Gibson's Blog

Seems like there has been quite a lot of hooha about Zynga for the past few month, ranging from the Scamville debacle to Zynga’s outrageous growth to getting booed at during GDC.

One reason I hear about why Zynga is getting so much flak is because their games, such as Farmville; are not games anymore. But more of clickfests than anything which somehow attracts a lot of players who previously do not consider themselves game players. Heck, even my mum plays these Facebook games and she is the type who has an issue using Gmail.

I feel that all this flak hitting Zynga is unfair as they have done a tremendous job in making games really easy and getting a lot of users in the process. Leveraging on fast and efficient metrics testing, they have been able to roll out game features and iterate their games really fast. Traditionally, the games industry does not have this mindset since in the old days, once games were released. Any new feedback or improvements that were suggested will be implemented in the sequel or expansion pack, or even in game patches. And not a lot of meaningful metrics were used to garner feedback.

All these metrics has helped Zynga make better decisons on their games which also had the effect of attracting more players. Now, isn’t that good for the industry? After all, I don’t believe that gamers/game developers should consider themselves as a better breed if they do not create such games. As game developers, we should be creating games that entertain people and if Zynga is doing that using metric and making their game dirt simple to play. Then we should follow in their footsteps too.

Zynga was a good thing that came along as it gave the game industry a kick in the nuts with regards to how games should be developed and marketed and tuned to the needs to the customers who are the ones forking over money for it. So why is that wrong?

It has been more than 1 month since my last post. How time flies and I really should post more regularly. Anyway, I have been tied up with Windows Mobile 6.x game development, hence the busy schedule. After developing my 4th game for Windows Mobile. I just can’t help comparing it to the iPhone App submission system since both requires a stamp of approval before the app appears on the catalogue.

Apple always had a philosophy of making things easy for users and their iPhone App submission system is no different. With just a few clicks, I can set the pricing of the app, countries to put the app in etc; all within a few minutes.

As for Windows Mobile 6.x, it seems to be the opposite. I was developing a game for the HTC HD Mini(Great phone btw, small and nice screen) and logged into the Windows Mobile Marketplace website to submit the app. After a few clicks and waiting for the pages to load, I came to the page where I had to select which screen resolution my game would run on. Scanning through the entire list, I could not find the 320 x 480 screen resolution that matches the HTC HD Mini. Only nearest resolution is the 320 x 320.

Seeing that this was the case, I had to close my browser, then spend a few more days tweaking the code to run on a 320 x 320 resolution and a 320 x 480 resolution without showing a lot of weird graphical artifacts.

The idea of doing this is absurd as the website should have listed a screen resolution of 320 x 480 since there is a Windows Mobile phone running on that screen resolution.

With the news that Windows Mobile 7 is enforcing very strict rules about the hardware, I hope that such a system does not appears in the Windows Mobile 7 app submission platform.

With Microsoft already late as it is to the mobile space, it won’t be good for them if they don’t improve their system soon.

1 more thing, reducing the price of app submission from $99 USD to something lower or even free would be better.

Now that Apple has reaped a lot of cash and mindshare with their App Store. Every telco and mobile related company is rolling out their own version. But most are doomed to fail. To know why and how not to suck at it. Let us revisit the mobile landscape a few years ago before the iPhone was released.

Long ago, actually that was between 5 and 10 years ago. There were App Stores which were operated by telcos, but developers could not access them. Instead, they had to go to aggregators who would gather all the mobile apps and games and present it to the telcos who would then cherry pick the outstanding ones or those with existing IP attached to it. The rest would not be picked and hard luck then.

The fees attached to it was that the telco would take 50% and the aggregator would take 50% and you would take the rest. So if your game sells for $2, you would get 50 cents. Plus each aggregator would specify that your app has to run on X number of handsets and support Y number of screen sizes and the picture ain’t that rosy anymore. So to recap, you need to
- Deal with multiple aggregators
- Settle for a piss poor 75/25 with you getting 25% only
- Deal with multiple screen resolutions

And that was only 1 telco, Multiply that with the countless telcos and aggregators all over the world and you can imagine the logistical nightmare dealing with all these companies. But we, developers had no choice and the market was ripe for disruption. But no one stepped up to the plate.

Except Apple, when Apple came and announced the terms of publishing for the iPhone. Other developers and I were excited as the terms were like manna from heaven compared to the old times. They were
- 70/30 revenue share with developers getting 70%
- Dealing only with Apple. No middleman, no aggregator, no kidding
- Deal with only 1 screen resolution

Apple opened the floodgates to make it a lot easier for developers to make money and other companies were caught by the sudden popularity of App Stores and now they are rushing to play catchup. But to make a successful App Store, it is not just apps that drive the App Store. To make sure that your App Store doesn’t suck. Here are a few tips

- Make it easy for developers to sign up and submit their app. So that means try to keep all the paperwork to a minimum and don’t make them click through 10 pages of stuff just to register or submit a new app

- Make it easy for consumers to find what they want. In iTunes App Store, it is very easy to find the app that I want using my iPhone, but having tried the other App Stores. My verdict is that Nokia Ovi Store is a failure in this sense. Windows Mobile Marketplace is functional, but needs to work on being better looking. Samsung App Store comes a close 2nd to iTunes App Store in terms of navigation and looks while Android Marketplace is ho hum

- Make it easy for developers to monetize their app. Right now, I can’t believe that Android Marketplace does not allow paid apps in Singapore and only a few countries outside of USA have paid apps support for Android. The others allow paid apps, but none so far support in-app purchase which Apple rolled out 1 year ago. In-App purchase is very useful for mobile games that rely on virtual goods and that is a huge goldmine, if you do it right.

- Make it cheap for developers to develop applications on your App Store. Apple charges developers $148 USD per year for unlimited submissions. So why should you charge more? Or ask the developer to jump through hoops just for submitting a new app?

The mobile industry moves along at twice the speed of the traditional IT industry and now that a lot of companies are trying to outdo Apple. Hope you all can run just as fast

It’s been a while since my last post and I realize that I post more on Twitter than on my blog. So now you can find more of my posts on Twitter than on my blog as Twitter allows for short, bursty comments from me about the mobile industry than anything else. So check out @gibtang on Twitter if you wanna know my latest rants, comments about the mobile industry.

On another note, I was looking at 2 3D game engines for an iPhone game that I was doing for a client and I shortlisted 2, namely SIO2 and Oolong engine. After mucking around with both, I decided that Oolong was too low level for me and SIO2 provided the right fit for me in terms of flexibility and I decided to go with SIO2. A strong contender was Unity engine, but lack of support with the iPhone APIs lead me to discarding it from the pack.

So ya wanna be a mobile developer? After hearing all the rags to riches stories of developers making it rich from iPhone apps and with smart phones being so ubiquitous. Ya think that ya could be the next one to strike it rich? Let me tell ya sumthing. It ain’t as glittery as you think it is and if ya are willing to spend a bit of time, let this ole time developer give ya a few tips on what to look out for so that when ya are looking at the sky, ya won’t fall into a deep hole.

#1 – Always know the market. If ya wanna make it rich in countries such as Indonesia, then junk that iPhone SDK and stick to good ole J2ME and Blackberry as Blackberries outsell iPhone 11 to 1 in Indonesia

#2 – Phones users use their phones for tasks that last a few seconds, so don’t ya try to be funny and create a full blown web app that users uses for a few hours and squeeze it into the phone. This will blow up in your face faster than a blind man holding a match in a Swedish dynamite factory

#3 – Observe how people use their phones and where. Most people use their phones using 1 hand while the other hand is grabbing a pole in the bus, train etc. So create your mobile app to suit all those 1 handed varmints and they will be thankful for it

#3 – Phones have all that fancy, schmancy stuff like GPS, camera etc. So use that thick skull of yours to find out how you can use all these nice features creatively

#4 – Read and memorize the 8 unique benefits of mobile and get it into that thick head of yours

Now, shoo. Go out and start ya mobile observations. With enough observations and thinking, ya are sure to make it big. Else ya will end up just like the rest of the other mobile developers. And ya did not come into this mobile space just to be like the rest, did ya?