iPod Touch\iPhone\iPad -- Ongoing App Sales

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ryanflucas

ryanflucas

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This is a continuation of this previous thread. Since it was getting very close to the 5,000 thread mark, I figured it was time for a reset.

Post any deals you find, recommendations, requests for deals, etc. Please keep things as civil as possible. There's no such thing as a bad deal post and reviews are opinions. :)


Games in the App store are constantly going on sale. While I originally posted games and prices in this post, it's become almost impossible to keep up with it all. Feel free to post in this topic on good deals and games you enjoy. Developers are also encouraged to join in, especially if they are running promos or sales.

If you want to check out a particular game, try the following review sites, or ask in here so fellow CAG's can assist you.

Price Drop Sites



App & Game Review Sites



YouTube Video Reviews



Apple Game Center
Apple Game Center allows you to keep a friends list, track your in game achievements, and compare with your friends. Many games are starting to support this. Currently this only runs on iPod & iPhone, but an update will be coming soon that enables this for iPad users.

Make sure to checkout the official CAG Game Center exchange thread. You can post your game center name and see the names of your favorite CAG'rs. You can also exchange OpenFeint & Plus+ names there.



Important Notes:

  1. Make sure to check for periodic updates either in iTunes or on your iOS devices. For each release of new firmware, there's usually a bunch of games updated right afterward.
  2. Some applications also go on sale by their authors when they reach 1 million download and similar milestones.
  3. Apps often have specials the day before, during, and after holidays, regardless if said game/app is related to the holiday.
  4. Newly released apps will often have a % or dollar amount off for a limited period of time to gain a large following quicker. While browsing the app store you can go to a particular type or genre and order according to release date. This can make finding new app discounts faster.
  5. Make sure to backup your purchases in iTunes to CD/DVD for safe keeping. You can do this by clicking File-->Library-->Backup to Disc. Then choose all purchases, applications only, and full or incremental backup. How often is up to you, but I do this monthly, or more often if I buy a lot of apps.
  6. Apps can be re-downloaded without incurring an extra charge if you previously purchased it. This is good if you have a crash and forget to backup your purchases. I don't know if this is a permanent feature so backing up regularly is still important.
  7. I strongly advise not to buy iTunes Gift Cards by 3rd parties unless you know they can be trusted. Retail stores, receiving cards as gifts, etc are the best ways. There are many credit card scams, stolen cards, hacked cards going around, especially on Ebay.
  8. If you are the victim of a iTunes Card scam or get your account locked due to one not all hope is lost. Apple has been fairly lenient on these issues. Call Apple directly at 1-800-MY-APPLE, or check the iTunes Store support page. Also going to your local Apple Store to discuss it can help. The account locking is an automated process and can be reversed. This can take time so be cautious if you use gift cards from 3rd party sources.
  9. If you somehow break your iOS device, you have some options. If you bought the Applecare warranty it should be covered for most items. If your Applecare ran out or you don't have one, try using one of the repair guides on iFixit to repair it yourself. Apple Stores have been known to give discounts if you bring in a iOS device that they will not fix since it's not in warranty. This discount however is very small.
  10. Using a screen protector can extend the life of your device. Most stores carry these, but they can be hard to install. The best I have personally used are made by a company called Power Support. They have both clear and anti-glare protectors. They are easier to install because the protector is a firm yet thin piece of plastic. Two come in a pack, average price I've seen is $20. They have an Ebay Store that might save you a few bucks. Griffin Technologies and Zagg are also very good.
 
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Astro Dog is set to become another FAAD freebie.
"Astro Dog is the greatest addictive jumping game for the iPhone and iPod touch. By tilting your device ever so slightly left and right you guide Astro Dog onto a range of platforms. Jumping your way into the outer reaches of space. Avoid aliens, black holes and poison, pick up bones, radioactive bones and rocket juice along the way.
Astro Dog has a completely random design which means no 2 games are the same. Great replay value."
 
[quote name='crunchewy']I can't believe the Movie Advertisement Angry Birds game isn't going to be free (out in New Zealand, and will cost 99 cents for iPhone/$4.99 for iPad). Especially the $5 price tag for the iPad. What's the odds this game will ever see an update with new levels? As soon as this me-too movie is out of theaters, this game will go into abandonware-state. Not to mention that it's just wrong to begin with. Doodle Jump: Hop the Movie might be hideous, but at least they made it free.[/QUOTE]

IzqeG.jpg
 
[quote name='Rouzhokuu']Are there any good first person RPG's for iPad? Or just iOS?

The Wizardry localization news has me in the mood![/QUOTE]

Aralon is what you seek.
 
Bungee Stickmen is among the new FAAD games right now.
"Have hours of fun doing 180 jumps in this physics based app! Calculate the length of rope and watch the stickmen dive. The stickmen are extreme sportsmen, get them close to the ground to give them a thrill, but be careful or they will splat!!! Each level is more difficult than the last. Can you complete all 180?"

Chef City is another one of the current FAAD freebies.
"Welcome to Chef City, where you will run your very own restaurant! Play cooking mini-games to learn culinary skills and become a master chef! Unlock recipes and serve mouth-watering and exquisite dishes to your customers. Jazz up your restaurant with a wide selection of trendy and vintage furniture and decorations."

The new OpenFeint Free Game of the Day is Ancient War, from the Gamebox 1 collection.
"As the god of an ancient tribe, you must lead your followers to conquer their world. Now, command wardens, infantry, hunters, cavalry, wizards, catapults, and even trained dinosaurs to crush enemy tribes' defenses and destroy their totems!
Upgrade your units to take advantage of advances in technology! Unlock new troops and upgrade their attributes! Watch your units transform as they level up!"
 
Hi, I'm thinking about getting an iphone, and I'm kind of new at this and have a few questions.

1. I understand the FAAD games are only free for a day. Are all other ones free indefinitely?

2. The games from the itunes store are safe, I presume. Any concerns about games from the appshopper website?

3. Is there a website that list free deals like this thread for non-gaming apps that anyone recommends?
 
[quote name='E-Z-B']Hi, I'm thinking about getting an iphone, and I'm kind of new at this and have a few questions.

1. I understand the FAAD games are only free for a day. Are all other ones free indefinitely?

2. The games from the itunes store are safe, I presume. Any concerns about games from the appshopper website?

3. Is there a website that list free deals like this thread for non-gaming apps that anyone recommends?[/QUOTE]

1. Some are, some aren't. Your best bet is to download iTunes onto a PC/Mac and download the games there until you get your iDevice.

2. All the games are from the iTunes store AppShopper.com just shows you the deals.

3. AppShopper.com
 
[quote name='Stimes']Angry Birds Rio is out now for $.99
http://appshopper.com/games/angry-birds-rio
iPad HD version is $2.99
http://appshopper.com/games/angry-birds-rio-hd[/QUOTE]

Up until now, I have always given the Angry Birds developers a BIG :applause::applause:.
Continual updates and level upgrades to a $.99 game for two years is commendable.

HOWEVER, to still not deliver a universal app almost a year after the iPad came out is lame. And to make matters worse, it is a Promo game with a movie tie-in.
 
Highly recommend Garage Inc. HD. Played a lot of that yesterday and found it to be a pretty fun game with a cool narrative focus on the Prohibition era.
 
All Ivanovich Games (regular and HD versions) will be on sale until March 23 for .99 to help raise money for Japan. Titles include Time Geeks and the newly-released Operation WOW.

Action for Zombie is currently available for FREE.
"Save cube sugar from a group of zombie!
Action for Zombie is a arcade game to protect cube sugar going into safe house (hole) and to clear zombie.
To clear zombie appearing from up, right and left and to get point is to slice zombies on screen."
 
In for free Garage Inc. HD. Another game for my 3 weeks away iPad 2.

Curiously enough, in spite of my complaints, I'm probably going to end up buying Angry Birds Rio HD, because I'll want an Angry Birds game for my new iPad once I get it, and I'd rather have a new game to play rather then the previous versions. So, I guess I'm going back on what I said. I am at least happy to see that the HD version is $2.99 instead of $4.99. Not going to buy it until I actually get the iPad, though.

Also, Time Geeks is great, though I got it when it went free. It's worth 99 cents and it's a good cause, so if you don't have it I'd recommend it. EDIT: I see no mention of japan relief in the app listing, at least not for the HD version. I'm considering buying that, but will wait until I see that it says the proceeds will go to Japan quake relief.
 
[quote name='crunchewy']In for free Garage Inc. HD. Another game for my 3 weeks away iPad 2.

Curiously enough, in spite of my complaints, I'm probably going to end up buying Angry Birds Rio HD, because I'll want an Angry Birds game for my new iPad once I get it, and I'd rather have a new game to play rather then the previous versions. So, I guess I'm going back on what I said. I am at least happy to see that the HD version is $2.99 instead of $4.99. Not going to buy it until I actually get the iPad, though.

Also, Time Geeks is great, though I got it when it went free. It's worth 99 cents and it's a good cause, so if you don't have it I'd recommend it. EDIT: I see no mention of japan relief in the app listing, at least not for the HD version. I'm considering buying that, but will wait until I see that it says the proceeds will go to Japan quake relief.[/QUOTE]

Any of the Angry Birds games are a good value. My problem is after I played through the free levels and bought the full one, I was bored with the concept. I think they overwhelmed me with levels.
 
[quote name='McTwitch5']Up until now, I have always given the Angry Birds developers a BIG :applause::applause:.
Continual updates and level upgrades to a $.99 game for two years is commendable.

HOWEVER, to still not deliver a universal app almost a year after the iPad came out is lame. And to make matters worse, it is a Promo game with a movie tie-in.[/QUOTE]

It's still 60 levels of fun; I couldn't care less whether they have one app for both platforms. and although I did balk at $4.99 for Angry Birds HD $2.99 is much more reasonable to me so I bit on Rio HD.
 
[quote name='keithp']It's still 60 levels of fun; I couldn't care less whether they have one app for both platforms. and although I did balk at $4.99 for Angry Birds HD $2.99 is much more reasonable to me so I bit on Rio HD.[/QUOTE]

I'm cheap so I'll stick to the free copy on my Android. :) I have Angry Birds Free on the ipad butI haven't finished it yet.
 
The "highly addictive" Gravulous is currently available for FREE.
"Only YOU have the power to free planets from the largest black hole in space… the deadly Gravulous! Hurtle new planets through space, bouncing off other planets and the sides of the screen until they expend their energy and come to rest. Once stopped, planets that expand until they touch another planet or the screen edges and the void of space slowly fills up."
 
Whenever an app touts itself as "highly addictive" in the title, I usually ignore it because that's a dead giveaway that it's going to suck. The only game that can get away with that is Doodle Jump, and that's because it was the first. What a stupid trend.
 
Reactable Mobile is on sale for $5, down from $10. Its a virtual recreation of the reactable synth popularized by bjork. I think it's probably similar to jasuto or maybe sunvox. I'm not sure if going to bite because I want touchosc, which is also $5.

App Store

Incidentally, touchosc + livecontrol is a lethal combination if you're an ableton user, especially if you own an iPad.
 
Has anyone on here played "Dexter The Game" yet? I am laid up in bed due to ankle surgery and looking for some Touch games with some meat to them. I am a huge fan of the show. How long is game play? For 6 bucks, I want something that is going to take more than an hour or two to get through. Thanks for any help!
 
Try out some tunnel crawlin' fun with the iPad-only Down the Gopher Hole HD, currently available for FREE.
"Down the Gopher Hole Pro HD is a fast and exiting action game Which requires good reflexes. The aim of the game is to get into the checkpoints and then to the finish through the choosen tunnel by emerging the different obstacles.
The game utilizes the opportunities in iPad and the 3D characteristic of iPad."
 
First time I'm really diving into Apps. I just got an iPad 2 today and am trying to find a good place to start. I've downloaded a couple of the free apps like the Kindle, Twitter, Netflix, etc, but I'd like to know what some of the essentials are. Anyone have a good website they'd recommend for that?
 
[quote name='Cheska19']First time I'm really diving into Apps. I just got an iPad 2 today and am trying to find a good place to start. I've downloaded a couple of the free apps like the Kindle, Twitter, Netflix, etc, but I'd like to know what some of the essentials are. Anyone have a good website they'd recommend for that?[/QUOTE]

The HBO app, if you truly are a fang banger ;)
 
Angry Birds Rio HD is awesome on iPad 2 (iPad 1 as well I suppose).

Really slick looking 2D, perfect 60fps, much better than any previous version of Angry Birds.
 
It's called CandyLand, but it sounds more like Frogger. In any event, it's one of the new FAAD featured games available right now.
"CandyLand is a fun filled adventure game based on lane crossing. There are 100 levels full of mysterious creatures, some will block your way and some may help you cross it.
---------------------------------------------
Story:
Bum-Bums are the cute creatures living in tree holes across CandyLand, an unusual place where bugs and other evil creatures have hold of a lot of candies as the place is full of it. These bugs are fed up of eating candies now and want something new to eat like Bum-Bums served inside multi-grain bread !!
So as it happens, these Bum-Bums are lured out of their safe home across lanes into CandyLand with the help of candies. These tricksy bugs have cleverly planned a trap for them so that they cannot get back to their homes. So now Bum-Bums are in a dilemma as to how to cross lanes full of these nasty bugs to return home. On one hand, they are eager to reach home and on the other hand, they are still mesmerized by the juicy candies placed on their way."

Puzzle Pond is the new OpenFeint Free Game of the Day.
"Puzzle Pond is an exciting new take on a matching game!
Enjoy:
-Three unique worlds to explore - Sunny Pond, Chilly Pond, and Choco Pond!
-Different modes of play - Speed, Puzzle, and Zen
-Combos, streaks, and power-ups
-Puzzle Mode has sixty brain teasing puzzles with more to come"
 
[quote name='hollowfreak']1. Some are, some aren't. Your best bet is to download iTunes onto a PC/Mac and download the games there until you get your iDevice.

2. All the games are from the iTunes store AppShopper.com just shows you the deals.

3. AppShopper.com[/QUOTE]

Thanks! Now to decide whether to take the plunge for an iphone 4 or wait for the iphone 5...
 
I'd copy your entire iTunes folder to the new PC. That should do it. I'm not 100% sure, though. If you want to start with a fresh iTunes, you could probably drag the .ipa files for the apps onto iTunes (onto the upper left part of the iTunes window where it says "Library"), and it will then import them.

Has anybody tried Forget-Me-Not. The retro fans on toucharcade are going gaga over it. I bought it ($1.99 and it's universal), but haven't tried it yet. I'll post some impressions tomorrow once I get a chance. On TA somebody described it as a mix of Pac-Man and a rogue-like. Too whacky.

EDIT: to clarify the above. I mean the iTunes folder that has all your music and such, not the application. On a Mac that's here: ~/Music/iTunes/ where "~" is your home folder. So copy that entire ~/Music/iTunes/ folder to the new PC in the same place. Then launch iTunes and everything should be there.
 
[quote name='Cheska19']First time I'm really diving into Apps. I just got an iPad 2 today and am trying to find a good place to start. I've downloaded a couple of the free apps like the Kindle, Twitter, Netflix, etc, but I'd like to know what some of the essentials are. Anyone have a good website they'd recommend for that?[/QUOTE]

Try downloading the AppStart app while it's free. I thought it would be pretty cheesy (and maybe it is) but to me it's well done. On some of the categories they even "dig a bit deep" for some gems instead of just listing the most popular ones (though generally in the App store, the best stuff *is* the most popular, with the possible exception of games).

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/appstart-for-ipad/id408984648?mt=8
 
[quote name='Cheska19']First time I'm really diving into Apps. I just got an iPad 2 today and am trying to find a good place to start. I've downloaded a couple of the free apps like the Kindle, Twitter, Netflix, etc, but I'd like to know what some of the essentials are. Anyone have a good website they'd recommend for that?[/QUOTE]

Really this just depends on what you want to do with your IPad and your life in general. Personally the apps that I have found indisposable since getting my Ipad(seriously if this thing broke I would feel I needed not just wanted a new one).

1. Ace Budget - Create not just a monthly budget, but track all your expenses to see exactly where your money is going. I believe this is one of the only programs I paid for but its really cheap.

2. Appshoppper - Track the daily free and on sale apps. This program makes it so you are getting so many free and $1 games that you will have stuff to play for eternity.

3. Evernote - The notepad that comes with the Ipad SUCKS! This one is awesome though, you can create and edit multiple notes on the fly. We use this to keep a list of things we need to perioadicly do around the house, our weekly grocery list, a list of meals we enjoy to refrence from time to time to get dinner ideas and other things like this. Its nice in comparison to several pages of notebook paper with scribbles all over it.

4. Zite - Zite is like a personalized magazine. When you boot it up it asks you to pick several categories such as politics, personal finance, food, sports and psychology and mind. It then takes these categories and pulls articles from the nytimes, blogs, fox news, ESPN and other sources all over the web. Each of these are turned in to an article you read within Zite under its own category and you have the option to give it a thumbs up, thumbs down, request more from the website it came from or more on the subject. Zite will then give you more or less from those sources or on those subjects based on how you rate them. So if you rate a lot of articles about the war in libya as you liked it then you will get more on the subject, where as if you rate a lot of fox news articles a negative it will stop giving you things from Fox news. I LOOOOOOVE this program. Its a great way to get your news and be able to just lounge around comfortably swiping the pages. Plus I do not have to visit a bookmark for politics, one for gaming, one for finance etc etc.

5. Calorie Counter by fatsecret - Creates a food calendar for you and keeps track of your calories. Basically anything you eat something just go to your calendar, click add a food and then you can either search for what you just ate or you can even input the barcode and it will take care of it for you. This is a great way if you are trying to gain/lose weight to monitor your daily intake. You can even program your body weight/height and goals in and it gives recommendations(thought I feel it is rather lenient so you might want to knock a few hundred calories off their rec unless you only want to lose a pound or two a month).
 
Check out the Atomic Browser as well. There are methods to open any Safari page inside of it, and it has a lot of great features including a download manager, tabs, a private browsing mode, and much more. It's wicked fast on my iPad 2, and it only costs $1 in the app store. Highly recommended if you want a much better browsing experience.
 
At first I thought big name developers making more Ipad games would be great, it means we will get more and more big name games and block buster releases. However I should have known that big name developers entering the market also means them insisting on not following an established pricing trend and instead jacking up the price of content. Look at XBLA and PSN which at first mostly received little indy games for $5-$10......after big companies like EA and Square got on the scene they made things $10-$15...and now always $15.

I would not worry or complain about it, except for indy developers followed suit raising their prices. I just hope that with developers like Square entering the scene we do not see more and more games start costing a few bucks more and then eventually everything is $10+.
 
Considering I and II are still $8.99 and have both only been dropped their price 4 times since their release (the lowest being $3.99 in September, 7 months after its release, and December), you may be waiting a long time for that.
 
[quote name='jacknicklson']I will pay $20 for FFT

/serious

FFIII can go to hell. Now if the ported VI I would gladly pay $14[/QUOTE]

Agreed and agreed.....when FFT comes out(is it even still coming? I have not seen news in months)ill pay solid money for it. But FFT(and FFVI)are rare cases because they are EXTREMELY high quality and would fit the Ipad well.

As for price drops, Square hates them! Seriously though just look at the yearly steam sales...Squares games are always the worst priced. Where everyone else is doing 50-90% off Square usually does like 30% at best. Right now most big Japanese developers and even the small ones are doing charity sales for benefit Japan....not Square! Then there are things like their pricing of DS games. Seriously if Square was a person they could pinch a penny so hard you couldn't get it out with the jaws of life.
 
In for Crimsonworld + HD. Thanks for the heads up! I don't know what it is, but why not.

Also, Forget-Me-Not is definitely a very clever and fun retro game. Pac-Man + he shoots + rogue-like. It's pretty clever and definitely fun. Recommended at the non-sale price of $1.99 (universal):

http://appshopper.com/games/forget-me-not-2

It uses swipe controls like the Pac-Man games. So if you don't like that there, you won't like it here, but it works well for me. Levels are randomly generated, progressively difficulty. There's a lot to this game.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']5. Calorie Counter by fatsecret - Creates a food calendar for you and keeps track of your calories. Basically anything you eat something just go to your calendar, click add a food and then you can either search for what you just ate or you can even input the barcode and it will take care of it for you. This is a great way if you are trying to gain/lose weight to monitor your daily intake. You can even program your body weight/height and goals in and it gives recommendations(thought I feel it is rather lenient so you might want to knock a few hundred calories off their rec unless you only want to lose a pound or two a month).[/QUOTE]

There's also myfitnesspal.com's calorie tracker for that. It's good because it syncs with the website so I can update and keep track while I'm at work too.
 
[quote name='encendido5']There's also myfitnesspal.com's calorie tracker for that. It's good because it syncs with the website so I can update and keep track while I'm at work too.[/QUOTE]

I use myfitnesspal daily to keep my calorie count in check. It's an awesome app.
 
[quote name='encendido5']There's also myfitnesspal.com's calorie tracker for that. It's good because it syncs with the website so I can update and keep track while I'm at work too.[/QUOTE]

I believe you can do that with fatsecret/calorie counter as well. From the sounds of it either program would work great though for someone that wants to watch their daily intake. With both of you using that app though I should download it and see which I prefer.
 
Rhythmatic is on sale for .99 for one day only (price goes up to $1.99 tomorrow).
"Play to YOUR OWN SONGS with the ultimate rhythm game! Rhythmatic is specially designed to analyze and create tracks to your own music library right on your device!
This is the moment your inner rockstar has been waiting for. Finally, you can play along to all your music -- whether you're a beginner or a seasoned expert, there will be endless challenging and fun gameplay along the way!"
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']At first I thought big name developers making more Ipad games would be great, it means we will get more and more big name games and block buster releases. However I should have known that big name developers entering the market also means them insisting on not following an established pricing trend and instead jacking up the price of content. Look at XBLA and PSN which at first mostly received little indy games for $5-$10......after big companies like EA and Square got on the scene they made things $10-$15...and now always $15.

I would not worry or complain about it, except for indy developers followed suit raising their prices. I just hope that with developers like Square entering the scene we do not see more and more games start costing a few bucks more and then eventually everything is $10+.[/QUOTE]

I read an article in which a developer made a rather compelling case for why a relatively simple application costs $10. Their argument (while not totally applicable to games) was fairly sound. They'd prefer a smaller client base they could give higher quality service to than a much larger one that they couldn't afford to. Furthermore, their rather sound argument was that they basically made the same amount of money (once again this was more of a niche product) as they could have by pricing at at only .99. The final basis of their argument was the simple fact that their time and efforts were worth more than such a paltry sum.

I love free games. In fact, I have taken to exclusively downloading free games and my library is rather impressive. I have 100 Rogues, Creeps, Battle Bears, Fishing Kings, Gangstar, Driver, Soosiz, Galcon Labs, Robocalypse, Plushed, iBlast Moki, Daredevil Dave, Rogue Planet, Mystic Inn, Hero of Sparta, Puzzle Quest, etc, etc, etc... All free.

But, can that be good for the quality of games? Can making games for a target price of .99 (or knowing you might end up giving it away on occasion), lead to quality titles?

Personally, I've hated the lack of great depth in portable games. Playing a Zelda game on the DS is like eating a 100 calorie meal, it might taste good but shouldn't there be more to it? This is the case with many portable games, they're like a snack instead of a full meal. Even if they have longer gameplay, it's usually skeletal, it's not fleshed out.

The iDevices have taken this further. My wife loves it, but she fits the casual gamer demographic perfectly. I don't, I see a lot of games I love for free but don't find myself bothering to play. They simply lack depth. It might be a great concept, or great graphics, but it's usually not worth investing my time.

To me the question is really what do we want? Do we want dirt cheap? Or do we want high quality? The lower the price point is, the less we're likely to get... I see people here complaining the new branded Angry Birds game is .99. Seriously? The cost of a small frosty is now too much for a game? I'm not sure an iPhone game would ever be worth $10 to me, but largely because the control scheme (or lack thereof) seems crippling to most games. The iPad though? If they make full use of the device I can imagine a game being worth $50, but I want Diablo II type of depth. I've seen a lot of (fairly good) games reviewed here in which beating them was about an hour. Ok, if an hour is worth 99 cents than 50 hours plus can be worth 50, right?

Personally, I'd much rather pay the 50 and get the 50 hours+. If I'm going to invest an hour of my time into a game, I want to be able to keep going. It's not rewarding to me to finish swiftly, it's rewarding to me to have something I can really sink my teeth into. I fear that game development is headed in the wrong direction, games with great depth are falling victim to casual games.
 
[quote name='KrAzY3']I read an article in which a developer made a rather compelling case for why a relatively simple application costs $10. Their argument (while not totally applicable to games) was fairly sound. They'd prefer a smaller client base they could give higher quality service to than a much larger one that they couldn't afford to. Furthermore, their rather sound argument was that they basically made the same amount of money (once again this was more of a niche product) as they could have by pricing at at only .99. The final basis of their argument was the simple fact that their time and efforts were worth more than such a paltry sum.

I love free games. In fact, I have taken to exclusively downloading free games and my library is rather impressive. I have 100 Rogues, Creeps, Battle Bears, Fishing Kings, Gangstar, Driver, Soosiz, Galcon Labs, Robocalypse, Plushed, iBlast Moki, Daredevil Dave, Rogue Planet, Mystic Inn, Hero of Sparta, Puzzle Quest, etc, etc, etc... All free.

But, can that be good for the quality of games? Can making games for a target price of .99 (or knowing you might end up giving it away on occasion), lead to quality titles?

Personally, I've hated the lack of great depth in portable games. Playing a Zelda game on the DS is like eating a 100 calorie meal, it might taste good but shouldn't there be more to it? This is the case with many portable games, they're like a snack instead of a full meal. Even if they have longer gameplay, it's usually skeletal, it's not fleshed out.

The iDevices have taken this further. My wife loves it, but she fits the casual gamer demographic perfectly. I don't, I see a lot of games I love for free but don't find myself bothering to play. They simply lack depth. It might be a great concept, or great graphics, but it's usually not worth investing my time.

To me the question is really what do we want? Do we want dirt cheap? Or do we want high quality? The lower the price point is, the less we're likely to get... I see people here complaining the new branded Angry Birds game is .99. Seriously? The cost of a small frosty is now too much for a game? I'm not sure an iPhone game would ever be worth $10 to me, but largely because the control scheme (or lack thereof) seems crippling to most games. The iPad though? If they make full use of the device I can imagine a game being worth $50, but I want Diablo II type of depth. I've seen a lot of (fairly good) games reviewed here in which beating them was about an hour. Ok, if an hour is worth 99 cents than 50 hours plus can be worth 50, right?

Personally, I'd much rather pay the 50 and get the 50 hours+. If I'm going to invest an hour of my time into a game, I want to be able to keep going. It's not rewarding to me to finish swiftly, it's rewarding to me to have something I can really sink my teeth into. I fear that game development is headed in the wrong direction, games with great depth are falling victim to casual games.[/QUOTE]

I disagree on several levels. First I was not calling for all games to be free or even $1 or $2. I think there is a place for the big blockbuster games at the $50 and even handheld games at the $30 range. However these games need to have a lot of depth and a ton of hours of gameplay. I am also ok with $15 downloadable games be it on the Ipad, Steam or PSN/XBLA. However I expect that they are also high quality titles and that I get quite a few hours of game play out of it. I also think that these games should run on a sale model where they...well actually go on sale and for a decent price. Since the big name developers like EA joined the downloadable game scene we have not just seen the price of games spike, but they go on sale less often and are marked down far less. I just do not want the same to happen to the Ipad where all of a sudden junk games go for $5 or $6 and any halfway decent game goes for $15. I think this is perfectly fair since these are games with low development costs and no real expenses(like manuals/box art). And BTW id pay $100+ for something like Diablo 2 on the Ipad. I put 1,000s of hours in to that game(no exaggeration).

I would also raise an objection to your complaint about the state of the industry and where games are going. To me it sounds more like you having sour grapes over your type of game not being the main attraction in gaming at the moment(or the perceived main). Arthur from Rebel FM said much the same as you did on the last Rebel FM and the whole invisible walls gang over at gametrailers also made comparisons to Angry Birds being a snack. Different people like different types of games and personally while I still want games like Uncharted 2 and Infamous available, I find myself preferring these "frosties" more and more. They are not worse by any means, they are just different and just because they fail to hold your attention does not mean that people like myself do not put 100s of hours in to Plants vs Zombies, Mega Jump and Small World.
 
Part of the problem is that the App Store really changed how consumers viewed software purchases. Think of console or handheld games where there is physical media. For some reason, people are willing to part with $50 (for example) when they get a disc with the game on it. Make the same content available via digital distribution, and suddenly $20 seems to be a lot to ask. Put it on an iPhone and even with feature parity $10 becomes a bit much.

I got an iPhone 3GS at its launch and around then there was the Peggle phenomenon. PopCap dropped Peggle to 99¢ from $4.99 in protest of how Apple calculated the top charting apps (quantity vs grossing). Thus began the obsession with 99¢ sales.

I have no idea where I'm going with this.
 
The hellll. I downloaded the Lite angry birds to see what this is all about, and itunes is like NO MAN YO IPOD IS TOO OLD BROTHER. the fuuuuck it's a sensation!
 
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