Comments on: Amid recession, developer finds hope in App Store
Dennis Hescox has been around the games industry for years. Now, as the economy founders, he is trying to turn to iPhone games as a way to make a living. The challenges are huge.
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"For Hescox, the veteran game designer and Apple alumni..."
should be "alumnus."
The stories of 17 year olds makes hundreds of thousands in a short period are pretty tempting. Tempting enough to have lured THIS out-of-work 54 year old programmer as well, having stepped out onto the precipice by switching from my beloved I-can-hear-you-always Verizon to get an iPhone, and stepping out of my Windows/Linux world to order a MacBook so that I can write iPhone apps.
At least my skills are reasonably up-to-date. (What was this guy thinking, sitting out the entire economic cycle since the LAST recession?!) Though I know NOTHING of Macs, XCode, Objective C, or the various Apple APIs. (Windows and Linux programmer here...) At least I am throughly familiar with MVC, fresh off a (foreshortened) Ruby/Rails contract. And I've got lots of "device" and embedded experience in my past, so I know how to work with limited resources.
My only consolation is that while there are surely a bunch of kids out there who know everything about Macs, XCode, Objective C, and the various Apple APIs, they don't have a lifetime of real-world experience to draw from.
How many more of us are there? It's scary to think about. How few months/weeks before there are 20,000 iPhone apps?
One thing nobody has to worry about is buying an iPhone and not being to get the application they want. With so many talented, out-of-work programmers, and the lure of the App Store's nearly-instant cash (contrast with the promotion/payment cycle for a typical PC-installed app.), iPhone users are being showered with cheap, and (usually) reasonably decent apps.
10,000 apps sounds like a lot, but I am encouraged by the gaps in coverage. For example, there is a lack of vertical-market applications, particularly for service industries. The iPhone, I think, is all about boiling things down to bare simplicity. For example, Take Me To My Car, vs. dropping a pin on a Google map - the latter is too much trouble if you can do it in one click. (I hope the author of TMTMC is incorporated, as they have, in my estimation, a serious liability issue - any drunk can find their car with this app! :) ) So, if you are, for example, a florist, a general-purpose PIM isn't going to cut it to help with your daily routine. It needs to be specific and dog-simple. So, I think, there is plenty of room for app growth, but is there enough money in those little corners of the market? Pipe dream? Can anybody say "race to the bottom"?
We shall surely find out, as there are many more of us out here, and probably wave after wave of layoffs yet to come. iPhone users, rejoice! Can't find the apps you want today? You surely will tomorrow. It's the perfect economy for a bit of entertainment, or a shot at finally getting organized - for a mere 99 cents.
My own consolation is in the story my grandparents told endlessly at the dinner table when I was growing up. During the Great Depression, they were (or so they say) down to their last five bucks. They went down to the local five-and-dime (Wiki it...) and bought unpainted porcelain figurines. My grandmother painted them with oil paints, and started a successful business that took them through the end of WWII (when the Japanese started making cheap copies of their designs). Collecting knick-knacks (such as their highly successful but very un-PC Mammy and Chef salt and pepper shakers...) was cheap entertainment during the Depression. I hope I can successfully apply their lesson now.
I feel it in my bones that these are times that not only will reward taking a chance, but practically DEMAND it. It's counterintuitive, but I've seen it in a more limited way in the past recessions that I've lived through. I've never done badly in a recession, so I am hopeful that I will do well in this doozy-of-them-all.
- by calculatorwatch December 9, 2008 9:17 PM PST
- I'm just trying to help but I think there's a fatal flaw in the logic behind the game. People don't download apps in groups so they can only play them in groups. I think making a new version of a used-to-be-popular game is a great idea but to get me to consider it, it would have to have a good AI opponent I could play against whenever. And yeah, I think 99c is a good idea.
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- by jtara December 11, 2008 9:31 AM PST
- I agree, go to 99 cents. And, if at all possible, enable it to play opponents over the net, (at least Wifi and 3G). If the game requires such a low latency that it can't be played over the net, then there's probably not much he can do, other than to think-out the "plan B" app a bit more.
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(12 Comments)I think the best approach to save this game would be to find a "sponsor" who would pay him a fee and then give it away in the app store. A good sponsor might be, for example, a company that provides WiFi hotspots.