Professional game developers ‘don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour’
Apple wants to dress up content standards on the App Store, the group has said, as discoverability remains as key pressing issue for iOS game developers.
The iPhone manufacturer wants to close the floodgates that thousands of aspiring and 'amateur hour' developers are pouring through.
Now with the App Store now boasting some 250,000 applications, the platform should grow in quality, not quantity, Apple said.
“If your App looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you're trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection,” Apple said in its newly-published App Store Review Guideline.
“We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour,” the firm added.
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“We don't need any more Fart apps. If your app doesn't do something useful or provide some form of lasting entertainment, it may not be accepted.”
Yesterday Apple extended an olive branch to its army of ‘professional’ app developers by relaxing restrictions on how games are made.
The mobile devices giant says it is “relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps” – on the proviso that the resulting apps do not download any additional code.
Adobe has already claimed the has “direct implications for Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool”.
It's just a pity the Android market doesn't have the same policy. I had full intentions of writing Android games until I saw the market. It's a disgrace to expect professional devs to have to battle against the dire spam apps that fill the market.
The cost of publicity to get attention from within the middle of a huge crowd is the single biggest problem for any app developer or publisher. It is also very expensive.
I think it would be reasonable for Apple to charge $1,000 per app submited as an advance against their 30% rev share..... for their "professionally developed" apps. This would certainly get rid of a lot of the rubbish overnight and most of us professional games makers would back our titles to do at least $3,000 worth of business.... Apple could also allow people who pay this fee to have a special 'lite' version of the game on an associated professional free site if they wish
Equally developers of apps that do not want to pay this fee could go on a different "ameteur" free site to allow people to browse their apps... then if they become popular they may consider to worth their while to stomp up the $1,000 to go "professional"
Android could also adopt a similar solution....
Damn, 2 spelling mistakes in the title... where is the edit button?
Damn, 2 spelling mistakes in the title... where is the edit button?
@Jon Hare
That would be a good idea. The separation of XBLA and Indie games for 360 works very well; you know the XBLA games *should* be of higher quality, if costing more, whereas if you're after a cheap game to pass a couple of hours with, you can browse the Indie games.
A cross between the browsing capabilities of iTunes/App Store and the deparation of XBL would be a great direction for the App Store. Just please, for the love of all that's holy, don't every touch the way you have to browse games on the 360 via the stupid dashboard. *shudders*
I can't think of anything worse.
All the barrier between XBLIG and XBLA has done is create a ghetto between supposedly 'triple-A' games (publisher funded) and 'lo-fi' (made for no money). It's easy to mistake the two areas to be distinguishing levels of quality, yet they are not; there are some real XBLA stinkers, and some XBLIG gems.
iTunes/App Store/iPhone's big gift to developers (don't worry, I know there's a bunch of things it's no good for) is that it allows indie developers to stand shoulder to shoulder with 'triple-A' ones.
Ringfencing it, creating a 'them and us' view, is a mistake.
@Michael
Hi Michael
The problem here is not that the Us and Them is to do with who has the money, but more to do with who is, or has aspirations to be, professional.
I believe that for those new quality developers who want to make their name it would benefit them to become one of Us and stop their own excellent products from drowning in a sea of "App Spam".
If $1,000 would prove too much for a fledgling developer to pay then I am sure many other games developers/publishers would be willing to help them with this if their product really is of any substantive quality. (Whatsmore $1,000 really should not be too much for anyone who is half serious about selling at least 3,000 copies/in App purchases of a game on the App Store during the product's lifetime. Remember in the long term you will be no worse off, this suggestion is about advancing advancing Apple some of their royalties, all of which can be recouped at a later date.)
The bad thing about Us and Them on the App Store is the exclusion of people who are not altogether serious about what they are doing.
The good thing about Us and Them on the App Store is the exclusion of people who are not altogether serious about what they are doing.
