Weekend Community Roundup: Mac App Store, TIGJam Oz
January 9, 2011
- Jesse Venbrux’s Frozzd and You Probably Won’t Make It have been released on the Mac App Store at $1 a piece. On the first day the store was available both titles were in the top 20 paid apps.
- GMVision and a media organisation calling themselves Game Polisher (who used to run a ‘radio’ show) are apparently planning their comebacks. They now share another Game Maker news blog between them and Game Polisher wants to “continue the legacy left behind by GMIndie”…
James Rhodes and a friend are organising a TIGJam Oz Event in Lara, Australia. TIGJam describes itself “an environment of intense game creation” where participants meet up to work on new or existing game ideas. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at EventBrite.
[…] of Jesse Venbrux’s creations which were published in the Mac App Store in January have reached sales of $1,500 to […]
Just to clarify, is it possible then to submit a Game Maker game directly to the Mac App Store without having to go through YoYo Games? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I couldn’t tell if the games mentioned above were made in Game Maker or not. I kind of assume they were since this is a Game Maker-centric blog, but I want to be sure.
Yes. Jesse Venbrux’s games were exported from Game Maker 7 for Mac and are not sold through YoYo Games.
Game Maker has always been marked with “You can do anything you want with the games you produce, you can even sell them!”
A constant complaint about the iPhone developers about the App Store has been the “race to the bottom”. Basically games especially shovel-ware crap is sold at 99 cents. This puts a lot of pressure on the better games to price themselves in a similar fashion.
It appears the Mac App Store might suffer from the same fate.
“the mac app store is aimed at casual (or useless) apps.”: No. The iOS App store is for casual/useless apps on the iPhone because people play with them whilst they wait for something.
$1 is too low though – this is correct: “$3-5 actually sold slightly less but made a lot more”.
On the PC/Mac, I think selling games for only $1 is a mistake. People are accustomed to, and willing to, pay more than that for computer games. Just take a look at Steam: how many $1 games do you see there? Not many.
I’m not even convinced selling games for such a low price is a good idea on the iPhone, as I seem to recall reading somewhere that games priced at $3-5 actually sold slightly less but made a lot more. I can’t find that source now though, unfortunately.
Of course, it partially depends on the length of the game, I suppose. I seem to recall Frozzd, at least, being pretty short. Are either of the games upgraded from the free PC version in any way?
Well, considering that the mac app store is for selling games that are free on the PC, I think that more than a few bucks will be cruel.
Larger games like those seen on steam will obviously cost more when sold, but the mac app store is aimed at casual (or useless) apps.
The fact that the games are free on PC is a very good point. I also have realized since posting that, even though YYG has mentioned distribution through the mac app store, Frozzd and YPWMI are not being distributed by them.
Yes, I should have mentioned that they weren’t done through YYG. With the opening of the Mac App Store YoYoGames will have to offer something special to developers who could otherwise choose to go it alone – marketing?
Epic stuff always comes out of the tigjams. Last year the Australians managed to cough up GNILLEY: http://www.gnilley.com/
(even though that was actually the global gam jam, they’re close enough!)
And through GNILLEY, the video on the site; one of the most hilarious videos for a game I have ever seen.
That is one hilarious game / video.