The state of iOS game development, according to the creators of Alto’s Odyssey
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
It’s quite frustrating when, despite having a great experience developing a game (good APIs, solid technology, etc.), one finds that the entire process for building/releasing/updating the game is horrible and one finds that the App Store is just about the worst imaginable way to expect anyone to find and buy a new product.
When I first published a game, I literally couldn’t find it on the “new improved” App Store after typing in THE APP NAME, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to find it with their absurd browsing interface. To this day, I have been wasting limited space in my search-keyword list to include the app name because I’m not convinced that their search will be able to find it otherwise. There is also absolutely zero useful filtering; why for instance can’t I simply get “things published in the last month” or any of a dozen other very basic searches?
Also, the slow and manual nature of the app build and update tools is insane. Every single update requires unnecessary GUI-based questionnaires in Xcode, and then unnecessary web-based questionnaires in Safari, through an abysmally-slow web interface that for some reason is completely incapable of even finding your Xcode builds for a painfully long period of time after you’ve already uploaded them. It’s been 10 years and there isn’t so much as a terminal command available for scripting; all I want is a "publish_app_update --id=com.something.myapp --yes-for-the-40th-time-my-ad-identifier-did-not-change --yes-my-encryption-did-not-change-dammit filename.app".
Apple charges way too much considering that they are not investing noticeably in many of their most critical tools (or investing less than nothing, if you consider depreciation over time from tools that have been terrible for years).