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[pluckyporcupine]

It may just be because I've never released a game that people have had to pay for, but I simply don't get why games that aren't one-version universal types of apps are priced so much differently.

When Angry Birds originally came out, the iPhone version was $0.99. From what I can remember, the iPad version was $4.99, $2 more than it is now. That places the iPad version right around 500% of the cost of the iPhone version. For a version that plays identically to the iPhone version other than screen size (and perhaps the scaling of the art assets, I don't actually know).

I mean it's dropped since then, but it's still 300% of the iPhone price.

I am blanking on the names of my examples, but I've seen plenty of other apps that follow this pricing scheme. I think I distinctly remember buying Minigore for iPhone when I had an iPad because it was cheaper.

So I'm just wondering, especially if you're someone who's been in a situation where you had to price such an app - why are the prices so much different?

[Golds]

The price is higher because the market will pay the premium on the device.

[pluckyporcupine]

The price is higher because the market will pay the premium on the device.

I was kind of hoping that wasn't the answer, but I guess I knew that was going to be it. Ah well, thanks for responding. It puts it into perspective a bit and gives me something to remember to never do if I ever take interest in the mobile market.

[Muz]

Also because games are just not designed for the iPad. I do mobile development, and nobody actually focuses on tablets because nobody uses tablets. It's a different skillset (like designing for a TBS when you already to RTSes), it requires different design skills.

Much of the stuff already on tablets are actually things that were designed for PC, but scaled down to mobile. So rather than having handphone prices, you get cut down ported PC prices.

Since there's less competition for 'native' tablet devices, you can price it quite a bit higher. Dunno about iOS, though... with Android, most apps can run on both, but it often requires some heavy modifications to get it to work with a tablet.

Now, if apps were designed for tablet first, then ported over to handphones, you'd probably see the handphone version prices go higher. But that's not how it's done.

[st33d]

The real estate is larger and generally requires more graphics, including a redesign of the UI.

The glib assumption that you can simply port something to any device that is different in some fashion without properly redesigning it is fucking stupid and should stop.

But it won't. Which is why we're going to see Super Meatboy on phones and nobody will dare say it's crap because that would ruin it for the rest of the world trying to make shitty ports of platform games on iOS. I'm pretty certain I'm going to get forced to make one at some point so I might as well moan about it now whilst I can.

[pluckyporcupine]

@St33d: Thinking logically for a second, a redesign of the UI isn't exactly a huge commitment.

Most of the other graphics should be able to be reused. I'm not quite sure how larger screen = different graphics. A log of games on PC use the same set of graphics with screen sizes ranging from 800x600 to 1920x1080 or possibly even higher or lower.

How is the change from iPhone to iPad much different than that? Make the UI scalable and then introduce a zoom feature as needed. That's how it comes across in my mind.

Then there's the fact that iPads can literally use every iPhone application, only with the crappy "zoom" feature where it's either iPhone sized or fullscreen with horribly pixelated scaling applied.

I don't know how different Android devices are, as Muz mentioned, but honestly, I just don't see how iPhone/iPad development is so much different that it warrants a 500% increase in price.

[st33d]

One of our games at work is a good example of how the UI completely changes with the real estate.

You blow a hot air balloon with your finger. Now on the iPad they needed to taper the distance of the effect because otherwise any tap on the screen affected gameplay and that felt odd.

But on the iPhone we get the reverse - not having an effect when tapping anywhere on the screen feels as strange as having an effect touching anywhere on the iPad - all of a sudden we have two different standards of play that each device requires.

An assumption like, "oh it's just a different size", is bad for your game. Your hands haven't gotten any bigger, so why do you think that the gameplay is going to be identical and no changes are going to be necessary?

Yes, some companies just scale it - but that's crap. It should be designed for the device, and that should in turn affect the price.

[RudyTheDev]

I think it is mostly just down to your average user perception -- bigger screen, bigger graphics, must be better for games, ok with higher price. Most buyers are impulse buyers and I doubt they spend time comparing versions between platforms or ever give a second thought to how the game was developed. And iPad users are just likely to spend more cash, than say Android users.

Some sources: 1 2 3

[Muz]

Most of the other graphics should be able to be reused. I'm not quite sure how larger screen = different graphics. A log of games on PC use the same set of graphics with screen sizes ranging from 800x600 to 1920x1080 or possibly even higher or lower.

How is the change from iPhone to iPad much different than that? Make the UI scalable and then introduce a zoom feature as needed. That's how it comes across in my mind.

This is the first deathtrap people fall into when making mobile stuff. Size is everything.

With either computers or laptop screens, you have too much space. Like when I try to reply, there's a whole bunch of information I don't need, like two rows of emoticons, formatting, "796508 Posts in 28674 Topics", all this other useless crap I'm never going to look at. This is because there's so much space that the page looks empty without it.

Use it on a standard monitor or a laptop or a TV and it's all the same thing. Nobody notices.

Now open this same page on a mobile phone. All that crap hits you on the face. A proper mobile forum page would probably have just a reply box, buttons, and one row of formatting stuff. The buttons will have to be resized big enough for a thumb, which will take up a significant portion of the screen.

Let's take that mobilized page and put it into an iPad. iPads have just the right amount of size, but all of a sudden you have a lot of ugly whitespace because your reply box is filling the whole screen. A good UI developer will spend hours/days customizing that and all other pages to be suitable for tablets.


Now that's just the first part. I'm not an iPhone developer, but I'll just say what I heard from colleagues. It's not so bad on Androids because Android is designed to work on every kind of size.

iPhones are not. They're designed with a very specific size. A lot of people complained that the iPhone 5 broke a lot of apps because the longer screen messed up some hardcoded calculations. But the software is just not designed for 'soft' screen calculations unlike an Android. You have an exact screen size, no reason to soft-code things like positions.

This just doesn't translate well at all to the iPad. Maybe things like static text pages are ok, but games will have to be massively overhauled. Porting is not easy. You'll get a whole string of problems you don't expect, and I guess some developers will vent their frustrations out by raising prices.

If people do just directly scale it up, I don't think you'll see a difference in prices. Also note that an iPad is 6 times the area of an old iPhone. Try and imagine the kind of work it would take to design for a monitor just 4 times your current one.

[Richard Kain]

How is the change from iPhone to iPad much different than that? Make the UI scalable and then introduce a zoom feature as needed. That's how it comes across in my mind.

All of the graphical pixel assets have to be scaled accordingly. If you are creating a pixel-art based game, it just isn't going to work as well at higher resolutions. The scaling might be on a per-shader basis, which might require re-programming of the shaders to accommodate different zooming levels. If you are working with a 2D engine than that introduces an entirely new series of problems. Cutscenes and any elements involving fixed camera perspectives have to be reworked to compensate for changes in the aspect ratio.

The ideal solution is to design the game from the ground up with this scalability in mind. Another good approach to hedge your bets is to create most of your graphical assets with vector art. (which is a common practice for experienced iOS developers) Vector art allows for resizing and scaling with a consistent appearance as opposed to pixel illustrations.

[pluckyporcupine]

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Between the two of you, I think you've entirely answered my questions. Thanks. It made me reconsider a few things.

I honestly still think that 300% and 500% price increases across platforms are bullshit, as the work involved in porting can't be anywhere near as much as building the game from scratch or they'd just build it from scratch, but the points presented do at least give me an idea of why such a difference in pricing occurs.

[Muz]

Well, that's it, it is nearly designing from scratch. For a control-based game like Angry Birds, you'd need to do the programmed mechanics differently or scale it in a way where it doesn't break. For a content based game, you'd still need to overhaul the interface and add decorations, but it's not nearly as bad.

Also, sorry if I sounded abrasive, but I spend about 70% of development time doing UI stuff because someone ported a design over from PC. Not exaggerating. If someone wanted me to port something for a tablet from a phone, I'd certainly charge them a "fuck you" price for it. But not if someone gave me a design that works on multiple devices by default.

It's easier to write new code than it is to read it. Porting will usually give more headaches than writing it over from scratch, even if it is technically less effort.

You'd probably see the price drop when tablets become popular and there's more high quality native content available for cheap. I'd give it maybe 3 years.