We are considering the use of Scoreloop (http://www.scoreloop.com/) to add a social component to our games and apps. Since we have no real experience in that arena, I'll just leave this link as my contribution.
On Mar 16, 8:08 pm, Kevin Duffey <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey all, > > I am curious how the various groups of game developers, primarily mobile > (android in this case) and cross-platform (android/iPhone/facebook) handle > storing high scores, achievements, and such as well as how multi player is > done. > > How does your game(s) access high scores, update the list, remove them if > need be? The same would apply for achievements, and to a lesser degree, > leader boards. > > Are you using a service out there that you pay for... if so how much does it > cost.. and do they provide some sort of java/objective-c SDK that you can > just plug in to your code? > > How do you dispaly high scores, leader boards, achievements, etc in your > game? Do you provide your own web site with the same info, perhaps jazzed up > a bit more or with more detail than your mobile game (due to limited screen > realestate for mobile devices)? Do you provide a link to a web site in your > game if they want to see things like high scores, achievements and leader > boards? > > I would also like to know what sort of things are most important for your > games. High scores are so yesterday, so to speak. The latest craze in most > games seems to be achievements and the ability to obtain extra items for > your games, either by buying them, or earning them through achievements, > etc. So what are some things you game developers would want to make use of > in your game to add more appeal to your game, to draw in players for longer, > especially long enough to pass the 48 hour refund time so that you can > actually earn some money from your hard work. I look at games on Facebook > like Farmville that are doing so well they are hiring more developers at > good pay to work on it. I also look at games like World of Warcraft, which I > play and got sucked into for a while, due to getting to that next level or > getting that next awesome epic gear piece... those sorts of things seem to > be what draws in players to otherwise simple games. A number of mobile games > that seem to do very well often seem to be fairly simple games but offer > that right mix of "I just got to get to that next...". I am curious what > some of you developers have found work for games either those that you > played, or are working on (or have written) that draw in players. This leads > to the next paragraph.. making a living on game development ultimately > requires that your game does well and that people pay for it in some manner > and not refund it. Hence why I am trying to understand what it is that those > otherwise simple games seem to do that draw in the masses. > > Which brings about another topic.. how do games like Farmville make so much > money being free games, that they can have a company behind it? I can't > believe ads on the stie alone make up for all their revenue. I've been > considering looking at ads in the game as opposed to charging for it, and > that seems like players might keep a game longer than if they pay for it and > then refund it within 48 hours if they don't absolutely love the game... > although I am not entirely sure how much it annoys players to have a small > portion of the screen saved for ads as opposed to just buying it. > > Lastly, multi-player. I am curious how games work multi-player. The only way > I can think of is the client (game) has to update a server of some data, a > move, location of a sprite, etc, and at the same time has to poll the server > often enough to update the game screen to keep things working. The first > part of this, the game side, seems easy enough.. at least to some degree.. > when your player makes a move, you send a server request to some server with > the data, be it their new location, a weapon they selected, etc. The second > part of this is the client polling the server often enough, fast enough, to > keep things smoothly on the screen of all players. So how have some of you > handled this and yet keep the game playing smooth as well? Probably more > important is, the server side. Not necessarily the code bit of it, but how > do you handle if your game takes off and you get 10s of thousands of players > playing it... what sort of server side technology is used to handle that > many requests, that fast, fast enough to allow all those game clients to > provide a smooth game experience while keeping the multi-player working > solid as well? > > Thank you. I look forward to learning more about how these things are done > in games. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
