iOS 7 has a new interface, including new icons. Most make sense, but it’s hard to understand what Game Center’s represents until you know the reasoning behind its design, captured in this EXCLUSIVE transcription of audio taken from a microphone hidden in Jony Ive’s white room of despair.

• Ive: Hey, team. So we’ve got another icon to design, for an app called Game Center.
• Team member A: What’s that?
• Team member B: I’ve never heard of it.
• Ive: Me neither. But I checked Wikipedia and it’s been on iOS for years, and so we have to design something for it.
• Team member C: Um, I’ve a question.
• Ive: Sure—go ahead.
• Team member C: Uh, this might sound silly, but… what’s a game?
• Team member A: That’s a good point. I’ve no idea.
• Ive: We need to research what these ‘game’ things are. I know all about ‘center’, but ‘game’ is new to me. It’s very exciting.
• Team member A: You don’t look excited.
• Ive: I always look like this. You know I only have one expression.
• Team member A: Sorry.
• Ive: That’s OK. *mournfuleyes*
• Team member B: Hey, wait a minute. I remember playing a game with my niece, during my annual hour off from Apple.
• Ive: That’s great—what did you do?
• Team member B: She had this liquid and she used it to blow bubbles. She had lots of fun—almost as much fun as we do when we lovingly paw at an iPhone or iPad.
• Ive: Wow. That does sound like fun. So, games are bubbles. Got it. Get to work, team!

There’s a lot online today about the Xbox One, with Microsoft clarifying a few points about the system’s restrictions. Everything’s outlined in a Eurogamer piece by Tom Bramwell, and the short of it is you don’t own content (you license it, even if it’s bought on optical media), publishers decide whether resale is allowed, the Xbox One must connect every 24 hours or you can’t play games (live TV and optical media playback are exempt from this rule), and loaning/renting is still being figured out.

Bramwell also notes:

10 people can be authorised to play these games on a different Xbox One via the cloud, but not at the same time, similar to iTunes authorised devices.

I’ve also seen other articles comparing Xbox One to iTunes, but I don’t think the comparisons hold up. First, iTunes was always a digital system, whereas Microsoft’s still juggling digital and optical media; secondly, iTunes content is a hell of a lot cheaper than the games that will be sold for the Xbox One, which perhaps makes Apple’s restrictions more palatable; thirdly, I can play my games on all authorised iOS devices simultaneously if I like; and finally, I only ever have to go online to download updates or for game-specific functionality (Game Center, online multiplayer, and so on).

By contrast, Xbox One is a system that matches iTunes in you never really owning a physical thing, but the games are pricier, and cannot be played across multiple devices on one account at the same time. Additionally, you’re forced online daily or your games simply don’t work. That is truly astonishing.

If anything, Microsoft’s managed to out-Apple Apple in terms of creating a closed, user-hostile gaming experience. (As regular readers will know, I’m a huge fan of iOS gaming, but I’m not blind to its shortcomings regarding ownership and restrictions.) However, there’s also another angle to this, in that Microsoft’s also increasingly joining Apple in eradicating huge chunks of gaming’s history. As games designer and developer Ste Pickford said on Twitter earlier today:

I think that’s my main problem (with iOS too), that we’re losing the ability to archive our culture—games aren’t valued.

Some people will argue that Microsoft had no choice—that to continue funding triple-A games, further restrictions were necessary. No doubt there will be claims that the Xbox One is a win for gamers. But all I see is the hope of a win for deluded publishers, a probable win for Microsoft in terms of console sales (which will inevitably be high—at least in the short term—because most people will give in and buy the Xbox One regardless of their distaste for its restrictions) and a loss for gaming as a whole.

Slide to Play on Tetris Blitz:

It’s fun, it’s quick, and if you can look past its unsavory freemium trappings, it ought to satisfy your modern puzzle needs.

“It’s tasty, it’s quick, and if you can look past this burger being laced with glass, dead frogs and poison, it ought to satisfy your lunchtime needs.”

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.

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.