Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: persia on November 22, 2008, 07:49:54 PM
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Developer strikes it rich with iPhone game
By Brandon Griggs
CNN
(CNN) -- With its glassy touch screen, powerful graphics, crisp sound and tilt feature, the iPhone is more than a smart phone for some users -- it's a portable entertainment system.
It's also become a potential gold mine for entrepreneurs who create games for the device. Just ask Steve Demeter, developer of the popular puzzle game "Trism."
A former ATM software designer for a large bank, Demeter created "Trism" in his spare time and pitched it to Apple last spring. The company made the game available for download with the July launch of its App Store, an online provider of applications for its iPods and iPhones.
Priced at $5, "Trism" earned Demeter $250,000 in profits the first two months.
"It's done phenomenal business," said Demeter, 29, who lives in the California's San Francisco Bay area. "I'm very honored that so many people would enjoy my game. I get e-mails from 50-year-old ladies who say, "I don't play games, but I love Trism.' That's the coolest thing."
It can take dozens of professional developers and millions of dollars to create a video game for a traditional console such as a PlayStation or an Xbox. But the iPhone and the App Store have helped democratize game development by opening the field to any software coder with talent and a clever idea, industry observers say.
"A single one of these titles can be turned around for pennies by comparison in just weeks by a single hobbyist working in their off-hours," said Scott Steinberg, publisher of DigitalTrends.com and author of "Get Rich Playing Games." "The overhead and barriers to entry are so low that virtually anyone can afford to take a crack, if not several, at hitting a home run."
Demeter took his crack after attending an iPhone conference in the summer of 2007. He spent months afterward brainstorming, by himself and with friends, about how to create an original game for the device. Once he got the idea for "Trism" in February he spent another four months coding the game on nights and weekends.
The result is a puzzle game, like "Bejeweled," in which players manipulate a colorful grid of triangles. Players score points by lining up three or more like-colored triangles in a row, with an iPhone twist: The triangles rearrange themselves depending on which way the player rotates the phone.
"I did the game myself, basically. I had a buddy of mine who actually came up with the name 'Trism.' I paid him a couple of grand. But other than that it [was] just me," Demeter told CNN. "It's a very simple-to-learn, hard-to-master puzzle game. It wasn't as hard [to develop] as a 3-D, gun-and-battle kind of game. But for the one-man team that I was, it was definitely a challenge."
Demeter quit his bank job two months ago and has launched a company, Demiforce, to develop more electronic games. Now he has a salaried staff, five games in development and two coming out by Christmas, including a spinoff to "Trism" called "Trismology."
"Apple has made it so easy to put [game publishing] in the palms of developers," he said. "You just make it and then you submit it to Apple. If you have a relevant, fun game or application, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be approved."
Developers earn 70 percent of App Store proceeds from the sale of their games, with Apple taking 30 percent.
The field is getting crowded, though. There now are more than 1,500 iPhone games available from the App Store, up from about 900 two months ago.
"It's a rich and promising vein that several independent game publishers have been able to successfully tap," said DigitalTrends' Steinberg in an e-mail interview. "However, success stories remain the exception, not the norm -- as with any gold rush, what we're presently seeing is a massive number of prospectors looking to stake their claim.
"Many of the overnight successes we've witnessed enjoyed the benefits of timing and visibility, advantages quickly being eroded due to market oversaturation," Steinberg added. "Let's put it this way: I wouldn't tell anyone to quit their day job just yet. As with any Cinderella story, chances of recreating this kind of success are few and far between."
CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/11/18/iphone.game.developer/index.html)
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Now play nice. No personal insults this time!
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And this has to do with Amiga's how ..?
This is AMIGA.ORG not apple.com
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@ZeBeeDee
Ditto!
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This is the "alternate Operating System" forum!
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So a game for a phone is an 'alternative operating system' ... interesting ...
All I see is iphone, game, apple.com ... nothing to do with an alternative OS me thinks.
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What is the point then of posting a news item from CNN with no further comment? Is there anything you would want to discuss from the item or are you just stirring the pot? Especially your second post in this topic is weird as no-one even replied to your post yet. Almost as if your waiting for a flamewar.
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ZeBeeDee wrote:
So a game for a phone is an 'alternative operating system' ... interesting ...
All I see is iphone, game, apple.com ... nothing to do with an alternative OS me thinks.
Alternative OS is pretty all encompassing and the iPhone runs Mac OSX.
Amiga.org is inclusive, not exclusive. Why not be able to discuss mainstream alternatives from an Amiga user's perspective?
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sorry red but IMHO the way the original post reads, it's an advert for apple, a game and iphone
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Is peria not just simply pointing out that money can still be made from bedroom programming. I really don`t see what the problem is with his post.
Consider the context.
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Maybe he could have pointed out what his idea was in copying a news item from another site instead of us interpreting his original motivations?
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The "news" article is propaganda.
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You guys can kvetch all you like. It's sounding a little like jealousy. I'm *not* a proponent of AI's "the Amiga is a phone OS" idea, but I do like money. The ability to built or port a simple game idea and make $250k in two months is.. well.. enticing to say the least.
Unfortunately, it looks like Amiga Inc may have had the right idea (for making money) but has missed the boat long ago.
Wayne
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ChaosLord wrote:
The "news" article is propaganda.
Exactly! It's just another symptom of the "ooh, shiny!" Homer Simpson-esque obsession some areas of the media have with the iPhone at the moment.
Bedroom coders make money from coding Symbian and Windows Mobile applications all the time - and they don't have to pay for the privilege or have their work approved by a committee.
- Ali
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"Bedroom coders make money from coding Symbian and Windows Mobile applications all the time - and they don't have to pay for the privilege or have their work approved by a committee"
I am sure they do make a few dollars, but show me just one of them that has made $250,000 in two months.
All this jealous crap I am seeing here makes me wonder why I still visit this website everyday if this is what Amiga users are turning into.
The article shows how one coder from his home can still make some decent money if he has an original idea, or just plain luck, and that should be interesting to any computer enthusiast, be they Windows, Linux, Mac, or Amiga users.
I don't own an iPhone, and it is looking like I won't be getting one soon, so I am not biased or spouting any propaganda. Wayne is right, there was a time, a tiny fragment of days, weeks, or maybe even months, where A.Inc might have been able to get in on the mobile & cell phone market and made a few dollars, but that time is long past. A.Inc has no future now.
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amigadave wrote:
I am sure they do make a few dollars, but show me just one of them that has made $250,000 in two months.
I'm not going to get into an argument, like in the last incarnation of this thread. But you DO realize just how easy it would be for Apple's extraordinary (and I say that with no sarcasm intended) marketing/propaganda department to create a myth of some bedroom coder making $250,000+ selling his s/w through their store?
It's not difficult to conjure such magical illusions, I assure you.
And that's not "jealously", as I could quite easily afford to walk into Dixans on Monday morning and purchase this trendy little toy. I just have no interest in over hyped, over priced fashion accessories because I'm no longer a teenager.
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I don't really think this is Apple marketing hype. If you have a large enough market, and a very hot game, it's possible to make quite a lot of money in a very short time.
Trism, which is the name of the game in question, started getting hype from game sites (see google) as far back as February....the hype, it's the next big game.
The iPhone and iPod Touch have been flying off the shelf for over a year and the cost of Trism makes the decision to buy it easy.
I'll never forget the folks at Play's reaction when they released Snappy to the PC market. After numerous Amiga products as Digital Creations, Snappy was the first product that really made them serious money. Only because it was released to the PC market and its much larger user base.
I'm not sure why all the feathers here are ruffled but it appears folks are rather bothered by someone being successful. Go figure...
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Simple solution: ask the author how much he/she made and then stop whining like children.
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moto
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I too wish to repost:
15 years ago I would have spent (and did spend) my spare time writing stupid little games for my Amiga, I would slave over the gfx and sound and code to get something that was ok, and I would give a copy to all my friends who would give me feedback while enjoying playing it... I would put a floppy disk into an envelope and send it to a publisher and never hear back... My only option was then to go to my local PD store and put out a Demo in their library and hope that I would get some feedback and requests to buy the full game... Also that my PD library would hopefully share my Demo with other PD libraries.
I never heard anything back, nothing.
Now I can spend the same amount of time writing a game for my iPhone... I can share it with all my iPhone owning friends for free... Then once I'm happy with it, I can pay apple $100 (one off cost, no limit to the number of apps I can put on the store) and it gets published on their app store (to every person in the world with an iphone) with a 70:30 profit split in my favour...
Which is the better deal?
My friend Kris has just released and iPhone app (search for "Gold Price" on your app store). And it's been a surprising success for him, the app took about 10 min to write and another couple of days to debug.
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To be honest, if I had a Mac and an iPhone, I'd download the SDK and try it out, just to see what happens. However, I don't even have a Mac.
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
To be honest, if I had a Mac and an iPhone, I'd download the SDK and try it out, just to see what happens.
Hans
You don't need an iPhone, the SDK has a built in iPhone emulator to allow quick testing... if you have a "hackintosh", you can give it a spin too... I think as a coder you would enjoy it!
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bloodline wrote:
You don't need an iPhone, the SDK has a built in iPhone emulator to allow quick testing... if you have a "hackintosh", you can give it a spin too... I think as a coder you would enjoy it!
I'll check that out when I have time.
Hans
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Hans_ wrote:
I'll check that out when I have time.
Hans
If you've got a penchant for silly maths (vector) it's even got a VFPU and theres a handy vector/matrix math library (vfp (http://code.google.com/p/vfpmathlibrary/)) for it too :-D
Good for all kinds of 2d/3d gfx processing, animation, physics etc effects!
Andy
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AJCopland wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
I'll check that out when I have time.
Hans
If you've got a penchant for silly maths (vector) it's even got a VFPU and theres a handy vector/matrix math library (vfp (http://code.google.com/p/vfpmathlibrary/)) for it too :-D
Good for all kinds of 2d/3d gfx processing, animation, physics etc effects!
Andy
The iPhone (like most new handhelds now) also support OpenGL ES, with direct hardware acceleration via a PowerVR 3D chip :-)
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AJCopland wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
I'll check that out when I have time.
Hans
If you've got a penchant for silly maths (vector) it's even got a VFPU and theres a handy vector/matrix math library (vfp (http://code.google.com/p/vfpmathlibrary/)) for it too :-D
Good for all kinds of 2d/3d gfx processing, animation, physics etc effects!
Andy
Yes, I have a thing for vector mathematics, 3D graphics, etc. (have a look at my website). Unfortunately, OSx86 won't work on my Acer Ferrari 4000 laptop, so it will have to wait.
Hans
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@Wayne
Unfortunately, it looks like Amiga Inc may have had the right idea (for making money) but has missed the boat long ago.
I don't think Amiga Inc ever had the right idea for making money. They correctly identified an emerging market (cell phone trinkets) but completely blew the idea for making money from it.
Amiga Inc essentially wanted to do nothing, and just be the shepherds of an API that could be installed on 3rd party devices. With the high diversity and short lifespan of those 3rd party devices, it made Amiga Inc's business model unworkable.
Apple went the other direction. They specified and built everything. They built the phone, the OS, the API, the marketplace, and even dictated the agreements with the service providers!
We see which business model won.
Now, coming back around to the article... Sure, it's wonderful you can code an app or game and make a few bucks on a handheld platform. To me, it's interesting to consider why developers can make money on an iPhone app, and not a PC/Mac/Linux/Console, and what changes that might lead to software development, and platforms in general, in the future.
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Hans_ wrote:
AJCopland wrote:
Hans_ wrote:
I'll check that out when I have time.
Hans
If you've got a penchant for silly maths (vector) it's even got a VFPU and theres a handy vector/matrix math library (vfp (http://code.google.com/p/vfpmathlibrary/)) for it too :-D
Good for all kinds of 2d/3d gfx processing, animation, physics etc effects!
Andy
Yes, I have a thing for vector mathematics, 3D graphics, etc. (have a look at my website). Unfortunately, OSx86 won't work on my Acer Ferrari 4000 laptop, so it will have to wait.
Hans
Before I was prepared to commit to buying a Mac, I did play with OSx86 a lot!!! So if you need a hand to get it working I might be able to help!
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Ilwrath wrote:
Now, coming back around to the article... Sure, it's wonderful you can code an app or game and make a few bucks on a handheld platform. To me, it's interesting to consider why developers can make money on an iPhone app, and not a PC/Mac/Linux/Console, and what changes that might lead to software development, and platforms in general, in the future.
Right now, I think that everything is shiny and new, and people will pay a dollar or two for pointless gimmicky things. I remember seeing someone with an iPhone show off little apps that did things such as turn your phone into a fake lighter, complete with a wrist-flick to light up. I also saw people get amazingly competitive with this bubble-wrap popping game in which you basically thump your (or someone else's ;-) ) iPhone to bits with your fingers, trying to pop as many bubbles within a few minutes as possible. You can't do stuff like that on a PC because there's no multi-touch screen, and no accelerometers (for the lighter thingie).
Once people get bored of these things, making money off iPhone apps will probably require more effort. It sounds like the guy that this article talks about did put in a fair bit of effort.
Hans
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Ilwrath wrote:
Now, coming back around to the article... Sure, it's wonderful you can code an app or game and make a few bucks on a handheld platform. To me, it's interesting to consider why developers can make money on an iPhone app, and not a PC/Mac/Linux/Console, and what changes that might lead to software development, and platforms in general, in the future.
What is interesting is how Google, Nokia and now MicroSoft have all started services that follow the Apple App store service model...
Apple really stuck luck when it decided to use the iTunes iPod content delivery model for digital music... and they are making full use of the infrastructure to try out new concepts... I notice that Apple have tried to apply the same model to Video downloads, and it has not been even slightly as successful as Music and applications...
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This is the alternative OS forum... but... reading about so many people talks more about mac than amiga in an amiga forum is a bit sad, i cant see all of this atraction in a mac, i have one of them, waiting for morphos of course.
Like sad is to play on iphone, where are the buttons on this "phone"? playing touching the screen? yes very mac, cool, fashion but useless.
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kickstart wrote:
This is the alternative OS forum... but... reading about so many people talks more about mac than amiga in an amiga forum is a bit sad, i cant see all of this atraction in a mac, i have one of them, waiting for morphos of course.
Like sad is to play on iphone, where are the buttons on this "phone"? playing touching the screen? yes very mac, cool, fashion but useless.
Just play with your Nokia, and wait until they get Touch Screen working :-)
Seriously, From a technical stand point the iPhone is pretty good... and the app store allows any of us to distribute our apps to any person on earth who has an iPhone... If you don't get how amazing that is... You've never developed software and had to deal with a publisher :-(
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I dont play with my phone, well just one game is addictive in a phone Snake in 5110 or 6110 this was really cool in a phone, but its nokia and not apple, apple sell a one button mouse with some useless things and "reinvented the mouse" callin it mighty mouse.
At the eyes of a "normal" user iphone is a cool pda with a shorted phone. Nothing personal with you bloodline just my opinion.
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The 'Mighty Mouse' has more than one button ;)
My original response in the original thread, restated is:
I think the iPhone SDK is a great idea and the iPhone itself a growing platform for any person who fancies making a game or app themselves. It's actually a nice phone and I wouldn't part with mine. A lot of the apps for it are 'gimmicky' but that's true of any new platform. As it matures I think we are going to see some interesting stuff.
I am also excited because not since the 'classic' days of the 80's has it been possible to produce and sell your own software and actually have the chance of turning a nice profit. Until now, the biggest platforms were the PC/Console markets and you needed big money and a team of people to produce and sell stuff. I have to credit Microsoft with coming up with the idea first with the homegrown game creation stuff on the X-Box, but Apple once again have polished the idea and given it mass appeal.
I know this is an Amiga site, but let's face it, you can only recycle so much information for a dead platform. Sometimes you have to look at the modern technology mark to get things into perspective. Although I notice a tendency to shoot down anything in flames that isn't an Amiga. It is a good idea to see what else is going on.
Personally I'd rather spend my time writing something for the iPhone than the Amiga, since people will actually pay you for an iPhone app. I may actually download this SDK and have a look.
And yes, I use Apple products and love them. I also use a PC and Commodore stuff.
For those berating Apple for the way they run the apps store, you should be thankful that you never had to deal with Sega and Nintendo when their systems used cartridges!