// September 20th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Game Dev, iDevBlogADay
I was chatting with my old pal, Bryan Zug, after dinner last week. The conversation turned towards companies that turn community into profits: Facebook, StackOverflow, O’Reilly, etc. One thing that stood out to us was how many of these companies benefit monetarily from their community’s output yet do not share the profits with said community. It was a trend we acknowledged that was sadly becoming more and more common. Zug and I have both been involved in businesses where we at least tried to figure out ways to reward the community that helped build them.
Talking with Zug is great because you run the gamut of many topics all within a single car ride. Soon, we were talking about something else and he made this statement:
“Apple’s platform may be its hardware and iOS, but the thing that makes the platform is the apps and the developers who create them.” He’s right and as he continued to talk I wanted to interject, “And when you think about it, Apple was one of the few who figured out how to monetarily reward the community that is contributing to their success.” But Zug soon moved on to another great thought and so I was left to keep that one to myself.
iOS: The Sacrifices
1. Objective-C is the language of the iOS platform:
In a post on my personal blog, I talk about how Apple won the Rich Internet Application platform war that Adobe and Microsoft seem to be fighting amongst themselves. Apple did so quietly, so quietely that neither Adobe nor Microsoft noticed until it was too late. Adobe and Microsoft wanted to create something new, while Apple leveraged their already loyal developer base. Technically, Adobe also had an existing developer base with their Flash platform and Microsoft’s new platform Silverlight borrowed ideas from their other languages. However, Apple is the only one who thought things through from inception to payday. Sure, the easiest way to build an app is with a little known language called Objective-C, but you can use your C/C++ and even your Flash and HTML5 skills to build an app if you want.
2. You need to be connected:
To fully leverage the iOS platform, you need a connection to the internet (wi-fi or 3G). Sure, you can play games offline when there’s not a connection around (that’s probably the only time I really play ‘em, to be honest), but the rest of the magical aspect of these devices comes from the cloud. I read a couple of comics this weekend for the first time in a long while. I did so through my Marvel app (that I downloaded via the cloud) and read my comics (that I downloaded from the cloud) via that app. It was a very enjoyable experience that would not exist without being able to access the cloud at some point. If I had to download the apps and each comic via a desktop first then sync, I’d never had done it.
3. Desktops are far more open and powerful:
The previous point leads to another aspect of the iOS devices, they are not the proverbial “desktop”. These machines do not have quad-core processors with 10 gigs of RAM. There’s no graphics card in ‘em that can power dual 24″ monitors at full 1080p resolution. Heck, their not even laptops. They don’t have a Core Duo, a few gig of RAM or even a mouse. The are very limited devices when compared to a “real” machine, which is why many devs dismiss them as a viable platform. Plus there’s the whole App Review process, but Apple has recently become more open with regards to that.
When you think about creating a game, it sorta makes you wonder why we have chosen to build for this platform with so many limitations. It’s the same reason Facebook, Google, Flickr, all started their business on the relatively limited world of the browser. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a few things to gain access to a particular user base that you know can help you be successful. Making sure you can get in front of the users is more important at times than what you can get in front of them, especially if there’s the ability to get paid.
iOS: The Benefits
While we do sacrifice some of things mentioned above, we also gain some things:
1. A better way to interface:
The reason that the iOS platform is so successful is because it feels so natural. A mouse and keyboard, heck, even the joystick and D-Pad, have never really felt natural. Sure, you can get used to them. The human mind has the ability to make up for inadequicies in our environment and make them feel less obtrusive. The Wii-mote is successful because it’s more natural and easier for non-techies to pick up. The same could be said of iOS devices. My oldest boy could never figure out how to load the only game I had on my non-touch Blackberry. That same boy, upon his first interaction with my iPod Touch, was playing games in under a minute.
2. The ability to make the device fade away:
Apple spends untold millions and probably billions of dollars creating these beautiful devices. I’m talking not only about the hardware with their sleek design, but I’m also talking about the iOS system itself. The default eye candy in the iOS is the envy of the industry. Here’s the weird thing though: Despite all that, Apple pretty much says (through it’s designs), “While all this is beautiful, while we spend a ton of cash to make everything look just perfect, we do it for one reason: So people will forget all about that and lose themselves in your content.” When I read Daredevil this weekend, I got lost in the story and the art as it should be. I didn’t marvel (pun intended) at the polished metal of my iPod; I didn’t tap the screen asking, “How is this retina screen made?”; In fact, if I didn’t have to rotate my device, I would’ve forgotten the device was there at all. It’s something that the Sony PSP with all it’s buttons and knobs on the front of the device can’t do.
3. A way for a couple of guys to make a living:
Apple, for being the huge corporate monstrosity it is at over 30K employees, is probably doing more to bring down big business than anyone else on the planet. They’ve already gave the music industry a wake up call. Now, they’re helping the Movie and TV industry to see the same. Their biggest and most world changing decision though has to be their attach on the developer ecosystem. Most every other development platform in the world says, “Buy our dev tools, make cool stuff and figure out how to get paid on your own.” Apple took the time to say, “If people take a chance on our platform, how can we reward them?” I’m not sure they were thinking about the indies who are quitting thier corporate jobs or not, but Apple at least thought about how to pay the community. Sure, you could argue that free apps are more popular than paid apps, and it’s true. Therefore, Apple made it’s own Ad platform to help you make money off of those more popular free apps.
Apple aside, it’s all about the community
The thing to remember though is that we’re human, even though we’re developers. We’re not machines. We have desires, hopes, dreams, goals. We humans also have this strange desire to connect with like minded people. That’s why restaurants are made for two or more in a party vs single eaters. It’s why even motorcycles can handle two people vs just one. It’s why the internet has become an integral part of our lives. It’s also why iDevBlogADay can be born and become so popular.
Thanks to the great iOS community (those we’ve met at 360|iDev, WWDC and through #iDevBlogADay), we will likely begin development of our first game this week. Are we done learning? No, not by a long shot. Are we done coming to the community for help? No, expect lots of questions from us here and on twitter. We are just beginning this crazy journey of ours, but we’ve met and conversed with people who have succeeded and with those who have failed. We have met those who can program and make games and those who cannot program yet still make games. We have met great developers who get sucked into the Apple Mothership to beat the drum even harder for us indies.
We look to the future ahead of us. Despite the fact that we’ve never made a game, we look forward with excitement, not fear. We look to sharing our success and failures with those that have shared the same with us. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll start sharing stuff on our game. We hope you stick around to partake in our journey with us. See you on the other side!
I’m probably digging in a lot deeper than I need to, but it’s something we’re gonna need to know later on anyways. Therefore, I’m trying to learn as much about it as I can.
