Filsinger.org

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged.  Mostly, my comments and thoughts have moved to twitter (on a side note I have been writing an article on twitter in my head, that will come eventually).  In an effort to re-start my blogging days a little, I decided to write a response to a recent article I read about an analyst by the name of Michael Pachter that has stated that he believes the appstore is a terrible place for Game Publishers to go.  His reasoning behind this is that it’s teaching people that games should be extremely cheap and/or free.  Take a game like tetris for example, on the Nintendo DS the game will cost you $20, but is available for $4.99 on the iTunes appstore.  While there is something to be said about how the appstore pricing is flawed in a lot of different ways, barking about how this will kill publishers is not the answer.

After reading the article, my thoughts first went to what happened to the music industry at the turn of the century.  People found a way to obtain free music in a manner that the industry had not yet developed.  They refused to adapt at the pace needed to keep up and lost billions of dollars in revenue.  I’m not going to go into the details as it’s available for a more detailed explanation elsewhere on the net, but suffice to say, the Apple appstore is creating a similar situation.  People can now obtain games on their handheld devices at speeds and prices never seen before.  This is creating a very volatile market where people complain about price increases of $2.99 from $0.99.

I don’t think the answer is to cry fowl, and run around screaming the sky is falling to publishers.  My opinion is that publishers need to learn to adapt, and fast to this new market.  There is money to be made, but previous practices that have worked before are going to have to be thrown out the window and new ideas tried.  Some ideas will be terrible, some will fail, but in that innovation comes and so does the answer to current situation.  The appstore leveled the playing field between developers, publishers.  It created an easy to use fixed distribution model, and has allowed unparalleled access to innovation and usefull applications in one location.  With the store now being at roughly 90,000 applications and over 2 billion downloads so far, the space is crowded.  The game has changed again, and now publishers need to change with it.

Note:

Michael Pachter the analyst listed who made the claims listed in my article has also stated some crazy things before, and seemed to be way off the mark when it came to digital media, distribution and the power of the online world for gaming.  They are summed up here.

Just over a year ago, this sub section of the industry did not exist.  Now it’s reaching sales of approximately $2.5 billion annually and at the moment no signs of slowing down.  It is no wonder everyone is trying to either get into the app store or create their own.

http://gigaom.com/2009/08/27/how-big-is-apple-iphone-app-economy-the-answer-might-surprise-you/

If I were to tell you that Apple’s app economy was worth more than $2.5 $2.4 billion a year, you would laugh hysterically, shake your head and walk out of the room, yes? Surf on over to some other web site? But here I am telling you exactly that! According to mobile advertising startup AdMob, there are some $200 million worth of applications sold in Apple’s iPhone store every month, or about $2.4 billion a year

This is pretty crazy when you think about it.  There are many issues that still need to be addressed, such as their app submission process, and their arbitrary reasons for not approving apps, that have identical content available through TV shows and music that can already be purchased through iTunes. Regardless of all that, this sub section of the software industry has been keeping me employed through this recession and I’m sure happy about it.  Some of the innovation coming out of this market is insane.  (See some of the augmented reality stuff people are doing)

Almost one year to the date I blogged about the iPhone finally coming to Canada.  Now today, Apple announced that the 3rd version of the iPhone will be coming very soon (June 17th to be exact) and has some great new features.  The iPhone 3GS and features some of the following upgrades (along with 3.0):

• Tethering Support
• 3mb Camera
• Tap to focus
• Video
• MMS
• Voice Activation
• Hardware Compass
• Battery Upgrade
• CPU/RAM upgrade

Most of this is old technology, and the iPhone should have had when it launched, but plugged some of the final holes/criticisms of the device.  Now we just need a front facing camera, and flash support built into safari.

The only thing stopping me really from getting the iPhone is Rogers.  It has been said before, but Rogers is the worst iPhone provider in the world.  This is a comparison of the fact that they require a 3 year contract, and they don’t offer unlimited data.  I really hope someday soon the spectrum auction that happened late last year here in Canada will open up the GSM spectrum so more than just Rogers will be able to sell the iPhone.

On another note, ngmoco got to show off their game Star Defense, which is available today, and my company Sculpin QA worked on it with them.  When I first heard about the iPhone 2 years ago, never did I dream the device would pay my bills, and I wouldn’t even own one.  haha.

The one thing that really impressed me today was the application for doctors.  I said to myself “wow we are in the future”.  This app lets a doctor monitor his patients without actually being in the hospital, now it just needs to read alien life forms and be used by Captain Kirk.

The new device comes in at $199 and will have 16gb of storage.  No mention of any new iPod touches, but perhaps that will come out later this summer.  Are there better devices out there?  Yeah in some areas, but it’s the App Store that really makes this device limitless in terms of expandability.  Should be another interesting year.