I was just checking out the recent announcements coming out of Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 and I’m starting to wonder if it will be better for the device. Sure you can’t argue that copy-paste, add-on support among other fixes are bad but the way the device seems to be going as for gaming doesn’t bode well.
Everyone remembers the Horse Armor fiasco were people were essentially ripped off and over charged for the smallest piece of content possible. Luckily the gaming media has matured to a point where everyone who was anyone found out about this and the reaction was so bad that we rarely see this. This marketplace has learnt.
iPhone 3.0 is adding in-app consumer support and the example we were given wasn’t promising. 99¢ for a rocket launcher might not sound like much but this is of integral importance to the game. Extra levels make sense, extra characters make sense if seen in the appropriate context but seemingly vital weapons or power-ups that will give you a distinct advantage over other players doesn’t sound optimal.
Sure most games aren’t shipped with Wi-Fi compatibility out of the box so really this won’t have that big of an affect on that side of things. But I for one can envision a situation where you buy the game for cheap but then get nickled and dimed for every little piece of content. Honestly this isn’t why I came to this device.
My point is that in the case of Horse Armor everyone knew about it and learnt from the mistakes of others. Meanwhile the App Store is littered daily with odd pricing and the like. With the amount of apps on store it’s hard to find out about the pricing pitfalls of all of them. Therefore it will take longer for devs to catch onto the new pricing model.
The iPhone marketplace is still young but it’s taking longer to click. Pricing is still scatter-shot and it’s still difficult to search through and find the latest games. Adding another price model for developers to get to grips with while they are still testing the boundaries of the current one isn’t an ideal situation for this emerging marketplace.
I guess I should have more faith in developers but the example given just sounded really shady and didn’t fill me with much hope. Let’s hope this new feature is used sparingly and will only add to the devices ongoing success but expect the growing pains to continue.
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