Android as a platform for a commercial game
I am currently developing a small non-commercial Android game that is based on OpenGL ES. Except for some minor issues (slow as the crap emulator is the biggest), I've really enjoyed it so far and would love to keep developing for it. The question is: what are your thoughts on the future of Android as an environment for the gaming market? I read an article somewhere that said the IPhone is the preferred platform for gaming, but since I don't have a Mac and won't worry about doing some complicated work to get it to work on Windows, I'm not currently interested in this. ... So what do you think? Is it worth spending a lot of time (and possibly money) on a larger Android project?
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Short answer: it's too early to tell. Technically, this platform is no better or worse for game developers than the iPhone. Both have some support for 3D graphics, both have good support for multimedia - only the language is different from ObjectiveC or Java.
The problem lies not in technical capabilities, but in the popularity of the platform and a purely business decision, if Android is a good gaming platform. There is definitely an iPhone, and a lot of people are already making money off of it. Whether Android will be popular and people will be willing to buy the game for some money is a good question.
There is some difference between Android and iPhone users and developers. Android is a more open platform, and more free software (or even open source). For the iPhone, most apps cost $ 1.
Thus, audience expectations are different. Android users expect more apps to be free and will (most likely) only pay when the software you give them is really worth spending any money. IPhone users are willing to pay $ 1 to even try the app because they bought an Apple product that was expensive to start with.
Will this trend continue? Or there will be audience types converging as more paid apps hitting the Android market are an open question.
Finally, in the end, there will eventually be several million users of the Android platform. So if you develop a kick ass game, it has an entire audience. And if Android doesn't become a platform for games, it might even be good for you because you won't have competition.
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In my opinion, it's worth it.
As @Marcin said, Android is more of an open platform than an iPhone. And it's easier for developers to start by developing applications and bringing them to market.
But that means the market is filled with a lot of crappy apps. And then there really are shiny jewelry. They get good ratings, blogs and tweets, and are popular.
So, in my opinion, if you have an idea for a good game, go for it. If you put it on the market, consider putting (at least the "lite" version) in a free zone (people in some countries can't even access the paid app market).
the bottom is completely the same as my own opinion and you can just skip it
There are some cool mobile games that I love to play. For me, there are a few important things to look out for when developing such a game that are not so important in more "traditional" games, on the console or PC:
- to start and stop you just need (fast!). If I play on the bus, it might only be 1 stop. If it starts right away and then doesn't take 5 minutes to stop it, it's +
- one more thing about fast start / stop. If I leave the game, come back, give me a chance to continue where I left off. No need to ask if I want to save / load the last game. Make it the default, I can always start a new game if I want, can I?
- controls - even games with the accelerometer are sometimes fun, try playing in a crowded place. like a bus. The touchscreen elements must be large enough for even fat fingers to use. If they are, this is +
- For a long time, I've been trying to figure out why playing Bejeweled, or Puzzle Quest, was fun and enjoyable, while many of their clones were just annoying. Differentiation was a tiny part of the user interface - in Bejeweled, all you have is different colors and shapes. They are much easier to "work" (presumably Bejeweled) and then, say, a screen full of colorful triangles. If you make a game like this, make different parts in different ways, not just one (different shapes with the same colors will suck even more: red triangles, yellow circles, blue squares and black skulls are the way to go - in my opinion)
- This is a mobile device connected to WIFI or 3G network, you can use the Internet to at least show / save high scores. But - remember - sometimes there is no network, we are in a different country where roaming is disabled or at the bottom of the ocean. Make a game even there.
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Thanks for answers!
I myself believe the market will pick up steam when more Android phones hit the market, although my biggest fear is that it will end up with 90% of the games being below average on Xbox Live Indie Games, which of course affects reputation in the gaming community. One thing I don't understand is why there was no pre-approval before before an app or game was released to the market. I understand that they want people, not the company, to decide what should be allowed to upload, but then they can allow users to be reviewers to do at least some quality checks before release.
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The iPhone has the advantage of a huge market (roughly 10x android at the moment), and even better, most of these users have already given Apple their credit card to be ready to buy. Getting Android users to work .99 is hard. Depending on the game, you can make decent money (50-100 / day) from ads. The former is likely to change with more Android phones and other android carriers (Verizon will be huge for the US market)
Technically Android is a bit slower (Java vs. Object C), but with the NDK you can get decent performance. The iPhone has better opengl support (1.1 and 2.0 on GS) while android is over 1.0.
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