The top games in Play Store are ridiculous!
JodyMitoma
Member Posts: 307
So I was taking a look at the Google Play Store earlier, and noticed a lot of ridiculousness.
This new "Don't touch the white tile" game, is getting way too much fame, and aside from that, there are a good TEN replica's of the game in the top 300! I couldn't believe it!
Then something else I noticed is people taking two extremely popular games, and combining them into one! WTF? Sometimes it not even making sense to do so! Like Floppy 2048. Ugh... haha...
I even saw a game that took THREE popular titles, and combined all three into one game! And it was a rather decently respected company, too! Ever atrocious!
It blew my mind that people cannot be any more original... and that people were actually downloading these games.
I'm starting to realize that a lot of the top games are actually very simple, and I think I may be spending too much time on my game, trying to make it all beautiful and what not. Hmmm..
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I'm also disapointed with mobile markets, that's why I plan to start moving my development closer to PC platform.
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Now once u do a game and selling good, many people clone it and ruining market. I think nowadays mobile market some games no creativity, just clone it to earn money. I also notice recently some apps are so simple and addictive. For my opinion, game have simple gameplay and good replay value, so that you can successful, eg doodle jump.
The demise of the indie market is happening right before your eyes my friends. This crap is ruining our industry. Unfortunatly I don't have the answer to the problem. Apple and google hold all the cards on this one it seems. They have got to put a stop to this stuff if we want anyone to trust the Indy world. I don't get how it's hurts apple or google to do this bit for some reason they won't.
The only thing I can think of is the big companies that pay some of apple and googles bills want the indie market to spiral out of control. That way they can say look at how worthless indie games are you have to buy your games from proven studios like us.
And yes I do have my tin foil hat on right now.
It's pretty much just a retreading of the shareware days. A whole ton of derivative crap drowning out the majority of the well-crafted gems.
All this has happened before etc. etc.
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The idea of releasing much simpler games keeps crossing my mind. Just to see how they fare given it seems they do as well if not better than well crafted bigger games. Hopefully I'll finish my current bigger project first.
@Armelline that's a great reference image. Took me a while to recognise it.. . rudyy cylons.
+1
No other industry works like this, it's like a track by Jay-Z is at number 1 - and the rest of the top 40 is full of tracks by people who've taken his original work, and made remixes, some good, some bad and some are just his track with a bit of reverb and echo on.
Sure the music industry has homemade remixes and mash-ups and bootlegs and all kinds of fun stuff, but that stuff tends to live on Youtube and places like that, and they don't directly compete with the original.
Unfortunatly I don't have the answer to the problem. Apple and google hold all the cards on this one it seems. They have got to put a stop to this stuff if we want anyone to trust the Indy world. I don't get how it's hurts apple or google to do this bit for some reason they won't.
Yep, it's up to Apple and Google, they can see they have 2048 at number 1 and they need do no more than look down the charts to see - by way of an example - '2048 extreme', 'speed2048', '20482048' (etc etc) and a load of other rip-offs filling their charts . . . in any other industry this kind of thing simply wouldn't be allowed . . . . imagine launching a magazine called 'Wow!' - and after it becoming successful the publishers notice right next to their magazine on the stands is 'Wowzer!' and 'Wow-Wow' (and so on) - and they notice the content is pretty much a rip off of their work with a few design changes . . . they simply wouldn't allow it.
Right now the mobile app market is the wild west, anything goes, Apple and Google seem to be turning a blind eye and templates (which essentially counterfeit your hard work and sell it on the open market) are an accepted part of the culture - and yes it's going to destroy the indie market.
My prediction is that in time indie developers will need to take their games to the big companies as only they have the legal budget to protect IP - the big companies will effectively be the only viable way onto the App Store or Google, once this becomes established practice expect royalties and fees paid by these companies to indie developers to diminish. We may well look back on the first half decade of the App Store as a golden period, where for the first time indie developers were freed up from having to work for larger companies - by the the democratisation of the mobile games market - and could make an income from their craft, before rampant counterfeiting became the norm forcing people back towards dealing with the larger companies.
It's a bit of balancing act / gamble . . . smaller, simpler games can do really well given most people now play games everywhere, so there's certainly a market for quick casual games, but smaller, simpler games are the ones that get ripped-off easiest - so even if you do moderately well expect people to start counterfeiting your work, the templates will appear first, then a little later a flood of rip-off games that will compete with your original and dilute revenue.
More complex, involved, bigger games are harder to copy, but - of course - take a lot longer for the developer to make, besides being harder to copy another advantage is that it also takes a lot longer to clone, time in which you have to establish your original as the go-to version / brand - or if it's a short lived success then time for you to get into the charts, make some money and sink without having to compete (and share revenue) with the rip-offs.
@Socks
Very true and a good positive view point and probably the one way to try and compete on the app store and with clones.
As you say its a balance. A game release.every fortnight might improve your chance of success and being noticed by the app stores and review sites. (stars aligning in your favour) followed by clones.
I wish there were better ways for games to be discovered. As spending over a year developing a game to know that when releasing it, it could just as easily fall into no mans land straight away. It doesn't stop me dreaming though.
But then if we were only in this for guaranteed money we might have chosen a different hobby/job/gamble.
Perhaps mixing some complicated async multiplayer aspect with simple gameplay might be one route to go. That is until people are adding multiplayer with a single button press (hopefully that won't happen for a while, though a little easier would be nice :-)