Dealing with GS's splash screen

Khakionion

I'm anxious to hear from GS users: what clients do you have that insist on not having third-party splash screens? They must be huge if their requirements are more restrictive than the likes of Nintendo, Square, Activision and EA.

If you have already told them how long it would take to make their app without a splash screen (and, therefore, without GameSalad), what was their reaction? By how much did you raise your quote...?

JohnPapiomitis

Khakionion said:
I'm anxious to hear from GS users: what clients do you have that insist on not having third-party splash screens? They must be huge if their requirements are more restrictive than the likes of Nintendo, Square, Activision and EA.

If you have already told them how long it would take to make their app without a splash screen (and, therefore, without GameSalad), what was their reaction? By how much did you raise your quote...?

Any games or apps im contracted to do from clients i do strictly in xcode. As amazing as gamesalad is theres only so much you can do with gs. And the last thing i would ever do is tell a client something cant be done or doesnt work correctly becuase of the engine i do. I know obj c can be a pain, but ill bang my head against the wall all night for them big bucks. As far as my personal games though its gs all the way, becuase i can always work around something i cant do or change an idea of my own.

Khakionion

JohnPapiomitis said:I know obj c can be a pain, but ill bang my head against the wall all night for them big bucks...

Sure, and maybe I'm playing a bit of Devil's Advocate here but I'd like to know what clients are so self-absorbed that they insist on no splash-screens, when the big hitters of the PC/Mac/console world have no problem with branded logos before a game starts.

dotsonj23

I think for the most part, people are just straight exagerating. They just don't want it for their own pesonal games. I mean really, who professionally developes for others and uses GS. If they knew you were using GS they would fire you in a heartbeat. They could just get a free intern to learn it and do if for free. As far as I am concerned I just don't believe it. I mean come on, even major studios for give some credit for ai and animation engines. Again, just people who really don't know what they are talking about in my opinion. Now maybe different if is an in-house non-distributed app but GS is not designed to make those anyways but games.

JohnPapiomitis

Khakionion said:
Sure, and maybe I'm playing a bit of Devil's Advocate here but I'd like to know what clients are so self-absorbed that they insist on no splash-screens, when the big hitters of the PC/Mac/console world have no problem with branded logos before a game starts.

Sorry i kinda bounced around your question there and didnt give u a clear answer, im kinda out of it right now lol. It basically depends on the view of the person whos contracting you. Ive had clients that understand how much work is involved, and let me put whatever splash screens i want in the begining. Then ive had some demand no splash screens and mentions of any companys besides there own. They are paying for it so you want all credit to them. And instead of having me publish under my dev account as most of my clients do they buy a dev account just for there one app to have there name as publish, and i just get paid to build the xcode project then send it to them. So it really depends on the person and how flexible they are.

JohnPapiomitis

dotsonj23 said:
I think for the most part, people are just straight exagerating. They just don't want it for their own pesonal games. I mean really, who professionally developes for others and uses GS. If they knew you were using GS they would fire you in a heartbeat. They could just get a free intern to learn it and do if for free. As far as I am concerned I just don't believe it. I mean come on, even major studios for give some credit for ai and animation engines. Again, just people who really don't know what they are talking about in my opinion. Now maybe different if is an in-house non-distributed app but GS is not designed to make those anyways but games.

Thats exactly what i was trying to say in another post, but i didnt say cause i didnt want people to think i was bashing gs because it is awesome. But any client that find out theres limitaions to there game or app becuase you use a engine, and dont actually program wil become extremely ajitated and think your taking the lazy way out. Thats why like i said uptop all contracted games or apps i do in xcode only.

Khakionion

JohnPapiomitis said:
Ive had clients that understand how much work is involved, and let me put whatever splash screens i want in the begining. Then ive had some demand no splash screens and mentions of any companys besides there own. They are paying for it so you want all credit to them.

...and I'd love to know whose those clients are, even if you can only drop hints. It just fascinates me that Intel/NVidia can have animated intro videos before the hottest new PC releases from the likes of Epic Games et al while GS users claim to have clients with insane "no splash screen" demands.

This is your thread! Speak up! Who is demanding more from you than Capcom, Epic and Square ever would?

JohnPapiomitis

Sorry im being so vague lol, to tell you the truth the bigger clients are the ones who mostly dont care (at least for me anyway) and its the small and personal business owners that dont like it. I guess with the way the econmy is and everything they feel if there paying for something to promote there business it shouldnt be promoting anything else in there app.

Khakionion

JohnPapiomitis said:
Sorry im being so vague lol, to tell you the truth the bigger clients are the ones who mostly dont care (at least for me anyway) and its the small and personal business owners that dont like it. I guess with the way the econmy is and everything they feel if there paying for something to promote there business it shouldnt be promoting anything else in there app.

That makes sense. I'd love to hear a name, hint, or even any sort of info as to what industry these clients work in, so other game developers can avoid them.

JohnPapiomitis

Clothing (Looking over my shoulder hehe)

RondoRocket

I'm personally indifferent about the splash screen, but from what I gather there are a fair share of people that want the appearance of not having to rely on 3rd party software for their development. Whether it's for personal reasons like the marketing of their games and the perceived negative impact 3rd party branding will have. Or that clients will not allow any 3rd party branding into apps they paid to have developed.

I think what people don't understand is why the engines that are GS's closest competitors like Unity and Corona offer a non-branding option and GS doesn't. I suspect they do it for a reason and most likely it's because people that use these engines are often working for smaller companies who have very little knowledge of the game industry and don't understand what is generally considered acceptable.

Just my two cents, whether it's accurate or not is anyones guess. If there are enough people requesting a version of GS without splash screen and are willing to pay for it why not give it to them? I suspect the number of people who will purchase the splash free version will be small enough it won't really impact whatever return GS expects to get with the branding. On the other hand maybe the number is so small it's not worth their time.

Yogamatta

Khakionion said:
I'm anxious to hear from GS users: what clients do you have that insist on not having third-party splash screens? They must be huge if their requirements are more restrictive than the likes of Nintendo, Square, Activision and EA.

If you have already told them how long it would take to make their app without a splash screen (and, therefore, without GameSalad), what was their reaction? By how much did you raise your quote...?

You've probably missed my post earlier. As I said then you are comparing well known companies with strong trade marks with small businesses which are trying to make a name for themselves. In that case it is very important with slash screen as it is first thing people see when they start the app. It's all about branding. And that is why GS wants to be there. If it wasn't important it would not raise the heat.

Number one reason for small companies to make an iPhone app is advertisement for themselves. The reason they like developers to use GS is the cost. So if the alternatives are to make an app with GS and partially lose branding opportunity or not to make it at all because of high cost, I think the answer would be not doing it.