.99 games = The birth of the developer ‘band’
OK – if you are unfamiliar with the iPhone market, let’s catch you up. iPhone = Awesome. Many games sell many copies in the iPhone app store. Everyone and their adopted dog is talking about making games for the iPhone. The iPhone marketplace is truly the wild west of the video game industry right now. Fortunes are made and lost on the App Store in your pocket.
Now that we’re past that let’s talk about the magic iPhone app store number – 99 cents.
What is worth a dollar?
– A bad cup of coffee
– One song on iTunes
– A pen
– 3 pencills
– Parking, in a shady part of town
Umm, really. That’s all I can come up with.
The simple fact is that .99 is not a lot of money. So how much game do you expect?
5 minutes? 10 Hours? There are games in the top 25 that provide both. Which makes the people who put together an addictive and satisfying 5 minute experience look like geniuses.
While .99 is a pretty new price point for a video game, we can all agree that .99 is a pretty good price for a song. So let’s run with that for a bit?
If you are a 4 piece band, you might make 1 album a year. It will have around 10 songs. That means the 4 musicians can make 10 songs a year. You sell these songs individually, as well as on a record, you tour and you sell stuff when you tour as well.
What if 4 developers formed a ‘Band’ and released 10 games a year? And sold each of them for .99? If they hit gold and have a game sitting in the top 10 on the App Store for a few weeks, they are going to start shopping for beach houses. That’s the App Store Model that everyone is chasing and the common sentiment in iPhone developers is “Top 10 or Bust”.
But what if games are more like music than we want to admit?
What if these 10 games that come out in 1 year followed a similar theme (gameplay, visually, story) in the same way musicians set a tone for an album? What if this developer band had a small, but dedicated fan base?
Like many bands, these 4 piece developer outfits might only be able to practice on evenings on weekends and they might never get their big break. But if they are talented and persistent, it’s really (REALLY) hard to imagine that they could not find an audience for their game. (they might be Norwegian Death Metallers, but they are an audience)
Teh Hotness – Off to San Diego
At 5AM tomorrow morning, I won’t be making comics like every other morning, I’ll be on my way to the airport for San Diego Comic-Con.
For those who don’t know, Comic-Con is the biggest pop culture event in North America – which, in layman’s terms, it’s the biggest gathering of geeks, nerds and freaks who speak English as their primary language. Warren Ellis calls it the Nerd Prom – and that’s an appropriate title.
I love Comic-Con. It’s second only to GDC as my favorite annual event.
It’s the best place in the world to be a giant nerd and geek out over comics, cartoons, toys, TV and movies. The exhibition floor is packed with insane artists, crazy toys, awesome t-shirts and tons of hotness. The panels offer everything from sneak peeks to next years big movies to the discussion on the future of comics as a printed medium.
It’s A-1 fantaradawesomeness.
I’ll be doing a bit of blogging from the floor, courtesy of my iPhone, WordPress for iPhone and iGoogle providing free wi-fi throughout the convention hall. I’ll also be twittering random things from the floor as well.
Wish me luck – this is going to be a blast! If you are going to be there, hit me on e-mail or twitter.
Petra’s Call Episode 3: Oleksyn Valley T-Rex Riding Camp