Sometimes you read something on a blog that’s like a punch to the gut:

I don’t know exactly how much Bombcats needed to make to keep Radiangames in business, but these numbers aren’t close.

That’s a comment from Radian Games, in reality indie dev Luke Schneider. He recently released Bombcats, which has enjoyed plenty of downloads, but IAP conversion of around 0.1 per cent. On one day he mentions, he states 100,000 downloads resulted in a couple of hundred bucks in income—figures likely to drop as the game fades from view over time.

I had no idea Schneider was on his last throw of the dice, but it’s doubly sad to see him being generous about IAP (the game isn’t pushy and provides plenty of content for nothing) and then finding out that this method doesn’t work.

I wrote about the pros and cons of freemium/free-to-play/IAP on iOS recently. Every developer I spoke to said the same things:

• IAP in and of itself is not a bad system, and can actually be beneficial in providing income over time that can be reinvested in a title’s development and/or new projects.
• IAP has a somewhat poor reputation because it’s too often exploited.
• IAP can fail if you are not aggressive enough.

You can see the disconnect. In order to create a good user experience, you’re better off being generous; but in order to survive, you have to be a bastard. There are exceptions—Hero Academy comes to mind—but for the most part, those IAP titles that thrive are the ones nickel-and-diming you at every turn.

It’s also pretty depressing to see the comments in the Radian Games post. Some people say they won’t even try the game purely because it’s free-to-play, and, well, that never means free. That’s sort of how I used to think, but a comment by indie Ste Pickford sums up why I changed my tune long ago:

I think the move to digital distribution meant that a drift towards a purchase of price of zero was inevitable (as the ‘cost of goods’ is effectively zero), so now we’re here on iOS we might as well get on with working out how to make good games—and make a living—within this landscape, rather than clinging to the old business model.

Following on from that, gamers also have to understand these changing business models and support those developers embracing IAP if they’re going about it the right way. People who loved Punch Quest should have thought “Wow, this is amazing—I’ll fling the dev a few bucks just because”, rather than “Wow, this is amazing AND free—WOOOO!” The thing is, as Alan Downie recently wrote, customers won’t give you money unless you ask, and in iOS gaming, it seems you really have to ask rather hard.

I hope there’s a balance to be found. I hope the future of gaming isn’t developers increasingly getting consultants in from the gambling industry (yes, this is happening, and, no, it’s not a good thing) rather than simply creating great games. I hope that, somehow, Apple will one day embrace making smaller games more discoverable rather than so often flagging games that are guaranteed hits already. Right now, despite some devs finding they can’t survive the iOS lottery, there are still fantastic titles arriving by the day, but the manner in which aggression is becoming a requirement makes me uncomfortable and concerned for the future of what’s otherwise an amazing gaming platform.

It’s at this point I wish I were a Daring Fireball or The Loop, with the kind of readership that could make a difference. I could say go and buy Inferno+ (Robotron meets Gauntlet in neon) and Slydris (futuristic well-based block-falling puzzler), two of Radian’s best titles (for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad). I could say fling a few bucks at Bombcats, knowing that it could change the course of events. But my readership is small and so I’m effectively powerless; I can only imagine how the likes of Schneider feel.

Still, go and buy those games anyway, because you never know and—most importantly—they’re really very good indeed.

Time’s Ben Bajarin writes: Apple Vs. Google Vs. Microsoft: One Platform Will Not Rule Them All. His idea isn’t new, but it’s something that oddly few pundits understand or at least bring themselves to write about: that Microsoft’s domination in the PC market was an anomaly and won’t necessarily be repeated in the so-called post-PC market.

The narrative we so often see—presumably in part due to the page views it results in—is that Android is winning in smartphones and Apple is winning in tablets. Also, Android will soon win in the latter market, too; Apple will eventually be snuffed out entirely—and Microsoft has already missed its shot. No-one else has a chance.

Not only does this argument ignore the fact Apple’s quite happy taking much of the PC industry’s profits, despite its relatively tiny market-share (and could therefore likely do the same in mobile), but it avoids any discussion regarding why Microsoft rose to almost complete dominance in the 1990s PC market, and why that doesn’t look likely to happen again.

Bajarin explains about the past and present, stating that the PC market was then small and dominated by corporates, but now consumer markets are the real prize, and those markets can sustain many players; indeed, they often thrive on competition. He mentions fast-food chains, car manufacturers and companies that make soft drinks. Pause for only a second and you will be able to think of technology industries with similarly strong competition: televisions, for example. We don’t talk about Sony or Samsung eventually winning the ‘television war’, so why do so many do so when it comes to smartphones and tablets?

There’s also an important point Bajarin omits that explains why one player is unlikely to win these wars: interoperability. In the early 1980s, computing was diverse and siloed, but the genius of Microsoft was to be an essential player in ushering in a ‘standard’ platform, still effectively siloed. The web obliterated that, and we now increasingly rely on interoperable services. I can use Twitter on my Mac and iPhone, but friends can use it on their PCs, Android devices, Windows Phones, BlackBerry devices, Firefox OS phones, and, if they’re feeling particularly oddball, their C64s. Of course, platforms still have unique advantages that draw people in, but ensuring you have access to something that’s a ‘standard’ isn’t really one of them.

Via Ian Betteridge on App.net.

Edge has put up its Impossible Road review. It gets a 9. Having spent hours wrestling with this bastard-hard game, I think that’s a perfectly justifiable score. Impossible Road is addictive, pure and polished. It’s not perfect, but in the context of mobile games, it’s very, very, very, very good indeed.

However, how does it fare when you remove the context of mobile games? In the comments section of the Edge review, a couple of readers have complained that the game doesn’t deserve its rating, that Edge is dumbing down, or that it only deserves a 9 if you compare it to other games that you play for five minutes. So here’s my entirely reasoned and carefully considered response to that: bullshit.

I’m sick to death of people whining about mobile games somehow being inferior to ‘proper’ games on ‘proper’ consoles. If you have a ratings system, its full range should be used. If a game is really great, it should get a high score. If it’s not that great, it shouldn’t. I understand why it might break some people’s brains that the likes of Impossible Road might score similarly to a Zelda, but it’s insulting to mobile developers to suggest their games aren’t as rewarding or, for that matter, don’t reward investment.

If I think about the games I’ve spent most time on over the years, they are varied. Civilization II had tons of depth, and I spent many hours rampaging around semi-random planets, obliterating all-comers. But I also spent an insane number of hours honing my skills on Tetris. Should Tetris somehow have had a ratings ceiling, just because it was a simple game? Of course not. Just because you can understand Tetris and see pretty much all it has to offer within a minute, does that mean it lacks longevity? Absolutely not. In fact, gaming’s history is littered with titles that were absurdly simple and yet also brilliant, from the Pac-Mans of the classic era of arcade gaming through to the Super Hexagons of the modern mobile age. Moreover, they reward investment. It’s a different type of investment to finite and linear games, where the objective is often to complete a story, but it’s still a reward, more akin, perhaps, to honing a sports skill.

Given the choice, I’d obliterate all scores in every publication, essentially forcing everyone to—horrors!—read the text. At the most, I’d allow ‘recommended’ and ‘bloody essential’ badges, as per the mid-1990s Melody Maker. But if numbers must be applied, then this shouldn’t be done on the basis of any arbitrary rules dreamt up by ‘hardcore’ gamers scared witless by the prospect of mobile gaming encroaching on their turf. The thinking should be simple: is this game any good? If it is, like Impossible Road, it deserves a high score, regardless of the platform the game’s on and the mechanics it offers.

For most platform owners, hacking is a big deal and it’s rapidly stamped on. This isn’t the case with Game Center, Apple’s system that provides high-score tables and achievements for iOS games. At WWDC 2011, Apple proudly boasted iOS was the most popular games system in existence and that Game Center had 50 million users. “We’re making it even better in iOS 5,” enthused the now-ousted Scott Forstall, who talked about adding to Game Center photos, achievement points, friend discovery, game discovery, and support for turn-based games.

Here’s one thing Forstall didn’t announce: a means of dealing with Game Center hackers. And right now, that’s something the system desperately needs.

As a case in point, I’ve been getting addicted to Impossible Road, an extremely pure high-score-oriented game. At the time of writing, here’s the high score table:

9,223,372,036,854,775,807 points? Chinny reckon.

I’m there at #5 (yay me!), Edge’s Jason ‘I can complete Super Hexagon while on the phone and eating lunch’ Killingsworth is at #4, and the game’s dev is at #3. And then two idiots have hacked the game with absurd and literally impossible scores, which they’ve helpfully also done across two other high-score boards on the game.

Such hacking makes a mockery of the system and, at best, is always-in-your-face spam. Other systems enable you to eradicate such idiocy, but not Game Center. There are no tools for developers that would enable them to boot the hackers from their high-score tables, nor are there tools that would enable someone to report an account for clearly hacked scores.

Frankly, I doubt Apple cares—it’s been pretty much oblivious to games for its entire history. However, gaming is a huge part of iOS, in terms of how people use the devices, the number of game created, and income that comes directly from gaming. Apple needs to start taking gaming seriously, and dealing with the mess on Game Center would be a good start.

Update: Developer Jeff Ruediger takes exception to the argument Apple provides no tools to aid developers. Via email, he says: “In iTunes Connect, Apple allows each developer to set a score range–min to max—per leaderboard”. This is server-side and can be changed without uploading a new binary. However, he adds: “Is it enough? No. I’d love the ability to remove scores by range or by Game Center ID. That being said, I’d much rather spend ten minutes making new features or fixing bugs than messing with fake leaderboard scores.”

Charles Arthur at the Guardian reports on Bill Gates making the kind of prediction tech journos just love: that iPad and Android tablet users will switch to PC tablets. Arthur’s article on a CNBC interview with Gates showcases a kind of bizarre ‘head in the sand’ stance from the Microsoft co-founder, who comes across like he doesn’t get why people like tablets.

Gates […] said Windows 8 is part of a blurring of the distinction between the PC and the tablet.

Because focus is bad. What everyone really wants is a toaster fridge!

But he also thinks that many users of iPads – and, by extension, Android tablets – are frustrated because “they can’t type,

This is true. I can’t type on my iPad, unless of course I use the on-screen keyboard (which kids seem worryingly proficient at using, despite there being no tactile feedback), or a Bluetooth keyboard, or one of about a billion iPad keyboard covers (such as the Logitech Ultrathin).

they can’t create documents,

Again, a good point, assuming you never turn your iPad (or Android tablet) on and never install any apps.

they don’t have Office there

Mm. And whose fault is that? Still, nice to see Office once again being equated with the only way to do any work. Clearly, there are no other types of app. (It’s probably also helpful at this point if everyone just forgets entirely that Apple reworked its own word processing, spreadsheet and presentation apps for iOS, and that various other companies have created free and commercial Office-compatible apps for iOS and Android.)

That, he implies, means it’s only a matter of time before Surface and other PC-tablet hybrids grab that market.

People are getting really tired of iPads and Android tablets. I guess that explains why they keep buying so many of them.