Many games, NOT iPhone material

by BRIAN FETCHER

GMVISION — Tommy Refenes talks about the IPhone app store and how it is "garbage".

(read past the quote for the rest of the article)

Click here to watch the video, or just read the quote below for everything that was said in the video.

I was going to do a talk about how you're an independent developer, and you're basically allowed to do whatever you want to do, and I was going to relate that to how we do press for Super Meat Boy and everything, but I decided to take that idea and do something totally different (because I can).

What I want to talk about is the IPhone app store. If any of you know me (some of you do), you know I absolutely f------ hate the IPhone app store. I think it's awful. I think it's horrible!

About five months ago I started an experiment (and this experiment was to basically prove that the app store is kind of s--- for most things). There's people like Adam that have Steve Jobs come over every week and drop like a truck load of money in his yard. It's a giant novelty check, and Steve Jobs comes over. It's a big to do. Adam is one of the lucky ones. It's one of those things where the majority of people that do anything for the app store: they work on it, and they get screwed over.

My theory about the app store is basically that it is the Tiger hand held game (of this generation). The reason I say this: Back when I was small, I had Mega Man 2, I had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I had mortal combat, and I had this little bar code thing where you could do like different moves by swapping the bard codes. I had all of these, and I was a fan of every one of these games. But they were horrible! They were bad. They didn't control well, they didn't look good. They were LED crap. I kind of compared the app store because honestly, who had beaten Mega Man 2 on the IPhone? Anybody? No? Anybody beaten Sonic? Anyone played all the way through Sonic on the IPhone? No. See? Yesterday, what came out, Street Fighter 4? And I know Greg was saying it's really good or whatever. He was, he was out there like "Oh this is really good. You're going to love it". I was like, "No I'm not!". It's a fucking touch screen. You can't play Street Fighter 4 on a touch screen. Just like the Tiger hand held. You cannot experience Street Fighter on a Tiger hand held. You can't experience any of these games.

What I did, about 5 months ago, my app store subscription basically ran out. And it ran out a long time ago, and somebody contacted me about a game called Free Money that Kyle and I made as a joke. They wanted to buy it so they could do lottery tickets for various state lotteries. And they wanted to buy my scratch technology. I led them on for a little bit, and they wanted to give me like 5 thousand or something for it, and then they just kind of disappeared. I didn't care because I didn't take them seriously in the first place.

I renewed my app store subscription so I could show them the game, and at that point I had a game that I did with Adam called Zits and Giggles (which was also another joke game). It's a wonderful wonderful game. I put it up there and it wouldn't sell, and so I decided, well fuck it, I'll put it up to fifteen dollars. The day I put it up to fifteen dollars, three people bought it. So I was like "Okay, I'm going to put it up to fifty dollars". 4 people bought it. Then I go, "okay. I'm going to 150 dollars, and every time someone buys it, I'm going to raise the price here". It is at 350 dollars now. But that's not the best part! I stopped paying attention to it after a while, and checked it on Valentines day. 14 people bought it at $299.

So my conclusion to all of this: The people that you're selling games to on the app store... They're not necessarily gamers. There are some games that work very very well on the app store. But I think for the most part, when you have stuff like Street Fighter and Assassins Creed, they are a way to sell a brand (just like the Tiger hand held). And that's what I think of the app store.

-Tommy

Developers should seriously think about what games they publish. Sure, it's really great to have games created by the people that use Game Maker published on a commercial hand held devices, but some of the games these developers may create might not be a good experience on the IPhone, or even the PSP for that matter.

I think that when you create a Game Maker game, and want to move on to a wider variety of devices so that you're not restricted to the PC, you have to think ahead and choose the right devices so that your game is played at maximum experience. You want people to enjoy your game, not play it and say "This game was not meant for this device"

Have fun at the YoYo Games Store!

P.S. Haha, Don't you dare try and raise the price to $300.

http://store.yoyogames.com/

COMING SOON!