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.

I recently posted a well-received feature on IAP to this site. The gist was that IAP isn’t a bad thing, but it is often badly used. One of the worst culprits has been EA. iOS gamers will be familiar with its decision to turn premium title Real Racing into a freemium offering, but EA’s also happy to murder older gaming darlings.

A year ago, I wrote about EA’s work on the revamped iOS version of Tetris. At the time, I’d not played the game, but was baffled by the $99.99 IAP for 200,000 ‘T-Coins’ that could be used for in-game currency, and the laughable $29.99 12-month subscription that ‘awarded’ you (if that’s the right term) with 15 per cent more coins per game. For just 43 times more than the game itself cost, you could slightly speed up how rapidly you acquire in-game currency!

Safe to say, that aspect of the game didn’t make it on to iPhoneTiny‘s barg alerts. If anything, I was crushingly disappointed with what EA did, not because Tetris for iOS was bad, but because it was potentially really good. On playing it, I found the touch-based controls were a really interesting attempt to rework the game for iOS, and the puzzle mode was addictive. The problem was it fast became obvious you could only truly succeed by paying money rather than by learning levels and being skilful, and my interest rapidly waned.

According to a report by Pocket Gamer, EA has now outdone itself with freemium title Tetris Blitz, which includes a number of ‘boost’ power-ups:

The more powerful power-ups, like Lucky Spin—which optimises the next seven blocks to be the best fit—and Three Strikes—which gives you three game-changing I pieces in a row—cost £6.99/$9.99 a pop.

This reminds me a lot of Bejeweled, which I once considered a fantastic online game, but that was rapidly ruined when it became clear those willing to spend climbed the leaderboards, not those who mastered the game. Still, EA’s arguably taken things a step further with Tetris Blitz:

There are other handy options, which are only accessible after stumping up real-world cash. And they are super expensive. Want to see the next three Tetriminos? £20.99/$29.99, please. Need to hold two blocks instead of one? That will be £27.99/$39.99.

21 quid. For a power-up that unlocks what’s standard Tetris functionality in many modern versions of the game . That’s truly astonishing and deeply upsetting for any fan of gaming.

In an interview, Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov once told me he was a little sad about how Tetris was being wrenched from its streamlined roots, not least with the then-current add-ons for the DS version that made the game simpler and that were almost akin to cheats. I can only wonder how he feels about his classic game now being butchered on EA’s alter to the gods of IAP.

Something that’s cropped up in my Twitter feed a lot recently is the assignment of gender to items for purchase, notably magazines and children’s toys. I’m largely against this practice, and responses to that stance have roughly fallen into one of four categories: I’ve got a daughter, this seriously pisses me off, and I agree with you; I just agree with you anyway; I disagree and assigning items by gender in stores is necessary; it doesn’t matter and you are an idiot-face who should get a life.

I’d like to address the last two of those points. I strongly believe gender stereotyping does matter, because it leads to a prescriptive society, one where we’re conditioning both children and adults regarding what’s “not for you”. From a young age, we see a sea of pink for girls and blue for boys; girls are presented with saccharine kitchen equipment made from plastic, whereas boys are offered science kits. As for adults, I today saw a photo from Tesco that faced the following magazines in a section indented for men: The Economist; Private Eye; New Scientist. I’ve seen similar myself in a number of stores (and not just Tesco, although it’s a common offender, even in stores with plenty of shelf space), with the women’s section mostly including things to do with fashion, houses and gardens.

As noted, this kind of behaviour impacts on society, by aligning genders with certain tasks and expectations. The result leads to terribly sad stories: a girl who says she wishes she was a boy, so she could one day go into space; a designer recounting how when she visited a local school, none of the girls had considered going into a technical career, because it just hadn’t occurred to them—it was something boys did.

In stores, we should place more emphasis on listing by category and eliminate listing by gender unless absolutely necessary; the counterpoint I’ve heard to that from several parties is item assignment by gender is frequently necessary and, indeed, in direct response to consumer demands. I’d argue it’s in response to consumer habits, which isn’t quite the same thing, and habits are sometimes there to be broken. Sexism still exists in advertising, but not to the extent it once did (“Christmas morning, she’ll be happier with a Hoover”—without irony), and yet consumers still accept (and claim to want) an immediate gender split when searching for certain products, both in stores and online.

Offline, such categorisation makes little sense and also doesn’t expose someone to a full range. With toys, splitting your audience immediately by gender not only restricts said gender to whatever the seller has deemed appropriate for them, but also essentially eradicates happy accidents, where someone might pick something they’d not previously considered, but perhaps within a category that they enjoy. (For example, games and kits are often split by gender, regardless of whether a girl would, say, actually prefer something on a stereotypically male pursuit like football, or a boy would enjoy making jewellery.) With magazines for adults, such a split seems insulting rather than merely ill-considered, with the possible exception of magazines specifically targeted at a single gender—most style/fashion magazines, for example, although those could just as easily be grouped under that category.

Online, things are trickier, because you can’t just turn your head and see a large selection of products that are available—you instead have to start filtering immediately. With toys, most people would consider whether they’re shopping for a boy or a girl and immediately filter based on that. Online stores therefore cater for this, categorising toys accordingly, in order to maximise sales.

There’s an obvious point that people should really gift-search for a child based on the things that child enjoys rather than specifically aiming at its gender, but the biggest offender here remains assumptive categorisation—the aforementioned ‘pink plastic kitchen for girls’ and ‘science kit for boys’. Stores should by all means attempt to make recommendations by gender (or list top toys for boys/girls, based on actual sales figures) if they feel they’ve no option, but they should also take far more care to categorise items as appropriate for boys and girls. At least then, the result is a wider range for all children. This in combination with gender-based lists is imperfect, but it at least moves things on from the equivalent of a default barely different from those vintage sexist adverts and towards something more befitting of a modern and open society where children have equal opportunities, rather than being shoe-horned into whether they’re ‘pink’ or ‘blue’.

Further reading:

• Let Toys Be Toys campaign
• Gender Agenda, by Laura Kirsop
• Boys will be boys, by Christopher Phin
• How parents are battling sexism in toy shops (Independent, May 2013)
• Tesco keeps chemistry set as a boys’ toy despite protests (Independent, May 2013)
• At Boots, science is for boys and pink princess toys are for girls(Guardian, May 2013)
• Hamleys’ baby steps towards gender equality (Guardian, December 2011)

Freemium, free-to-play and IAP are now entrenched in gaming for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. But is that a bad thing, or has the system just been too often abused? I ask developers whether micro- (and not-so-micro-) transactions are the future of the industry, and how that will affect the games that are made

Freemium iOS gaming is rarely far from the headlines. Recently, EA transformed console-like Real Racing from fixed-fee to freemium, irking long-time fans—the third entry in the series is packed with in-app purchases (IAP) to speed up enforced time-outs for car repairs. Things are no rosier in casual gaming, with newspapers regularly reporting on children getting hold of an iPad and blowing months of their parents wages on virtual in-game currency.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out made headlines after a child burned through thousands of disposable ‘boatload of donuts’ IAPs, each costing £69.99.

But with the App Store’s top-grossing chart dominated by free-to-play titles, is it any wonder developers find this payment model enticing? “Perhaps it would be a healthier world for game developers if the minimum price of all games was a fiver, but that world doesn’t exist and it’s pointless to pretend it does,” mulls Ste Pickford (Zee-3—Magnetic Billiards, Naked War). Like others, Pickford believes digital distribution led to an “inevitable” drift towards a purchase price of zero; he suggests developers “get on with working out how to make good games—and a living—within this landscape, rather than clinging to old business models”.

Those already immersed argue freemium can bring benefits. Bob Koon (Binary Hammer—ChuChu Rocket!) sees it as a way to combine a trial and full app: “This means the developer only has a single version to manage.” Richard Perrin (Locked Door Puzzle—Kairo) says it “removes the hurdle of getting someone to try your game,” which Erick Garayblas (Kuyi Mobile—Streetfood Tycoon) adds is particularly important when the App Store doesn’t allow demos of paid apps.

Drawing in more players is key. “If you’re not free, you’re competing against free, which is becoming a de-facto standard,” argues Stephen Morris (Greenfly Studios—Drop That Candy). “End users have a very binary choice: a small outlay or free—and we know how fickle users can be! But given the opportunity to try a game for free, they might be willing to reciprocate generosity down the line.”

This is an aspect of freemium that chimes with Pickford: “At its best, freemium contains the ability to allow your biggest fans to spend more money on a game they’re really enjoying than otherwise, and that can incentivise developers to make better games”. Tracey McGarrigan (Amuzo Games—LEGO Hero Factory) thinks similarly. She says Amuzo frequently has new ideas for existing games but no budget for implementation: “But a freemium title enables continual investment. Those who love it and want more can pay. We can add new content and optimise the game, meaning old and new players alike get a better experience.”

Pickford notes there are subtler benefits, too, not least eradicating the “worst aspect of console game development—the constant pressure for better visuals over gameplay”. He explains console games are often optimised to look fantastic in screen grabs and promotional videos, to justify a big-ticket entry price; but freemium games have to hook you with gameplay, which Pickford hopes will result in “developers focusing on engaging game mechanics rather than spectacular set pieces”. That said, he is concerned genres that can’t be smashed into a freemium model might disappear, and Dan Gray (ustwo—Whale Trail) admits freemium has forced changes to how games are designed: “We’re more competitive for a user’s attention in the opening stages—there aren’t slow-burn build-ups to later rewards, because there’s no up-front cost that will commit someone to seeing it through. Instead, freemium games offer bursts of player rewards that fit into spare moments.”

Freemium, though, also has a dark side. “I think in theory freemium can be done well, but it hasn’t been implemented well yet,” asserts Rami Ismail (Vlambeer—Super Crate Box, Ridiculous Fishing). The problem, he says, is for the IAP model to be viable, you need to attract as many people as possible, constantly nudging them towards purchases that have no maximum. One might argue developers should simply be more ethical, but Ismail draws attention to Gasketball: “It was a fun multiplayer game that tried to implement IAP in a non-evil way, with a low maximum spend, and the game wasn’t limited or rebalanced to force you to choose between ‘proper’ gameplay and not spending.” The game was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times but made barely any money. “They weren’t being evil enough,” proffers Ismail.

Gasketball tried to implement IAP in a non-evil way. Despite many downloads, it was a commercial flop. The problem: not being evil enough.

Punch Quest was a similar story: highly regarded and playable, and seemingly popular, but not profitable—to the point the game later ended up with a small price tag for a while in an attempt to recoup costs. More often, though, you hear about, as Ismail puts it, games specifically designed to be “less fun unless you pay, but just addictive enough that you want to play”. Money and research is poured into analytics, metrics, monetisation and behavioural targeting. “The difficulty for me is you’re then no longer designing the most engaging experience for a player, and are instead designing mechanics around getting people to drop money as often as possible,” says Perrin, who likens this system to the gambling industry. “Those games exploit addictive tendencies, while others aren’t so much pay-to-win or even pay-to-play but pay-to-not-play, with timers and resources you can buy your way out of, making the game shorter. What does it say about your game if people are paying to play less of it?”

The common conclusion is there’s potential in freemium, but it’s too often abused. Those we spoke to were especially critical of its use in children’s games. “Targeting kids—who might not appreciate the value of money—with £69.99 consumable IAP isn’t right,” asserts Pickford. Gray agrees: “I’m an advocate of a ‘dad mode’, basically ‘give me everything now’ for a reasonable fee! This should be an amount morally fair for your user and it’s certainly not £69.99! There’s a sweet spot where everyone wins.”

But with the industry often aiming for greed, the risks are great. McGarrigan hopes the industry will start taking IAP responsibility seriously and look into the issue in greater depth. Otherwise, she thinks there’s a danger of a “noticeable percentage of the prospective audience disabling IAP on family devices”. Others are more pessimistic: Perrin believes “sooner or later there’s going to be an incident so egregious that questions will be asked whether these games need regulation like the gambling industry has”. Without a shift in attitude from the industry as a whole, Kris Jones (Thunder Game Works—Trenches 2) warns “companies will be seen as predators and its gamers as victims,” and if mainstream companies—such as EA—are considered culpable, “the entire industry will be scrutinised”. Without change, Pickford adds the industry will end up “alienating gamers with inappropriate, anti-consumer monetisation”.

In turning Real Racing from premium to freemium and adding timers for car repairs (which can of course be skipped using real cash), EA alienated many iOS gamers.

So what’s the solution? Jones posits more companies could follow the lead of a game he worked on, Trenches 2; that title enables players to earn all unlockables without spending, and has reasonably priced IAP for those who don’t want to commit too much time to playing. As good examples of freemium, others cite Temple Run 2, which lacks artificial timers and again provides a basic grind/pay alternative, and fantasy board-game Hero Academy, which has no barriers at all and instead charges for new teams and player customisation. As Jones puts it: “If I want to spend £5 on a virtual car, let me—just don’t make me spend another fiver to fill up its gas tank and rotate its tires!”

For Morris, the key is for developers to recognise gamers are often buying experiences and feelings rather than content: “You don’t buy a Santa hat because it’s a hat, but to celebrate. If we can supply such experiences in an ethical manner, we’ll capture the best parts of what a freemium title can be.” Gray, though, thinks the solution is simpler, in being all about balance: “I’ve spent tons of money on certain freemium games, not because they’re ‘grindfests’ but because they’re good enough to spend money on. Make a game enticing enough and people will pay. Garner trust in your users by offering value and development in the free content, so trust is returned in the purchase of great new content.”

Garayblas agrees: “The focus should be on the product itself, its main essence and providing a great experience to the end user. Nail those aspects and money will come along easily.” And Perrin notes that this aspect of gaming is still in its infancy and so still has time to evolve into something better: “My hope is gamers will soon get wise to the cheap tactics many use and force developers to make better games. Also, although freemium will continue to be a part of the wide gaming tapestry, I don’t believe it will be the only valid model. I see the future as one of diversity, both in platforms and also in business models.”

This article originally appeared in Swipe magazine for iPhone

Marco Arment’s sold read-it-later service Instapaper to Betaworks. My first responses to this were “good for him,” swiftly followed by “I hope Betaworks don’t mess this up,” along with mulling over an investigation of Pocket. (I like both Instapaper and Pocket, but had largely stuck with Instapaper because I, where possible, support indies.)

For some reason, Chris Taylor over at Mashable had a massive bitch in his coverage of the sale, subtitled “why the big fuss?”

It really is an astonishing piece of… well, I want to say journalism, but it reads more like something you’d find on the Daily Mail website and turn your nose up at. Right away, the piece makes Taylor’s seeming distaste for Instapaper very clear:

Do you use Instapaper? No, me neither. But the $3.99 app, which lets you save stuff to read later when outside a wifi or 3G zone, has a small and highly devoted following. Which is why a small segment of Twitter went nuts at the news Thursday that Instapaper was being bought by Betaworks

Why the aggression? Why the not-so-subtle sneering at people who use and love an app? Why the immediate disconnect with the article’s own title, which asked “why the fuss?” and then noted the app’s “devoted following”? I would ask Taylor, but he’s probably busy making giant Instapaper logos that he can kick the shit out of in a murderous rage.

Arment has been spending an increasing amount of time on another project. He’s founder and editorial director of an online paid magazine devoted to mid-length features, brashly titled The Magazine. His enthusiasm for Instapaper appears to have been waning for some time. Reviews of the lastest version in the iTunes store suggest it got buggy and crashed a lot. [sic]

I read the reviews for the latest version (although not the lastest version, because I’m not sure what that means) on the US and UK stores. Oddly, the UK store reviews are generally people wanting to high-five Arment, or grumbling that Instapaper’s not Pocket. A few people were complaining about crashes. On the US store, there are admittedly quite a few people complaining about app stability, although many more going down the high-five route.

I’ve not witnessed any such problems myself (which, given my usual tech halos of doom is perhaps some kind of technology karma), but to argue this is down to Arment lacking enthusiasm is pretty low, not least because Taylor also quotes Arment as stating Instapaper

has simply grown far beyond what one person can do

Classy.

For good measure, there’s also a smattering of inaccuracy:

Two years ago, Apple stepped onto Instapaper’s turf in a major way by adding a “reading list” feature to its Safari app on iPhone and iPad. The reading list allowed users to save pages to read them later, rendering the paid iPhone app Instapaper largely irrelevant.

As anyone who’s used Reading List will know, although it has some similarities with Instapaper (and other read-it-later services), it’s a very different beast. In downloading entire web pages (design and all), it’s a hell of a lot slower, for one, and it also doesn’t just rip out the content from a page and give you that, using your preferred fonts and other settings. I don’t know anyone who checked out Reading List and stopped using Instapaper, Pocket or Readability.

Still, at least Taylor stopped there. Oh no, my mistake:

But Betaworks is building a reputation for turning around aggregation products thought to be lost causes, judging by the reception for the new Digg.

That’s my emphasis, there: Instapaper: thought to be a lost cause! That really needs the caveat “by Chris Taylor, who’s inexplicably angry about Instapaper, perhaps because he imagined it travelled back in time and gave him a massive wedgie in the playground, while yelling MARCO ARMENT IS YOUR GOD, PUNY FUTURE HACK”.

That is the only explanation.