Gaming The Bitmap Brothers Interview

Totally agree, that totally put me off the rest of the interview.

Just because there is more free stuff available on Android doesn't mean that no paid for game sells at all.

The Angry Birds one is strange - people are desperate for a paid for version that's free of Ads, but the devs won't budge.

 

I have to agréé. I fed up with those ad full apps. I prefear paid app over free ones with ads

 

Rovio make more money from Angry Birds with ads than their paid-for iPhone version. Having ads and no paid version also effectively makes piracy impossible.

That is far from true. Whilst free apps are extremely successful on Android, the number of extremely successful paid apps is extremely small, and is widely known to be. I know this is an old statistic, but it seems pretty relevant: http://larvalabs.com/blog/android/android-market-payouts-total-2-of-app-stores-1b/

For more relevant comparisons, Doodle Jump has sold something like 3 million on iPhone - it's in the 1-500,000 bracket on Android. Estimates from analysts also place Android in a low position: http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/861-5-percent-growth-android-puny/

Having said that, I know from experience that mobile advertising usually results in larger profits on small, multiple use apps - and if you are likely to get a lot of playtime out of an app, you could justify making an ad-supported version.

 

Same here, could get past level 1 on Xenon 2, and then past the Spider on level 2, but always got stuck about half-way through level 2. Damn, those Amiga shooters were hard. Same problem with SWIV & Blood Money (both excellent Amiga shooters) - could never get past level 1!

Maybe that's why I loved the old RPGs on the Amiga, like Eye of the Beholder, Heimdall & Hired Guns.

 

Favourite game ever: Chaos Engine on the Amiga.
The Bitmap Brother games were the best back then. I hope to see Chaos Engine and Speedball making a comeback. The graphics, soundtrack and cool factor were awesome!!!
(Spent my childhood playing these. Was like OMG!!!! when I saw the link on the homepage for this).

 

I thought Z was coming to Android? The interview makes it sound like he has no interest what-so-ever in doing so.

 

xenon was the best ,xenon 2 megablast wasnt all that..

 

Hell yeah, Chaos engine was fabulous ! I played it endlessly, first on my Amiga 2000 and then on my Amiga CD32. This last version was wonderful, CD quality audio track, better graphics and on a big TV ...

 

Does anyone else think it sounds like he's totally lost the passion for game development? Most answers are just about the profitability of various games or platforms without much enthusiasm. Obviously making money is what it all comes down to, but he came across as quite tired of the industry to me, anyone else get that?

 

To be honest, most of the game studios are hunting money over passion. I don't really enjoy new games. Maybe it is me, but today's game are all using the same gameplay over and over. Nothing really new, just great graphics but nothing behind it.

When you see that a 200KB old game gives me more pleasure then a 10GB new game, I think that there's something wrong.

I miss games like Lemmings, Incredible machine, Diggers, Inca, Elite, Monkey Island (the old ones ... can't stand the graphics of the remakes), Heimdall, Utopia, etc.

EDIT : Here is a little nostalgic video from youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTz5iwmtkrs



OMG How could I have not mentioned Agony and Alien Breed

 

I understand you're point, but in reality the endless strive to produce the "best graphics eva" rapidly slowed down around 2007, mostly because the consoles are now the dominant user base and their hardware is fixed.

This does leave room for some innovation in new games you have to admit: is Portal 2 really that generic?

 

As Bauul says, clearly there is some innovation still left in the industry, but it does seem pretty few and far between.

I find it interesting that all the above games that we rightly hold as unique classics came at a time when I believe piracy was prolific. I don't know how the figures compare to then and now but no-one I knew ever seemed to buy any games for their Amiga, whereas now, with piracy still being a relatively easy option on multiple formats, the games industry is booming whilst innovation is low.

Now you might say that in the early days of any 'creative' industry it is easy to be innovative there is no history to be compared to, but at the same time, it can still be interpreted as another justification to give capitalism a swift kick in the knackers.

 

There is another interview that Mike gave that made it clear that he has lost faith in game development. However if you read interviews of most game developers you will find this is common. There are simply too many games out there and that makes it nearly impossible to get your game noticed from the crowd. How can you have passion to create a game that won't sell well or even have a good following if it was free.

The reason games feel "cheap" these days is because none of the studios can afford to meet all the expectations anymore! You can't just sit down and make a good game anymore... The game has to rise above too many bars just to get marketed properly.

 

Used to love the BB. This isn't them - this is one guy cashing in on all the old IPs by digging them up and selling them for new platforms.

As noted by others, his anti-android stance is ill-informed - in the long run it's his funeral though - he's doing himself out of a massive potential market.

 

I would pay for Z on Android in a heartbeat. I hope it comes soon.

 

man i love them games might have to have a dig around in my old disk box and get bosbox running

 

This guy sounds completely jaded. I could see where he was coming from maybe 5 years ago, but indie developers have been making a huge resurgence. Everything he says about needing a gigantic budget to make a game is BS frankly, unless he's only interested in making cross-platform AAA titles. In which case, yeah, good luck.

He even made the argument that prices on mobile games are too low, but doesn't seem to understand that the pool of potential buyers is exponentially larger than ever before. It's clear he's only in it for the money, and his narrow mindedness is going to keep him from making much.