Kevin, First of all, let me clarify some numbers:
Your average EA game costs a lot more than 10s of thousands of dollars. I bet no iphone port of any game cost them less than 100k to do. I wouldn't be surprised if they spent 100k-500k on an iphone version of an existing title. They deal with games that go into the millions in development cost. How much does it cost to pay a staff of 25 for 9 months to develop something? Even at a modest 50k per person (which is reasonable for a junior level artist dying to make game art) you're looking at around a million dollars. That's a normal size staff and a very conservative timeline for a big title. They're also difficult to compete with because of that. It's harder for us to put together content that people won't scoff at. Just the other day I got a comment saying that one of my games looks like it took 2 weeks to make. That's after 6 months of development. How much is 6 months of your time worth? At my last job, that would be around 50k. One could say that the true cost of developing that game was then 50k. I won't recoup those costs, but I think that over the course of releasing my next few games which are far nicer than anything I've ever done before (partially due to my experience from working on past games and the new artist I work with) I think I'll get far better returns on future time invested. Also, being at the top of the market helps a ton. It can really make a game, but take, for instance, Polarbit's last few games. They got the market late and STILL nailed it (relatively speaking). It's the games themselves... They brought a handful of high quality 3D games to a platform with very few, and people took notice. People (myself included sometimes) complain about how unfair the mobile markets are. It's true to a degree, but when I see good apps and good games make breakthroughs, it reminds me that it's still really about the well executed idea getting strong word of mouth recommendations and making it. It still works that way. The problem is that as the market gets more and more apps and games, you have to make a bigger splash to get noticed, which takes more people and more time to do. It's at that point that people complain that the gold rush is over. I think that anyone who is here for a gold rush ought to just pack up there bags and head somewhere else now because I can only see those who are truly into what they do succeeding in markets like this. We'll see people succeed and act like they are lucky but they really aren't. Maybe they got some luck along the way but much of what makes people successful is a genuinely well executed, good idea. Build truly great products for an audience who actually needs or would really enjoy them and you'll do ok. On Mar 17, 10:54 pm, Kevin Duffey <[email protected]> wrote: > I too am interested in how developers make money off of games... and other > than the usual sell for .99 or ads in the game. By this I mean, unless your > game is shown on the android market near the top, how do you either avoid > your game going further down the list so as to most likely never be found by > most people searching? I think that's the kiss of death, as some others have > written about from time to time. When iPhone first opened it's store, it was > ripe for new apps to make good money. Now, it seems very few apps make good > money, enough to run a business around. I am amazed at companies like EA and > even smaller ones that put a few games up each year... it must cost 10s of > thousands in development dollars to make those games, and at a couple bucks > a pop, I wonder if they ever recoup their costs, much less profit. > > I see games even on Android with over 250,000 downloads, but how much of > that is turned into money for the developer. At $3 a pop, some of the > defense games are really good, provides hours of fun, and worth $3, but I > wonder if they've actually made $750,000 with their 250,000+ downloads.. or > if about 95% of that is downloads then returns a day later to avoid the > costs. > > I am also very interested in how many end users (not developers) actually go > thru the trouble of setting up an account to pay for things. I still do not > understand for the life of me why google (and even iPhone) did NOT make this > charge directly to the carrier bill. It's a clear way to make it super easy > to get people to pay more frequently. I would actually buy $1 apps, many of > them, if I could just simply be charged on my phone bill each month and not > have the hassle of going thru a setup process, google checkout, etc. > > I am also curious from another thread posted, with regards to games being > able to do their own in-game charge process.. to allow players to buy game > items, gold, etc using real money... or buying game money with real money, > then using that to purchase game items, etc. Has anyone actually done > this... or is this completely against googles rules... and thus google would > take down/ban the game from the market? I know you can offer the game via > your own site for download, and other sites that don't have quite the rules > as android market, but just wondering if that is an actual issue.. or can > games provide in-game patches, game packs, game items, etc and charge for > them? It seems really ridiculous for google/android to prevent that in my > opinion. It only helps solidify the platform that much more, especially when > it concerns other avenues for developers to make some money off of their > hard work. I think allowing it would bring more developers and a lot more > apps to Android sooner. > > On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 7:40 PM, Miguel Morales > <[email protected]>wrote: > > > > > I'm writing a 2D MMO using realtime movement I can tell you that > > realtime movement can get very tricky. Don't think that you can > > simply poll the server fast enough to grab all player locations. This > > may work fine in a LAN network, but not while the device is out and > > about. > > > You have to take network latency into account. > > > For the server end I use a Perl/Erlang system, data is stored in a > > PostgreSQL database however, data that is transient and requires fast > > read/writes I use Mnesia, an in-memory database for Erlang. > > > The results so far have been phenomenal, I don't have to bother with > > JSON (although I love it.) > > Don't forget that that decoding things can take precious milliseconds, > > so I find it better to work with bytes directly. > > > Passwords are stored encrypted on the database and checked against the > > POSTed password. > > Other than that, the protocol is sent as-is. The reason is two-fold. > > One, the client doesn't actually generate any game information, it > > only asks for information, and it 'asks' if it can perform a function > > (i.e. move to a tile.) > > The only thing encrypting packets would do is lessens the chances of > > bots, but I want to encourage client development. > > The second reason is that I plan to open source the protocol to try to > > get some other clients going with the help of other developers. > > > This way the game is inherently cross-platform. > > I'm interested in how developers monetize from the games. > > > On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 6:35 PM, mike <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 03/17/2010 05:05 PM, Bob Kerns wrote: > > > >> Yes, SHA-1 is what you should go with. It's really a matter of just > > >> requesting a different engine; the API doesn't care which one you use. > > > >> One thing to consider is that a salt doesn't prevent replay attacks. > > >> If you want to prevent people driving up their score by replaying the > > >> packets already sent, you may want to include a nonce in your > > >> protocol. > > > >> I'd suggest using a secure random, and the current time, and remember > > >> recent nonces, and reject anything that's either not recent, or has a > > >> nonce that's been recently seen. > > > > Ie, a Kerberos-like replay cache :) I sort of wonder how often > > > they actually need to send results up... if it's pretty infrequent > > > and/or not very intensive, is there a reason to just not use TLS > > > to deal with _all_ of these problems, and way more (like MITM > > > attacks, etc)? I know it seems heavy handed, but it's just a matter > > > of changing http to https on the phone side of things. The server > > > side would need a cert, but that's not terribly hard to come by > > > these days, and you'd get the assurance that strengths and weaknesses > > > of MD5 and other arcane cruft is somebody *else's* problem. > > > > Mike > > > >> It's easy too do -- and even if it's not necessary to have that level > > >> of security, it's a good technique to be aware of. > > > >> On Mar 17, 2:27 pm, Kevin Duffey<[email protected]> wrote: > > > >>> Hey Mario, > > > >>> Thanks for the replies. So your salted md5 hash, do you generate one > > for > > >>> each player, or just one for your game, that is sent in with every > > >>> request by each game player (via your game code)? So this secret that > > >>> you > > >>> concatenate, you hard code it in both the game code and your server > > code? > > >>> So some string like abcd123, append it, md5 the whole string, then send > > >>> it? > > > >>> I have been using SHA-1 for playing around, using the Java SDK api that > > >>> can > > >>> also be used for MD5. Any benefit in using MD5 over SHA-1? I thought > > >>> SHA-1 was more secure/harder to crack? > > > >>> I agree with you.. the chances of anyone sniffing the packets, figuring > > >>> out > > >>> its game data, trying to decipher it, and for what purpose anyway.. is > > >>> unlikely. > > >>> However, for some reason, companies tend to shy away from anything that > > >>> isn't super industrial strength secure. I am also curious because I may > > >>> want > > >>> to > > >>> allow the game player the option to use real currency in game to buy > > game > > >>> items. That may require a game player to set up some sort of credit > > card > > >>> or > > >>> paypal account... not sure yet how this all works, but because of this > > >>> there > > >>> may be a need to be "more secure", such as using TLS. What do you > > think? > > > >>> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 11:15 AM, Mario > > >>> Zechner<[email protected]>wrote: > > > >>>>> How about security? As a developer, do you have to get some sort of > > API > > > >>>> key? > > > >>>>> Is it done over SSL/TLS, or both an API key and SSL/TLS? I am > > wondering > > > >>>> how > > > >>>>> invovled the process is to get set up to actually use one of these > > >>>>> services... or for those of you that wrote your own, what do you do > > to > > >>>>> ensure it's your game calling the server side, and not some hacker or > > >>>>> another game trying to use it for free? > > > >>>> As stated in my post all data is submitted with an accompanying salted > > >>>> md5 hash which the server can reconstruct. What you basically do on > > >>>> the client is construct a string out of your data, salt it by > > >>>> concatenating it with another string only you know about and then > > >>>> calculate an md5 hash from that. On the server you also construct a > > >>>> concatenated string out of the send data and salt it with the same > > >>>> string you use on the client. If the md5 hashes match the data is > > >>>> coming from an original client, if not someone is trying to hack your > > >>>> server. Reengineering the salt string by sniffing the transfered md5 > > >>>> hashes is possible to my knowledge, however you'd need a shitload of > > >>>> computing power to do so (and i really mean a shitload). Nobody has > > >>>> the resources to do this and nobody is probably going through the > > >>>> hassle to crack your game server anyways :) > > > >>>> I don't say that this is the perfect method, but it worked well for me > > >>>> and a couple of my friends in various projects. > > > >>>>> And an off topic question.. I see more and more people talking about > > > >>>> getting > > > >>>>> a free phone from google? Is there some place you sign up to get > > this? > > > >>>> I'd > > > >>>>> love to get a Nexus One to test on... sounds like some people are > > >>>>> getting > > >>>>> just that.. a free phone to test on? > > > >>>>> Thanks again all. More to come I hope. > > > >>>>> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Justin Giles<[email protected]> > > > >>>> wrote: > > > >>>>>> Just to throw it out there... > > > >>>>>> There's also Google Apps Engine:https://appengine.google.com > > > >>>>>> It's java or python based (your choice). The free quotas are rather > > >>>>>> generous. I keep my high scores stored there for my apps and for > > one > > > >>>> of the > > > >>>>>> apps I > > ... > > read more » -- 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
