / work on it. I'm working on an 2.0 (8 years later) and not going to make the same mistake.