The awards are fine and everything but as with any awards, they are entirely irrelevant. The whole purpose of an award is a symbol of an achievement, in itself it means nothing.
Hey Marv, lighten up! It's the Guinness Book of Records, not a Nobel prize.
The awards are fine and everything but as with any awards, they are entirely irrelevant. The whole purpose of an award is a symbol of an achievement, in itself it means nothing.
The achievement of fastet-selling gaming system is not 100% accurate as people don't specifically buy iPhones for the purpose of gaming, whereas they do with a PSP or DS as that's their primary purpose.
The game store achievement of largest collection and most downloads is no more impressive than having the largest stomach having eaten the most pies. It's not an admirable achievement to become fat, lazy and lower your standards.
I'd much rather see Apple get an achievement for largest number of quality gaming titles as reviewed by a game review publication first of all and then the title of fastest-selling gaming system actually has some meaning.
Inflicting flatulence simulators and making profitable a garbage dump full of useless software is not something I'd be proud of. For Apple having such high quality standards in their own products, you'd think they'd place those expectations on their developers too. It's sad that there are developers who do put in a lot of effort but are getting lost in the crowd.
Wow Marvin, that's some bitter juice yer swilling tonight. To your points:
The achievement of fastest selling game IS relevant because it did it in spite of NOT being a dedicated gaming system - in fact getting more people playing more games as a result - an obvious plus for both platform and stat.
Largest collection and most downloads compared to a large stomach - are you really serious here?? You do understand that for a platform to be successful - in any classical sense - it has to reach and maintain a certain momentum in order to do that. It doesn't matter a jot or tittle if you have the best or sweetest games in the world if no one is on your platform or actually playing the game now does it?? So yes those stats are VERY relevant and important to drive the successful platform - you can address quality once you have captured the level of marketshare that allows you the luxury of being particular about which games are there.
The above spoke to your final comment as well, but let me add further that anyone, ANYONE who has any background in platform development sees your commentary as being commercially poor judgement and a great way to ensure that you never gain material success. It is an unfortunate reality and has been spoken to countless times ( perhaps you've heard this one: "No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the masses" H.L. Mencken).
But if you get them to sample the common bread and then show them cake - they are more likely to try and find they like cake a great deal more than bread. But you can't do that if they are not in your shop to even sample the bread. Your comments show a deplorable lack of understanding of this simple fact of the marketplace.
"No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the masses" H.L. Mencken.
Great quote and undoubtedly true. But, honestly, how many fart apps do you need? The iPhone has over _800_ of them. At some point, Apple needs to say the market for fart noises has been well served and adding more apps like that only serves to hide other things people may be interested in.
How many times are you looking for an app written in Chinese? In Vietnamese? In Hebrew? For most folks, the answer is "Never", but those apps are thrown in right along with the English apps. As I'm typing this, I'm scrolling through the "Books" category of apps. The page I'm on has 12 book apps, 9 of which are not in English. Is it too much to ask for these apps to be organized by language?
Quote:
Originally Posted by fecklesstechguy
But if you get them to sample the common bread and then show them cake - they are more likely to try and find they like cake a great deal more than bread. But you can't do that if they are not in your shop to even sample the bread. Your comments show a deplorable lack of understanding of this simple fact of the marketplace.
All well and good, but not much help if the consumer can't find your bread to begin with, let alone your cake.
Personally I never saw what the hype and fuss was about. Then again, sitting in front of my gaming PC with mouse and keyboard has been my gaming style of choice for, oh, 20 years? No need to start waving my arms in front of it anytime soon. For variety I have my iPhone 4 or iPad 2.
And yes brucep good observation. The fact that there were pre-orders for that long certainly skews things a bit. But like someone said above, this ain't the Nobel prize, so... meh.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brucep
I have X-BOX 360 !!
is the Kinnects a good buy ???
Are the games fun ??
Any way the kinnects had a 90 day pre sale . you went to a say a game stop and paid money in advance.
so does that seem to cheapen the fast sales pace or not ??
9
trolls dance the night away part 1
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
Why do they choose a 60 day time frame for sales? Why not a weekend, a week, month, quarter, or year? Or why not multiple measures of fastest selling across various time frames?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
I don't have an Xbox so I don't get why millions of gamers want to stand in front of their TVs and look like they're having epileptic seizures or something.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patranus
KIinect is an accessory not a consumer electronic device.
Personally I never saw what the hype and fuss was about. Then again, sitting in front of my gaming PC with mouse and keyboard has been my gaming style of choice for, oh, 20 years? No need to start waving my arms in front of it anytime soon. For variety I have my iPhone 4 or iPad 2.
And yes brucep good observation. The fact that there were pre-orders for that long certainly skews things a bit. But like someone said above, this ain't the Nobel prize, so... meh.
I found a picture of what you?d look like if you used Kinect for all your gaming for the past 20 years.
The App Store's 37,362 games (as of September 2010) dwarf the offerings from rival downloadable game stores. PC game download service Steam offers 1,110 titles, while Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Arcade has 1,300 games and the Japanese Virtual Console store has 576 titles.
because one cheap game, one without to much substance (generally) beats a game you can get on steam for free.... like alien swarm?
sorry, but these are BS comparisons, idk about Xbox arcade and Japanese Virtual Console stores, but this is a stupid ass comparison...
Now, i bet that maybe 2,000 games on the App store are very in depth, etc. If you could use that number, it would mean something
as a note, would iPhone 4 be ranked as a phone, making the iTouch the fastest selling gaming consul thing? (but i guess that not called a gaming device either, technically)
(didn't mean to be to critical, but it is like comparing cherry tomatoes to tomatoes, there are more cherry tomatoes, naturally)
So .... it's a negative that Apple produced a multi-purpose device and PSP & DS did not??
No, it's just inaccurate to label it as a gaming system without taking account of the calibre of the games and likelihood that people purchase the device for gaming. You wouldn't say the iMac is the fastest selling model of television because people use it to watch Netflix or Youtube.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newbee
Spoken like a true elitist.
I don't think it's elitist to expect that a device that wins an award as a modern gaming system should actually have some highly rated games as rated in the same context as the devices it is competing with for the title. To me that's a fair way to judge who has earned recognition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newbee
I would suggest that, in most cases, the cream rises to the top. If the quality is there, in more minds than just that of the developer, then that app will be found and people will buy it.
The recent report of them changing the rankings to be based on usage may help the cream rise to the top but if the cream is currently showing in the charts then it's pretty sour. What serious gaming device has Tetris (which came out 27 years ago) in the top gaming charts? Also, what gaming device has an online chart determining the success or failure of a franchise rather than the quality of the franchise itself?
Quote:
Originally Posted by piot
Hey Marv, lighten up! It's the Guinness Book of Records, not a Nobel prize.
It is a frivolous award but the App Store problems have been quite apparent and the award will perpetuate it as well as to other platforms who will try to copy the 'success'. The whole gaming industry is fearful of this trend away from quality immersive games and apps in general to watered-down casual versions. The more money and the more accolades handed out in favour of this trend, the more it drives people down this path.
Quote:
Originally Posted by feclesstechguy
It doesn't matter a jot or tittle if you have the best or sweetest games in the world if no one is on your platform or actually playing the game now does it?? So yes those stats are VERY relevant and important to drive the successful platform - you can address quality once you have captured the level of marketshare that allows you the luxury of being particular about which games are there.
That's a good point and you're right, you need marketshare to drive the sales of games and encourage developers to the platform however, one award is in recognition of people buying the system for the games, which is inaccurate and another for the amount available, which any gamer knows is a meaningless metric. People buy gaming platforms for the titles, not the amount of choice.
Nobody buys a PS3 or XBox based on how many games there are but which games there are. If you want to play Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Heavy Rain, Uncharted etc, even if the XBox has 3 times the selection, you ain't buying an XBox. That's the important metric that judges the quality of software of a platform. If you judge by the wrong metric, then you lower the quality bar.
No one is holding iOS developers to a high standard or setting those who reach a high standard apart from the waste and they've all gotten caught up in a numbers race.
Does Angry Birds selling 140m units change the fact you are just firing a bird at a bunch of pigs? No one will look back in 5 years at this franchise and think anything of it just like Doodle Jump, just like Rolando (remember Rolando?). No one will look back at Bieber and his 1/2 billion Youtube views either or Friday with 140 million. It's empty, throw-away entertainment. Then you compare it to Imagine by John Lennon, 9 million views.
Angry Birds has not made anywhere near the impression on people that franchises like Zelda, Mario, MGS, Final Fantasy, Sonic, Donkey Kong, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Halo, Assassin's Creed, Mega Man, Splinter Cell, Half-Life and so on have made.
A handful of those franchises have made it to the iOS platform but almost all of them get bastardised into mobile phone games and reports about awards and numbers keep glossing over this.
You may be right that in time, the situation will resolve itself and developers will try harder to get to the top of the pile but we're already 4 years in and to me it looks like the situation is just as bad. No one in gaming circles respects iOS devices as gaming platforms. Some try to and cling to games like Dead Space, Tomb Raider the Guardian of Light, GTA Chinatown Wars, Battlefield Bad Company 2 but they are few and far between and going up another 100,000 apps won't change it.
Marvin, you do have some points but we are seeing a watering down of everything... What great books have been published in the past five years? Movies have gone down the toilet. TV luckily has had a slight renaissance. Websites? Since everything went social and 2.0 the quality of website design has gone out the window. Nobody cares about layout and whitespace and quality imagery... It's all cram as much info into the page as possible and "socialise" everything, don't forget the ads too!
The movement to "mobile interactivity" will only hasten this downward spiral (if one chooses to see it that way). For example:
You don't have time to watch a movie so you just want silly YouTube videos
You don't have time to sit down on a proper game so you do Angry Birds to kill a bit of time
You don't have time to read the news so you just flick through Facebook
Websites aren't updated in time so just search through Twitter
It is a future, nay, the present of this decade that also scares me. Interesting that you mention consoles, I can raise tirades against consoles wearing away quality PC titles... While I enjoyed Portal2 I swear there were a lot of compromises made to accommodate consoles, such as such constant loading of levels and very highly controlled polygon counts. I haven't played the PS3 version but assuming it is like the PC version, it's quite an achievement by Valve to cram all the environments, interactivity, physics and fluid dynamics onto a now aging system. (I was shocked by GT5 on PS3, I thought I was looking at a PC racing game from 2006 - and not just because of the graphics)
Mobile gaming may wear away console titles, but I don't see that really happening (yet).
Well, Steve Jobs himself has said "We don't need any more fart apps". So while I don't think Apple should be draconian about it, at some point they need to say "Your app isn't adding anything of value to our store." I'm all for consumer choice, but consumers can't make a choice if they can't find your product because it's buried under 100s or 1000s of junk apps.
As to finding things, I think _all_ of Apple's stores, iTunes, the Apps Store, and iBooks, could use help in this area. And that's speaking with my consumer hat on, not my developer hat.
Improved organization would help. For example, I don't need to scroll through dozens and dozens of apps in non-English languages if I'm only looking for English. So organizing things by language would be a great help all by itself.
Improved search would help too. If I'm only looking for, say, animate movies, it'd be nice if there was a way to search for that. You can go to iTunes, click movies, and search for "Animated", but it doesn't return all the animated movies, just a few. Plus it returns hits for "Animated" from all categories, not just movies.
In the beginning an app called "Pull my Finger" was rejected from the app store BUT due to the outcry and continuous whining of Internet trolls, fart apps were allowed.
As far as finding things goes it's like anything, if you have an interest in a particular area you will seek out reviews and recommendations from similar minded people, the Internet makes this pretty easy and iTunes store makes it easy too, using the search function, wtf is that about foreign language Apps, iTunes isn't Android market, here in Australia all the apps are in English, the US store may have Spanish and the Canadian may have French, I don't know I don't access them.
Apple's success with the iPhone 4 and the App Store has earned the company several impressive records in the 2011 Gamer's Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ][/url][/c]
A plead from a real gamer. A gamer since 1986 whose support, along with the support of other gamers a like, have help to create the innovative market that exists today.
I love Apple as much as the next fanboy here but let's face it, the games available on the iPad and iPhone are for the other 75% of people who don't know anything about gaming and who probably have jobs and lives. Speaking for the other 25% of real gamers who actually play good quality video games (emphasize on GOOD QUALITY) I can confidently say that Apple is in an entirely different gaming market, for now at least. The gaming market that Apple has created is for noobs who wish to play simple games for 15 mins while they are waiting at the bus stop, doctor's office, coffee shop, etc. I'm not complaining about the games in the App Store, for $1 you can't expect much more. Going to an actual gaming review website you will hardly find reviews of iphone games making the home page of IGN or gamespot. Until Apple starts encouraging QUALITY games with depth and replay value, the AppStore games will never really be on par with Mario games on DS or MLB 2011 on PSP. When it comes to real games buttons>touch screen.
Sorry. I'm not trying to sound like a butthurt nintendo/sony/microsft fanboy here but its important to the development of future cutting edge games that we don't send the wrong message to game developers. That message being, "We want more dumb down, touch screen games. We choose quantity over quality." We are constantly approaching a revolutionary point in gaming. With games like LA Noire, Portal 2, and RDR it's important that we don't create an atmosphere that discourages a good quality innovative gaming experience in exchange for 100 crappy repetitive ones.
Our gaming market is in trouble and when it's too late we will be surrounded millions of horrible games. The gaming market is being killed so that developers can make easy bucks selling garbage for $1. Let's call it what it is, AppStore games are the Top Ramen of video games; cheap, affordable, and tasty but no real nutritional value. The success of AppStore games has very little to do with quality and everything to do being cheap and accessible.
Loosen the purse strings and I think you'll find some pretty good games from Gameloft, EA Games and other top publishers.
All game systems have had their dogs, as I stated before seek out reviews and seek out games that suit your interest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by annieHIRO
A plead from a real gamer. A gamer since 1986 whose support, along with the support of other gamers a like, have help to create the innovative market that exists today.
I love Apple as much as the next fanboy here but let's face it, the games available on the iPad and iPhone are for the other 75% of people who don't know anything about gaming and who probably have jobs and lives. Speaking for the other 25% of real gamers who actually play good quality video games (emphasize on GOOD QUALITY) I can confidently say that Apple is in an entirely different gaming market, for now at least. The gaming market that Apple has created is for noobs who wish to play simple games for 15 mins while they are waiting at the bus stop, doctor's office, coffee shop, etc. I'm not complaining about the games in the App Store, for $1 you can't expect much more. Going to an actual gaming review website you will hardly find reviews of iphone games making the home page of IGN or gamespot. Until Apple starts encouraging QUALITY games with depth and replay value, the AppStore games will never really be on par with Mario games on DS or MLB 2011 on PSP. When it comes to real games buttons>touch screen.
Sorry. I'm not trying to sound like a butthurt nintendo/sony/microsft fanboy here but its important to the development of future cutting edge games that we don't send the wrong message to game developers. That message being, "We want more dumb down, touch screen games. We choose quantity over quality." We are constantly approaching a revolutionary point in gaming. With games like LA Noire, Portal 2, and RDR it's important that we don't create an atmosphere that discourages a good quality innovative gaming experience in exchange for 100 crappy repetitive ones.
Our gaming market is in trouble and when it's too late we will be surrounded millions of horrible games. The gaming market is being killed so that developers can make easy bucks selling garbage for $1. Let's call it what it is, AppStore games are the Top Ramen of video games; cheap, affordable, and tasty but no real nutritional value. The success of AppStore games has very little to do with quality and everything to do being cheap and accessible.
Let's make sure we understand what is being reported here - it's the Guinness Book of World Records, not (as was mentioned previously) the Gamers' Nobel Prize For Most Worthy Game or Platform.
How meaningful these things are depends on your POV. I have few "in-depth" games I play, notably the Civ series and Sid Meier's Pirates. Why? Because my free time is fragmented and doesn't allow me the luxury of spending hours on end playing your much bally-hoo'd "real" games. I haven't had a dedicated gaming PC in years, and while we own both XBox and Wii - both tend to languish.
However, during the course of my day I will seize a moment and go in to play any of a variety of games on my mobile device, because the moment presented itself, and lo! I have my mobile device with me and can do so.
The VAST majority of consumers work this way - the dedicated few who have the free time to play in-depth/serialized games are in a small (if vocal) minority. SO yeah, the GBWR status is important because it reflects, not the minority, not dedicated gaming systems, but the actual use of millions of people who are driving a simpler, more accessible approach to games. Hopefully it doesn't mean that envelope-pushing immersive games will go the way of the dodo, and being talked about as history rather than current. It may be that Kinnect and other advanced interfaces will allow for a renaissance in gaming, as certainly increases in processing and graphics have done over the years.
Say what you will, McDonalds et al are in no way haute cusine, but they are widespread and popular. Just because they don't serve filet mignon or quail's eggs on steak tartare with a fine burgundy doesn't mean they are irrelevant or not profitable. The sheer ubiquity and thousands of locations make them both profitable and serve a sizeable section of market need. But no one will confuse a Big Mac with a filet mignon (we hope). But many will prefer the ease and convenience of said Big Mac over the cost and dedicated dining time of the filet experience for a greater share of their experience and consumption.
>implying the iPhone 4 is a dedicated gaming device and should be compared to others that are
Uh, no. So nice little puff-piece on the part of Guinness, but no one buys an iPhone 4 solely for its gaming prowess. It may be a contributing factor, but the iPod is a better comparison.
Besides, "Internet Explorer" is the "gaming device of choice" because it's what millions of people use to play Farmville.
Marvin, you do have some points but we are seeing a watering down of everything... What great books have been published in the past five years? Movies have gone down the toilet. TV luckily has had a slight renaissance. Websites? Since everything went social and 2.0 the quality of website design has gone out the window. Nobody cares about layout and whitespace and quality imagery... It's all cram as much info into the page as possible and "socialise" everything, don't forget the ads too!
It's a bleak picture and you're right. I see all those things happening too and I don't think it's just the usual resistance to change, it's clearly not a good way to go. Sacrificing quality for profit or marketshare is a bad compromise to make and it surprises me to see Apple do it so willingly here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008
Interesting that you mention consoles, I can raise tirades against consoles wearing away quality PC titles... While I enjoyed Portal2 I swear there were a lot of compromises made to accommodate consoles, such as such constant loading of levels and very highly controlled polygon counts.
The level loading was possibly because it was based off the old HL2 engine. Other engines like in Mafia 2 and GTA, stream data in. These games don't have the loading times on consoles.
I actually think modern consoles have done a lot to help PC gaming in the sense that, as pointed out above, there needs to be a market for developers to sell to and consoles have provided a guaranteed platform of well over 100 million people who have bought the devices in order to play games. This has made it profitable for developers to even consider making certain games.
They do get downgraded vs what's capable on the PC side but the vast majority of PC gamers don't have GPUs that exceed the PS3 and XBox anyway so I don't think it has held back PC gaming significantly. I'd say that social gaming has hindered it a lot because it's a diversion that draws too many developers away from doing good work. If you told a developer they could either spend 5 years building a game that cost $20m and have to struggle to sell it for $40-60 to a large target audience but not one that uses the platform specifically for games vs spending a few months building a game for 100k they could sell for $1 to 300 million users, it's like telling them they can laze around, eat junk food and still have a six-pack.
Fewer consequences for failure, less effort and the same if not greater reward. All you have to do is compromise on quality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by annieHiro
With games like LA Noire, Portal 2, and RDR it's important that we don't create an atmosphere that discourages a good quality innovative gaming experience in exchange for 100 crappy repetitive ones.
Our gaming market is in trouble and when it's too late we will be surrounded millions of horrible games.
Exactly and another problem is that the people who don't care about quality gaming now and support weak, social gaming won't care when that happens.
Comments
The awards are fine and everything but as with any awards, they are entirely irrelevant. The whole purpose of an award is a symbol of an achievement, in itself it means nothing.
Hey Marv, lighten up! It's the Guinness Book of Records, not a Nobel prize.
The awards are fine and everything but as with any awards, they are entirely irrelevant. The whole purpose of an award is a symbol of an achievement, in itself it means nothing.
The achievement of fastet-selling gaming system is not 100% accurate as people don't specifically buy iPhones for the purpose of gaming, whereas they do with a PSP or DS as that's their primary purpose.
The game store achievement of largest collection and most downloads is no more impressive than having the largest stomach having eaten the most pies. It's not an admirable achievement to become fat, lazy and lower your standards.
I'd much rather see Apple get an achievement for largest number of quality gaming titles as reviewed by a game review publication first of all and then the title of fastest-selling gaming system actually has some meaning.
Inflicting flatulence simulators and making profitable a garbage dump full of useless software is not something I'd be proud of. For Apple having such high quality standards in their own products, you'd think they'd place those expectations on their developers too. It's sad that there are developers who do put in a lot of effort but are getting lost in the crowd.
Wow Marvin, that's some bitter juice yer swilling tonight. To your points:
The achievement of fastest selling game IS relevant because it did it in spite of NOT being a dedicated gaming system - in fact getting more people playing more games as a result - an obvious plus for both platform and stat.
Largest collection and most downloads compared to a large stomach - are you really serious here?? You do understand that for a platform to be successful - in any classical sense - it has to reach and maintain a certain momentum in order to do that. It doesn't matter a jot or tittle if you have the best or sweetest games in the world if no one is on your platform or actually playing the game now does it?? So yes those stats are VERY relevant and important to drive the successful platform - you can address quality once you have captured the level of marketshare that allows you the luxury of being particular about which games are there.
The above spoke to your final comment as well, but let me add further that anyone, ANYONE who has any background in platform development sees your commentary as being commercially poor judgement and a great way to ensure that you never gain material success. It is an unfortunate reality and has been spoken to countless times ( perhaps you've heard this one: "No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the masses" H.L. Mencken).
But if you get them to sample the common bread and then show them cake - they are more likely to try and find they like cake a great deal more than bread. But you can't do that if they are not in your shop to even sample the bread. Your comments show a deplorable lack of understanding of this simple fact of the marketplace.
"No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the masses" H.L. Mencken.
Great quote and undoubtedly true. But, honestly, how many fart apps do you need? The iPhone has over _800_ of them. At some point, Apple needs to say the market for fart noises has been well served and adding more apps like that only serves to hide other things people may be interested in.
How many times are you looking for an app written in Chinese? In Vietnamese? In Hebrew? For most folks, the answer is "Never", but those apps are thrown in right along with the English apps. As I'm typing this, I'm scrolling through the "Books" category of apps. The page I'm on has 12 book apps, 9 of which are not in English. Is it too much to ask for these apps to be organized by language?
But if you get them to sample the common bread and then show them cake - they are more likely to try and find they like cake a great deal more than bread. But you can't do that if they are not in your shop to even sample the bread. Your comments show a deplorable lack of understanding of this simple fact of the marketplace.
All well and good, but not much help if the consumer can't find your bread to begin with, let alone your cake.
And yes brucep good observation. The fact that there were pre-orders for that long certainly skews things a bit. But like someone said above, this ain't the Nobel prize, so... meh.
I have X-BOX 360 !!
is the Kinnects a good buy ???
Are the games fun ??
Any way the kinnects had a 90 day pre sale . you went to a say a game stop and paid money in advance.
so does that seem to cheapen the fast sales pace or not ??
9
trolls dance the night away part 1
Why do they choose a 60 day time frame for sales? Why not a weekend, a week, month, quarter, or year? Or why not multiple measures of fastest selling across various time frames?
I don't have an Xbox so I don't get why millions of gamers want to stand in front of their TVs and look like they're having epileptic seizures or something.
KIinect is an accessory not a consumer electronic device.
Personally I never saw what the hype and fuss was about. Then again, sitting in front of my gaming PC with mouse and keyboard has been my gaming style of choice for, oh, 20 years? No need to start waving my arms in front of it anytime soon. For variety I have my iPhone 4 or iPad 2.
And yes brucep good observation. The fact that there were pre-orders for that long certainly skews things a bit. But like someone said above, this ain't the Nobel prize, so... meh.
I found a picture of what you?d look like if you used Kinect for all your gaming for the past 20 years.
The App Store's 37,362 games (as of September 2010) dwarf the offerings from rival downloadable game stores. PC game download service Steam offers 1,110 titles, while Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Arcade has 1,300 games and the Japanese Virtual Console store has 576 titles.
because one cheap game, one without to much substance (generally) beats a game you can get on steam for free.... like alien swarm?
sorry, but these are BS comparisons, idk about Xbox arcade and Japanese Virtual Console stores, but this is a stupid ass comparison...
Now, i bet that maybe 2,000 games on the App store are very in depth, etc. If you could use that number, it would mean something
as a note, would iPhone 4 be ranked as a phone, making the iTouch the fastest selling gaming consul thing? (but i guess that not called a gaming device either, technically)
(didn't mean to be to critical, but it is like comparing cherry tomatoes to tomatoes, there are more cherry tomatoes, naturally)
I found a picture of what you?d look like if you used Kinect for all your gaming for the past 20 years.
So .... it's a negative that Apple produced a multi-purpose device and PSP & DS did not??
No, it's just inaccurate to label it as a gaming system without taking account of the calibre of the games and likelihood that people purchase the device for gaming. You wouldn't say the iMac is the fastest selling model of television because people use it to watch Netflix or Youtube.
Spoken like a true elitist.
I don't think it's elitist to expect that a device that wins an award as a modern gaming system should actually have some highly rated games as rated in the same context as the devices it is competing with for the title. To me that's a fair way to judge who has earned recognition.
I would suggest that, in most cases, the cream rises to the top. If the quality is there, in more minds than just that of the developer, then that app will be found and people will buy it.
The recent report of them changing the rankings to be based on usage may help the cream rise to the top but if the cream is currently showing in the charts then it's pretty sour. What serious gaming device has Tetris (which came out 27 years ago) in the top gaming charts? Also, what gaming device has an online chart determining the success or failure of a franchise rather than the quality of the franchise itself?
Hey Marv, lighten up! It's the Guinness Book of Records, not a Nobel prize.
It is a frivolous award but the App Store problems have been quite apparent and the award will perpetuate it as well as to other platforms who will try to copy the 'success'. The whole gaming industry is fearful of this trend away from quality immersive games and apps in general to watered-down casual versions. The more money and the more accolades handed out in favour of this trend, the more it drives people down this path.
It doesn't matter a jot or tittle if you have the best or sweetest games in the world if no one is on your platform or actually playing the game now does it?? So yes those stats are VERY relevant and important to drive the successful platform - you can address quality once you have captured the level of marketshare that allows you the luxury of being particular about which games are there.
That's a good point and you're right, you need marketshare to drive the sales of games and encourage developers to the platform however, one award is in recognition of people buying the system for the games, which is inaccurate and another for the amount available, which any gamer knows is a meaningless metric. People buy gaming platforms for the titles, not the amount of choice.
Nobody buys a PS3 or XBox based on how many games there are but which games there are. If you want to play Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Heavy Rain, Uncharted etc, even if the XBox has 3 times the selection, you ain't buying an XBox. That's the important metric that judges the quality of software of a platform. If you judge by the wrong metric, then you lower the quality bar.
No one is holding iOS developers to a high standard or setting those who reach a high standard apart from the waste and they've all gotten caught up in a numbers race.
Does Angry Birds selling 140m units change the fact you are just firing a bird at a bunch of pigs? No one will look back in 5 years at this franchise and think anything of it just like Doodle Jump, just like Rolando (remember Rolando?). No one will look back at Bieber and his 1/2 billion Youtube views either or Friday with 140 million. It's empty, throw-away entertainment. Then you compare it to Imagine by John Lennon, 9 million views.
Angry Birds has not made anywhere near the impression on people that franchises like Zelda, Mario, MGS, Final Fantasy, Sonic, Donkey Kong, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Halo, Assassin's Creed, Mega Man, Splinter Cell, Half-Life and so on have made.
A handful of those franchises have made it to the iOS platform but almost all of them get bastardised into mobile phone games and reports about awards and numbers keep glossing over this.
You may be right that in time, the situation will resolve itself and developers will try harder to get to the top of the pile but we're already 4 years in and to me it looks like the situation is just as bad. No one in gaming circles respects iOS devices as gaming platforms. Some try to and cling to games like Dead Space, Tomb Raider the Guardian of Light, GTA Chinatown Wars, Battlefield Bad Company 2 but they are few and far between and going up another 100,000 apps won't change it.
The movement to "mobile interactivity" will only hasten this downward spiral (if one chooses to see it that way). For example:
You don't have time to watch a movie so you just want silly YouTube videos
You don't have time to sit down on a proper game so you do Angry Birds to kill a bit of time
You don't have time to read the news so you just flick through Facebook
Websites aren't updated in time so just search through Twitter
It is a future, nay, the present of this decade that also scares me. Interesting that you mention consoles, I can raise tirades against consoles wearing away quality PC titles... While I enjoyed Portal2 I swear there were a lot of compromises made to accommodate consoles, such as such constant loading of levels and very highly controlled polygon counts. I haven't played the PS3 version but assuming it is like the PC version, it's quite an achievement by Valve to cram all the environments, interactivity, physics and fluid dynamics onto a now aging system. (I was shocked by GT5 on PS3, I thought I was looking at a PC racing game from 2006 - and not just because of the graphics)
Mobile gaming may wear away console titles, but I don't see that really happening (yet).
(I was shocked by GT5 on PS3, I thought I was looking at a PC racing game from 2006 - and not just because of the graphics)
Please elaborate
Well, Steve Jobs himself has said "We don't need any more fart apps". So while I don't think Apple should be draconian about it, at some point they need to say "Your app isn't adding anything of value to our store." I'm all for consumer choice, but consumers can't make a choice if they can't find your product because it's buried under 100s or 1000s of junk apps.
As to finding things, I think _all_ of Apple's stores, iTunes, the Apps Store, and iBooks, could use help in this area. And that's speaking with my consumer hat on, not my developer hat.
Improved organization would help. For example, I don't need to scroll through dozens and dozens of apps in non-English languages if I'm only looking for English. So organizing things by language would be a great help all by itself.
Improved search would help too. If I'm only looking for, say, animate movies, it'd be nice if there was a way to search for that. You can go to iTunes, click movies, and search for "Animated", but it doesn't return all the animated movies, just a few. Plus it returns hits for "Animated" from all categories, not just movies.
In the beginning an app called "Pull my Finger" was rejected from the app store BUT due to the outcry and continuous whining of Internet trolls, fart apps were allowed.
As far as finding things goes it's like anything, if you have an interest in a particular area you will seek out reviews and recommendations from similar minded people, the Internet makes this pretty easy and iTunes store makes it easy too, using the search function, wtf is that about foreign language Apps, iTunes isn't Android market, here in Australia all the apps are in English, the US store may have Spanish and the Canadian may have French, I don't know I don't access them.
Apple's success with the iPhone 4 and the App Store has earned the company several impressive records in the 2011 Gamer's Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ][/url][/c]
A plead from a real gamer. A gamer since 1986 whose support, along with the support of other gamers a like, have help to create the innovative market that exists today.
I love Apple as much as the next fanboy here but let's face it, the games available on the iPad and iPhone are for the other 75% of people who don't know anything about gaming and who probably have jobs and lives. Speaking for the other 25% of real gamers who actually play good quality video games (emphasize on GOOD QUALITY) I can confidently say that Apple is in an entirely different gaming market, for now at least. The gaming market that Apple has created is for noobs who wish to play simple games for 15 mins while they are waiting at the bus stop, doctor's office, coffee shop, etc. I'm not complaining about the games in the App Store, for $1 you can't expect much more. Going to an actual gaming review website you will hardly find reviews of iphone games making the home page of IGN or gamespot. Until Apple starts encouraging QUALITY games with depth and replay value, the AppStore games will never really be on par with Mario games on DS or MLB 2011 on PSP. When it comes to real games buttons>touch screen.
Sorry. I'm not trying to sound like a butthurt nintendo/sony/microsft fanboy here but its important to the development of future cutting edge games that we don't send the wrong message to game developers. That message being, "We want more dumb down, touch screen games. We choose quantity over quality." We are constantly approaching a revolutionary point in gaming. With games like LA Noire, Portal 2, and RDR it's important that we don't create an atmosphere that discourages a good quality innovative gaming experience in exchange for 100 crappy repetitive ones.
Our gaming market is in trouble and when it's too late we will be surrounded millions of horrible games. The gaming market is being killed so that developers can make easy bucks selling garbage for $1. Let's call it what it is, AppStore games are the Top Ramen of video games; cheap, affordable, and tasty but no real nutritional value. The success of AppStore games has very little to do with quality and everything to do being cheap and accessible.
All game systems have had their dogs, as I stated before seek out reviews and seek out games that suit your interest.
A plead from a real gamer. A gamer since 1986 whose support, along with the support of other gamers a like, have help to create the innovative market that exists today.
I love Apple as much as the next fanboy here but let's face it, the games available on the iPad and iPhone are for the other 75% of people who don't know anything about gaming and who probably have jobs and lives. Speaking for the other 25% of real gamers who actually play good quality video games (emphasize on GOOD QUALITY) I can confidently say that Apple is in an entirely different gaming market, for now at least. The gaming market that Apple has created is for noobs who wish to play simple games for 15 mins while they are waiting at the bus stop, doctor's office, coffee shop, etc. I'm not complaining about the games in the App Store, for $1 you can't expect much more. Going to an actual gaming review website you will hardly find reviews of iphone games making the home page of IGN or gamespot. Until Apple starts encouraging QUALITY games with depth and replay value, the AppStore games will never really be on par with Mario games on DS or MLB 2011 on PSP. When it comes to real games buttons>touch screen.
Sorry. I'm not trying to sound like a butthurt nintendo/sony/microsft fanboy here but its important to the development of future cutting edge games that we don't send the wrong message to game developers. That message being, "We want more dumb down, touch screen games. We choose quantity over quality." We are constantly approaching a revolutionary point in gaming. With games like LA Noire, Portal 2, and RDR it's important that we don't create an atmosphere that discourages a good quality innovative gaming experience in exchange for 100 crappy repetitive ones.
Our gaming market is in trouble and when it's too late we will be surrounded millions of horrible games. The gaming market is being killed so that developers can make easy bucks selling garbage for $1. Let's call it what it is, AppStore games are the Top Ramen of video games; cheap, affordable, and tasty but no real nutritional value. The success of AppStore games has very little to do with quality and everything to do being cheap and accessible.
Loosen the purse strings and I think you'll find some pretty good games from Gameloft, EA Games and other top publishers..
Ha ha ha, you said good games from EA, and made a claim the they are top publisher.
EA are the last place I would look to get a good game
How meaningful these things are depends on your POV. I have few "in-depth" games I play, notably the Civ series and Sid Meier's Pirates. Why? Because my free time is fragmented and doesn't allow me the luxury of spending hours on end playing your much bally-hoo'd "real" games. I haven't had a dedicated gaming PC in years, and while we own both XBox and Wii - both tend to languish.
However, during the course of my day I will seize a moment and go in to play any of a variety of games on my mobile device, because the moment presented itself, and lo! I have my mobile device with me and can do so.
The VAST majority of consumers work this way - the dedicated few who have the free time to play in-depth/serialized games are in a small (if vocal) minority. SO yeah, the GBWR status is important because it reflects, not the minority, not dedicated gaming systems, but the actual use of millions of people who are driving a simpler, more accessible approach to games. Hopefully it doesn't mean that envelope-pushing immersive games will go the way of the dodo, and being talked about as history rather than current. It may be that Kinnect and other advanced interfaces will allow for a renaissance in gaming, as certainly increases in processing and graphics have done over the years.
Say what you will, McDonalds et al are in no way haute cusine, but they are widespread and popular. Just because they don't serve filet mignon or quail's eggs on steak tartare with a fine burgundy doesn't mean they are irrelevant or not profitable. The sheer ubiquity and thousands of locations make them both profitable and serve a sizeable section of market need. But no one will confuse a Big Mac with a filet mignon (we hope). But many will prefer the ease and convenience of said Big Mac over the cost and dedicated dining time of the filet experience for a greater share of their experience and consumption.
Uh, no. So nice little puff-piece on the part of Guinness, but no one buys an iPhone 4 solely for its gaming prowess. It may be a contributing factor, but the iPod is a better comparison.
Besides, "Internet Explorer" is the "gaming device of choice" because it's what millions of people use to play Farmville.
Marvin, you do have some points but we are seeing a watering down of everything... What great books have been published in the past five years? Movies have gone down the toilet. TV luckily has had a slight renaissance. Websites? Since everything went social and 2.0 the quality of website design has gone out the window. Nobody cares about layout and whitespace and quality imagery... It's all cram as much info into the page as possible and "socialise" everything, don't forget the ads too!
It's a bleak picture and you're right. I see all those things happening too and I don't think it's just the usual resistance to change, it's clearly not a good way to go. Sacrificing quality for profit or marketshare is a bad compromise to make and it surprises me to see Apple do it so willingly here.
Interesting that you mention consoles, I can raise tirades against consoles wearing away quality PC titles... While I enjoyed Portal2 I swear there were a lot of compromises made to accommodate consoles, such as such constant loading of levels and very highly controlled polygon counts.
The level loading was possibly because it was based off the old HL2 engine. Other engines like in Mafia 2 and GTA, stream data in. These games don't have the loading times on consoles.
I actually think modern consoles have done a lot to help PC gaming in the sense that, as pointed out above, there needs to be a market for developers to sell to and consoles have provided a guaranteed platform of well over 100 million people who have bought the devices in order to play games. This has made it profitable for developers to even consider making certain games.
They do get downgraded vs what's capable on the PC side but the vast majority of PC gamers don't have GPUs that exceed the PS3 and XBox anyway so I don't think it has held back PC gaming significantly. I'd say that social gaming has hindered it a lot because it's a diversion that draws too many developers away from doing good work. If you told a developer they could either spend 5 years building a game that cost $20m and have to struggle to sell it for $40-60 to a large target audience but not one that uses the platform specifically for games vs spending a few months building a game for 100k they could sell for $1 to 300 million users, it's like telling them they can laze around, eat junk food and still have a six-pack.
Fewer consequences for failure, less effort and the same if not greater reward. All you have to do is compromise on quality.
With games like LA Noire, Portal 2, and RDR it's important that we don't create an atmosphere that discourages a good quality innovative gaming experience in exchange for 100 crappy repetitive ones.
Our gaming market is in trouble and when it's too late we will be surrounded millions of horrible games.
Exactly and another problem is that the people who don't care about quality gaming now and support weak, social gaming won't care when that happens.