Quality control

[Apex]

I've come to write this after having a little look across the app store. I've been browsing in the "Release date" section of the App Store's categories today and I found something pretty shocking.

I'm not going to give any names, but I came across a company which was producing a lot of games. I've seen their name a lot over the past weeks in the "Release date" section and I've felt I have to say something about degree of quality control in publishing iPhone games. I did a background research and it became evident that the games were made using MMF2. Things like library graphics and high scores came across to me quite easily identified.

This company had published over 65 games (from a search, there could have been more but I don't know whether they were all loaded), most likely since the iOS exporter has come out. And as I looked through some of these games, I became pretty worried about the quality of some of the things I was seeing. Now I'm not trying to be arrogant and hold anybodies creativity back, but some of these games just looked lazy. I realize at the end of the day, it's down to Apple's quality control and somebody can publish as many games as they want, but I didn't feel it reflected too well on MMF2 as a development tool.

There was a price tag on a lot of these games and many of them had copyright infringing material, which could either be identified immediately or found in a quick Google search. I just want to send some sort of message across, referring to quality control. It's awesome using MMF2 to make iOS games, but I'm begging anybody here not to be lazy and produce countless games with no consideration towards quality. This sort of thing can be traced back to Clickteam's products (I was able to trace it back, so I'm sure other's could) and I really don't want Clickteam getting any negative opinions for things like this.

I'm sorry if this came across as arrogant or if anybody feels hurt by this (which I'd think most people wouldn't because I've seen the community here produce fantastic games), but it's just something I felt I couldn't hold in any longer. Making countless games is less likely to get you money than focusing on lower quantity, but higher quality games.

[Ryan]

I wonder if their business model is actually working though. You think if they weren't making money they'd stop at the 60th low quality game and actually start putting effort into their games.

I've been tempted to put out very low quality games just because I see many under-developed games doing ok. It hurts the end-user, but it could be better to spend 6 hours on a game and make $30, than spend 60 hours on a game only to earn $60.

I'd like to hear reports on profit vs time investment from developers who swamp the market, I know a few people here have 30+ flash games out. It could be a more viable option.

[oruga]

That's the problem with Apple/Android app stores, they approve almost anything and the good games get buried into a ton of crappy games that should not get approved.

Clickteam can't do anything to prevent this, of course this hurts the market and games in general, which have devalued a lot in the latest years. I think it only shows MMF2 is so powerful and easy to use that even a clearly unskilled and undereducated person is able to make something playable.

Also, selling games is not just about the game itself. Your experience, previous works, contacts, and marketing skills make a HUGE difference in the final amount of money you can make. Obviously these are built over time, so in the beginning you are better making small but high quality games so when you make a bigger game you already have contacts and potential sponsors/buyers waiting for your creation.

[Jeff]

Interesting, a bit sad and pretty much expected.

I am really surprised Apple didn't do a better job at least in the department of not allowing copyright infringing material to be approved.
Heck they have bothered people in the past about the names of their games being too similar and rejected them on those grounds.

Hopefully uneducated people don't blame the hammer (Multimedia Fusion) for the low quality of the house built (app/game produced)
but then it does show we accomplished one goal -- Fusion is easy to use.

[TheCrimsonTaco]

you gotta remember though that happens with each authoring tool. though it might happen with mmf2 more

[mobichan]

This is the blessing and curse of how the appstore is managed. In reality, MMF made products are probably less than 1% of the low quality products on the appstore. The lack of any actual quality control will continue to allow thoughtful, high quality titles to always be released as the minority amongst a sea of poor titles every week. But I can't imagine Apple wants to handle the volume of submissions with deep QA screening, since the cost would be insane. In general, I agree that this makes MMF potentially look bad. But doesn't MMF already have sort of a stigma in the developer community already?

[Apex]

I wonder if their business model is actually working though. You think if they weren't making money they'd stop at the 60th low quality game and actually start putting effort into their games.

I've been tempted to put out very low quality games just because I see many under-developed games doing ok. It hurts the end-user, but it could be better to spend 6 hours on a game and make $30, than spend 60 hours on a game only to earn $60.

I'd like to hear reports on profit vs time investment from developers who swamp the market, I know a few people here have 30+ flash games out. It could be a more viable option.

From what I've seen, I don't think it's been so successful. There wasn't any reviews and no general ratings on a single one of them.

I believe that somebody who puts out too many (low quality, rushed) games will just be less successful, because people might recognize the name and know that the games will be bad.

[kinase]

Bah - they'll just create new development accounts. MMF or not, the app stores ARE filling with garbage. I can't say my single dinky golf game is any better than the background garbage, but thats the reality of making a software market available to hobbyists.

Just out of curiosity.... just how bad are these games? What kinds of things are particularly revolting?

From what I've seen, I don't think it's been so successful. There wasn't any reviews and no general ratings on a single one of them.

I believe that somebody who puts out too many (low quality, rushed) games will just be less successful, because people might recognize the name and know that the games will be bad.

[Redsquirrel]

Bah - they'll just create new development accounts. MMF or not, the app stores ARE filling with garbage. I can't say my single dinky golf game is any better than the background garbage, but thats the reality of making a software market available to hobbyists.

Just out of curiosity.... just how bad are these games? What kinds of things are particularly revolting?

I would feel ashamed about putting terrible quality games onto the app store (or anywhere really).

Sure, anyone can just churn out games.. but it does more harm than good to the industry.

It's a tricky one, as someone downloading any game made with MMF (who is not using dev) will get a bad impression of "MMF" when they see that "made with mmf" screen before the game loads.

Would apple introduce some kind of quality control? Perhaps in a while.. the store is full to the brim of differing quality games and its becoming more and more difficult to make any kind of money from a game (from what i hear) so it would be nice if apple changed some of their rules/guidelines to deter people from selling shovelware.

[Jeff]

With Standard MMF -- you don't have to use the default loading screen so hopefully the credit listing for MMF is buried deep in the program and is not really seen very much.