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Comment by billyjobob | Hacker News Reader

I feel it's worth pointing out this isn't just some blog by any old indie development studio. This is a blog by Jeff Minter. The man practically invented home computer gaming. I was buying his games with my allowance 35 years ago, because they were great. And I still buy them today, because they are still great. If Jeff Minter can't make the App Store work then no-one can. (Although he probably could have done if he had been willing to make crappy games with in app purchase rather than make good games. )

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> If Jeff Minter can't make the App Store work then no-one can.

As a counterpoint I grew up on no small amount of Jeff Minter games, lost more hours to Tempest 2000 on the godawful Jaguar than one should admit to in polite company, and have downloaded almost all of Llamasoft's iOS games due mostly to the fawning reviews in Toucharcade and played them for not all that long because -- frankly -- they are simply not very good. They aren't bad games but they certainly don't stand out among the hundreds of games I've tried for iOS.

The comparison he makes in this blog post between the income of (a) games he independently released on iOS and (b) a game Sony paid him to make for the PSVita but was shut down from release on other platforms because it too closely copied T2K is beyond disingenuous.

So the reality is that even if you're a semi-famous developer who has a practically guaranteed revenue and media coverage from your fans, it still isn't enough. You need to make a game that competes on quality with the studios that spend $millions on their apps.

Thats not a very promising proposition to anyone considering making a game.

> So the reality is that even if you're a semi-famous developer who has a practically guaranteed revenue and media coverage from your fans, it still isn't enough. You need to make a game that competes on quality

Yes

> with the studios that spend $millions on their apps.

No, there are plenty of studios that compete on quality without spending millions.

> You need to make a game that competes on quality with the studios that spend $millions on their apps.

No, for example Crossy Road or Flappy Bird made some good money with a minimal team and minimal investment.

Not $millions like those studios, but also the creators didn't spend $millions in marketing and assets.

> Thats not a very promising proposition to anyone considering making a game.

Risks.

That's why most people find a job and not make games for the AppStore/Play Store in their room.

> No, for example Crossy Road or Flappy Bird made some good money with a minimal team and minimal investment.

Could describe a lottery ticket win the same way.

I thought the point of the parent comment was that the quality of his games has gone down.

Sort of. I wouldn't say the quality went down so much as what would was a great game in 1983 turned out to be meh in 2013. Also the level of polish in Txk (the "1000 x revenue" PS Vita game) vs any of the iOS releases is pretty stark.

I love Jeff Minter, and have bought a bunch of his games on iOS. But I'm not sure he really embraced the limitations and controls of touchscreen devices. The games I have feel like they would have been much more fun on a large screen with a joystick.

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