[quote name='crunchewy']First, reality check: I have an iPhone 3GS and now an iPhone 4 on the way. I'm no Apple disliker. I'm also not an Android-disliker, though I do strongly dislike the hate that *some* Android fans send my way, but I realize that's not all Android users. In fact I like to keep my eye on all contenders as there's no telling what I'll opt for in the future. Truth be told, though, I've only got Macs in the house, so yeah, I'm probably a fan.
Which is not the same as saying that I don't look at other companies products too. I've got an Xbox 360 for crying out loud.
Anyway, enough with smileys. What I find goofy about that is that on the iPhone the price wars are so ridiculous that not only are most games 99 cents, many go free for periods of time in order to get them higher up on the sales lists just so that people will see them, which in turn leads to greater sales. So to say that iPhone users are willing to be pay big money for games seems absolutely ludicrous. Most games that sell for more then 99 cents struggle. There are obviously exceptions, but look at the top selling game (actually, app of any kind), and one that has been at the top for some time now: Angry Birds. It's 99 cents. It's always been 99 cents. It's also the top grossing app of any kind. Square Enix's much greater then 99 cent games aren't to be found in the top 50, neither sales nor gross. Angry Birds is, incidentally, a really good game. Make a good game, price it cheap, and lots will buy it. As I noted, there are exceptions. Call of Duty World at War Zombies is a consistent seller and high grossing app (not my cup of tea, but obviously many people's) and only recently had a sale dropping it to $7.99. It's been $9.99 until then and presumably will go back up, but there's no telling with regard to that.
So... the answer in terms of spending money is obviously that, currently at least, the market is massively bigger on iOS, whether through numbers or willingness to buy or both, so much so that in spite of the ludicrously low prices, developers can make a lot of money. The consumer and the developers win. Perhaps the consumers more then developers, but I couldn't really tell you that.
Android probably just needs to increase market share, but maybe they also need to figure out how to sell to Android users. Maybe Android users just aren't willing to buy apps for some reason? I don't know.[/QUOTE]
I guess, I'd like to keep this a deal thread rather than an apple vs android debate however I can't help but put in my two cents.
The biggest problem is market share. Android doesn't have near the market share that Apple does.
I know this is a great simplification but if you are making an app that costs $10,000 and you push it to market and release it on a platform that has 1,000,000 users, you can price it at $1 hoping 1 in every 100 users buys it. Now you factor in a market about a tenth the size and in order to turn a profit you need 1 in 10 to buy it or charge 10x as much.
I think developers are very interested in the platform but they face three main issues users aren't there in the same numbers as apple, its open nature and attraction to tech users has led to a major problem with piracy, and there is major fragmentation because there are so many devices/cpu/gpu/screen-size combinations.
It doesn't help that Apple has made it less economically appealing to even bother porting games to other devices by making the process take much longer than it should. However, why shouldn't they protect their market?
