The Android Culture - It's Own Worst Enemy

Let's face it, most iPhone apps range from good to brilliant. They are polished. They have high production value (having had significant funds pumped into production and top artists, musicians and a team of developers on the credits). They are new to any platform (kind of, ie Angry Birds and Smash the Tower, Plants Vs Zombies PC and Plants Vs Zombies for the iPhone).

Another truth is that the best Android apps have already proved their worth on the iPhone market and reaped their rewards there first (with the possible exception of device specific apps that tweak/bend/backup your operating system in weird and wonderful ways). It's true! Try and find a high selling app on Android that hasn't been in the iPhone market for months.

Why?

It's quite simple. Apple offers a market where a developer has a hope of making more than pocket money from their hard work. An iPhone owner understands things like 'you get what you pay for' and 'you don't get something (good) for nothing' and what they therefore get is quality. Although I, a dedicated fighter for the Android's cause, thoroughly enjoy developing, I also like eating, heating my house and having a regular supply of electricity in my sockets.

Android's chance of a brilliant future is being dimmed by Google's inability to steer it's user culture away from freetardium (a new word I've just invented). Freetardium is the watering down of a brilliant idea to a point where it has no flavour, colour or consistancy. It's a world of free 'water effect over a [insert popular film/cartoon/person here] picture' wallpapers, sleazy flesh peddling apps and borderline copyright infringements. It's a world where your favourite game is ripping out all of your personal data without your knowledge and streaming it to some anonymous offshore server.

I am of the opinion that the main reason why some of the apps have been converted to the Android market at all is more to protect itself from cloned rip-offs rather than in an attempt to make any more money.

'But people do make money on Android!' I hear you cry. Yes, but not directly. The highest earners on the Android market make their money through in-app advertising. Even Roxio, makers of Angry-Birds, realised this and have gone down this route. So, to make a decent revenue, you have to sell a further slice of your soul to the advertising agencies.

I was chatting with my iPhone developer buddies and an interesting fact was raised. Each of them have tried different methods of monetizing their apps (that were deemed allowable by the mighty fruit). They agreed unanimously that the feature limited demo/full price unrestricted model worked best. But that wasn't the interesting fact, it was that the free app with in-app advertising was the least appealing and/or successful.

The fact that it's completely the opposite on Android again is obvious: Android users can't, don't or won't pay for apps. They would rather have invasive advertising obscuring their playing area than cough up less than a dollar. Which is dumb. By donating that dollar they are investing in their own future enjoyment. That dollar will keep developers interested in the platform. That dollar will help bring around the next upgrade/release/version of their favourite game. That dollar may contribute to the next ground-breaking game that would sweep the world. Not paying that dollar and subsequently downloading apps is not only self-centred but short-sighted and seriously not cool.

'What about the gazillion more apps and downloads that are made from the Android market than the iPhone market?' Yes, this is happening and is growing at a phenominal rate. However, as with all statistics, they don't paint the right picture. The iPhone app developers, being incentivised by income, are far more likely to develop their apps to perfection. Whereas their Android counterpart is more keen to release twenty variations in the hopes that one is popular. Another statistic, which as a developer I am more interested in, is average time an app spends on a device. Unfortunately we have (other than building some sort of heartbeat broadcasting code into your app) no way to work this out. Comparing the two markets against that metric would give a completely different picture, with Apple winning hands down. It's back down to Cost vs Quality vs Quantity.

If this is sounding like a whinge, it sincerely isn't. I am not asking you to buy my apps (but it'd be really nice if you did!), in fact this isn't about me at all. It's about you. It's about how you want the future of your favourite platform to go down. It's a plea to you to not let this fantastic opportunity of a brilliant platform turn dull.

Google - yes, you know who you are. Please get your act together. We are here to help each other, not for you to wipe your feet on.

If you do buy apps, little of the above applies to you and I salute you. You are feeding life into something that could be wonderful, a dream shared by all android users, and I can't thank you enough.

If you are an Android developer and disagree with any of this, please let me know. You guys rock and have my deepest respect. If you are an iPhone developer then you know what you've done wrong and should go and reflect on that.

Here's to a bright future!

Paul

Livestock Vs The Undead

My story is far from unusual.  I had an android smartphone.  I liked playing tower defence games.  I had a modicum of development talent (Java being the eighteenth programming language I taught myself).  I wondered if I could mash the three together into some sort of Frankensteinian monster of a game. 

Just before I embarked on the slippery slide of android development, I had come across what is termed as a Production on Demand (PoD) site called Zazzle.  We've all had ideas for great T-shirt designs and slogans at some point. Well, this site lets you actually take that idea and slap it on not only T-shirts, but hoodies, ties, caps, cups, bags and a hundred other items.  You can then set up your own site-within-their-site and sell your freshly baked items to friends, family or anyone else you can convince.  It taps into your creativity in a big way and is quite addictive.  Let's just say: I went nuts.

A month later, with help from my wife (who joined in shortly after I did) I had racked up over a staggering 4,000 items!  At that point I came back to my senses and realised that (a) it was gobbling up too much of my time, and (b) the remuneration was relatively pitiful in relation to all the effort you put in (not Zazzle's fault - I just don't have young and/or trendy, fiscally endowed social circles).  Our store, http://www.zazzle.com/strangemoo is still open (with 5,577 items at time of writing), but my attention has now been firmly refocussed.

By abstaining from Zazzle, I found that not only did I have some time on my hands, but I had built up a sizable library of self drawn stock images.  Add some of those images to smartphone/idea/iota of talent and what you have there is a starting point.

Livestock Vs The Undead was born.

The alpha was at the time the best game I had ever played.  Looking back it was embarrasingly bad.  It was little more than chicken hurling bananas (Yes, bananas. What? It was there to use, Ok?) at zombies.  (Same zombie, different colours.)  Don't get me wrong. The coding was sound and most of the code is still beating away in the heart of the latest version.  It was just that it didn't do much and needed a host of stuff throwing at it.

My first piece of advice: Don't release anything onto the market too soon. 

Blinded by enthusiasm and pride of getting something working, I naively signed it off, plugged it and rolled it out onto the android market.  I paid heavily for this by getting some less than constructive criticism on the market that will remain there forever, no matter how many further releases I add.  By jumping the gun, I have branded my poor game a loser.

Realising my mistake and lessons learnt, I am basically treating the current game as a beta. At some point in the (hopefully not too distant) future I'll rename/rebrand and re-release it to start afresh.

The game is significantly better than it was. However I want to take it to a stage where I can look back at it at some point and consider it 'done' or even 'not bad' by my own standards.  If I am going to monetise this thing, I want to give my customers value for money, else I'd consider the project a failure.  It's not even the volume that interests me.  If 20 people buy it and love it, that's success in my books.

Ok, some stats now.  Android Market is both good and bad.  It's good that it allows us lonely developers to reach the masses.  It's bad in that (at the time of writing) the statistics it provides make little to no sense.  Figures go up and down almost at random.  Comments and ratings rarely make it onto the system.  The best I can make out of it is just taking the average from a daily reading.  At this point in time it looks like:

D - Downloads, I - Installs, C - Comments

Not too shoddy for a beta.  It was originally released in May 2011 and has been growing steadily.  (Not anywhere as great as Zombie Pop - but that is another blogpost.)  I've also made it clear (since the initial release fiasco), that it is a beta on the market and it still gets a few downloads per day.  I am convinced that the naff, very early comments are putting a lot of people off.  Google should implement ratings by app version to show a fair differentiation between the qualities of the releases.  


There is a definite spike when a new release is made (not shown on this graph) which I'll hopefully be able to demonstrate when I put v1.4 live.


Paul

public blog AndGamesDevBlog extends humour

Image via Wikipedia

Today, I've decided, is the day I am going to start something bloglike.
Hardly a new concept by any stretch of the most limited of imaginations, although this blog is going to be unique.

'How can it be unique', I hear you scream in disbelief? It is going to be my thoughts, anguishes and (hopefully) accomplishments on the road to (again hopefully) write a successful android game.

'How is that unique?' you ask with incredulous suspicion. Well, as there is only one of me with my thoughts - that'll make it unique!

After some thought you irrelevantly retort, 'But, why is the world flat?' Which I shall ignore and explain that I'm doing this with the hope that it may help others setting off down a similar path, and secondly because my memory is not a good as it ever was and it'd be good to keep a record.

First off, the blog title. A cunning acronym for :

ANDroid GAMES DEVelopment BLOGgeroonie

I currently have a couple of fledgling projects released tentatively onto the android market under the developer name of 'Strangemoo'. (Please check them out, score them with five stars and rave about them in the comments section ;) ) It is these projects that I'll begin writing about as it's where 'I is at' with regards to java/android experience.

If you have any querys, concerns or quibbles that are approximately relevant to the blog then by all means, please ask.

Paul