Apple to Allow iOS Subscription Gaming Services in App Store [Updated]

[miografico]

yes, yes I would. and I'm not the only one either, I bet theres more people than you might believe who would be willing to pay a premium access fee. I got 2 dislikes, which were pointless bc like I said in the post itself, there are other people who would find the idea rediculous. but the reason for saying it was envisioning a method in which the games could be brought to the platform and still appease Nintendo's apprehension about it. I don't think Nintendo will ever port their games to ios or android without some seriousss cash for them. don't expect to be getting Super Smash for $10-$20. try $60 at least. the idea for an 'access fee' of sorts was an idea for how to get the games to the system NOW - not that I believe it's likely - it was just an idea. I expected someone to object to it. Also, I don't believe Nintendo is going to bring any titles to other platforms unless both it's portable gaming market and it's console market tank. which won't happen. the portable market disappearing completely isnt exactly a garuntee. I saw a CNET article about kid's top asked for christmas presents. right underneath Apple's products (iPad iPhone iPod) was Nintendo's 3DS. I wouldn't count them out yet. and even if they lost a handheld market, they wouldn't sell their brand so long as they had a console. and they will always have a console.

so yeah, I would pay that much just to have access to their titles on iOS. or, even better - if the details were hammered out with apple - to sell an over-priced hardware attachment for apple devices where their games from the app store will only work with that hardware. Its probably against the App Store rules and all, but if Apple got Nintendo to sign an exclusivity deal with them - a special exception would probably be in both of their interests.

just ideas. that I'd welcome. I can understand they don't want to give up profits, or just become a game making company. I'd be willing to respect that in order to get Pokemon on my iPhone, Zelda on my iPad, and Mario Kart in my Apple TV.

You don't understand the Nintendo corporate culture. It is actually very similar to Apple's in respect to their content will never run on hardware not created by them or specifically licensed to them. That's who they are now, it's who they have always been since their foray into the games industry and it's never going to change.

Will that bode well for Nintendo in the future? I don't think so, but frankly predicting the future of gaming - the hardware and the games themselves is like playing the roulette wheel in Vegas. Nintendo themselves hasn't been a AAA player in the console market for years, but seem very satisfied in being an entry level family console provider and having a decent mobile games offering.

Could Nintendo make a lot of short term money by creating an emulator for their classic games and releasing them on iOS? Maybe in the short term, but once the nostalgia wears off it's nothing more than the Wii Store lite and that hasn't exactly catapulted their overall revenues into the stratosphere either. But, the bottom line is they are never going to allow themselves to be at the mercy of another hardware makers terms of use. They will go bankrupt before they ever allow that to happen.

 

[deafgoose]

I personally think this idea is a complete failure but there are so many morons out there, I am sure it will be a huge success.

 

[Yr Blues]

Everything's going to require a subscription and credit check. Even food.

I say let them, and watch the consumer backlash.

 

[TrollToddington]

This is gonna be another totally wildly insanely great new product.

 

[haruhiko]

Sorry, but they won't get a penny from me.

 

[Winni]

Steve Jobs wasn't in favor of subscription/rental services. He always pushed for the users' "ownership" of content, although he did bend a bit with movies and print media.

I didn't know that there were two Steve Jobs in the industry; because the Steve Jobs you're talking about definitely is not the former CEO of Apple Inc...

In the real world, Steve Jobs tried everything to prevent users from owning anything. Everything in Apple land is basically a subscription-based "ownership" model. If you want to stay in the game, you have to upgrade OS X every 18 to 24 months, because the older version won't be supported anymore --> Subscription. Then the hardware itself becomes obsolete and unsupported after five years (at the latest) and new versions of OS X or iOS won't run on it anymore --> Subscription. By design, you're supposed to obtain all your content through Apple's iTunes and the App Stores. While that's not necessarily a subscription-based business model, it certainly represents a total platform lock-in.

No, Steve Jobs never "pushed for the users' ownership of content". He always pushed for owning the user instead.

----------

This is gonna be another totally wildly insanely great new product.

I think the official Apple terminology is "revolutionary, awesome, magical, beautiful".

 

[thenerdal]

I personally think this idea is a complete failure but there are so many morons out there, I am sure it will be a huge success.

My friend might pay for that. He bought Angry Birds when for the Mac when you can play it for free on Chrome in the Chrome Store.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Please, $6 a month for access to a whole lousy library of games versus $1 per game that you can cherry pick the best of, and keep for as long as you use iOS devices?

No one would seriously consider that price, would they?

There are people out there who download that $1 game and then spend $50 on microtransactions. $6 is nothing to them. If Big Fish incorporates some of their hits like Virtual Villagers, which cost $2.99 anyway, and keeps releasing new games as a "hook" so people don't cancel, they'll be alright. Some people will probably forget they subscribed in the first place.

iOS gaming is pretty commoditized and it's hard to stand out. Knowing that any game that doesn't make the top app list gets buried and doesn't make money, this is actually a pretty good strategy that sidesteps the problem entirely.

Though I think if you are patient, (at least a few years patient), Nintendo isn't going to have a choice in the matter anymore, at least for hand held gaming as it's starting to die a fast yet slow death. They need another year of being bent over the stock exchange sell counters for poor financial performance before they'll swallow their pride, but I expect someday you'll see Nintendo port games to IOS and Android if only out of desperation for revenue.

No matter what the analysts say, handheld is not going anywhere. For mobile to kill handheld, it would have to have games that are better than the ones on handheld. Instead, mobile is a disposable mess with a pricepoint that keeps depreciating. Used to be a few bucks, then a buck, then freemium, and now publishers have to wholesale all their IP under a subscription. The fact that a ton of people want to play Nintendo games on iOS says a lot - the games are simply better. Unless Apple starts an in-house game studio and fixes their race to the bottom app store pricing model, handhelds will be fine.

 

[seamer]

Everything's going to require a subscription and credit check. Even food.

I say let them, and watch the consumer backlash.

As long as it's... Fast.

 

[TrollToddington]

I think the official Apple terminology is "revolutionary, awesome, magical, beautiful".

Nah, I was citing Noah Wyle from his appearance at Macworld 1999. I agree the idea of game subscription is also "revolutionary, awesome, magical". Beautiful? NOT! I usually download the free demo of BigFish games, wherever there is one, and by the time the demo expires I have had enough of that game. No need to subscribe to their games, I play them for free and throw them away afterwards.

 

[Xenc]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Next up: Subscription apps.

"Please renew your subscription for Calculator to view the result"

 

[bushido]

eeek soon we'll have jamster on the store or something

 

[johnhw]

Wow. Yay awesome. $6/month that's like a steal.

 

[George Miller]

they should either give access to more games or keep the price low

 

[rmwebs]

Well. Subscription movies. Subscription TV. Subscription music. Subscription news.

Subscription gaming is kind of late to the party.

Its not a new thing. BigFish have done a subscription model for nearly 10 years now.

 

[runonthespot]

I can't express how bad an idea this is for all developers, especially indies. Here are my concerns.

Bigger companies with larger portfolios of games can create mini platforms. Think Gameloft / EA. For now, Big Fish seems to be doing simpler smaller games, but when someone can pay $6.99 and get access to say, the full suite of EA games, many many will do so.

So you're paying $6.99 for a bunch of games. Great! Now some indie tries to sell a game for $1.99. Doesn't seem like a good deal anymore, and you have access to more than enough already, and new ones coming into that little app every month. Maybe as an Indie you have a chance of getting into the platform... with an even bigger piece of the pie taken away, and the pie is smaller. You think "I already spent $6.99 a month, better spend less on these impulse purchases". Yeah, $6.99 isn't a big deal, but it will be when you pay that to a few big companies that have the latest blockbuster games that you want.

I just don't see the benefit other than to the pockets of those with the biggest portfolios. Yes, it may benefit the customer (let's remember that software price, over time pushes towards zero), but I can't see how $6.99 / month for numerous games is ever going to inspire a company to be innovative with game development.

The other temptation will be to make the big blockbuster style games ONLY available via subscription, with the rationale being that "you get other games for your money" which are mostly shovelware or poorer and certainly not games that push anything forward.

And why?? How does Apple benefit?

Not good news at all.

 

[roadbloc]

I don't see this one working out somehow.

 

[mw360]

All gaming will be like this one day. The games industry is a horrendous rollercoaster of booms and busts and intense pressure on release dates. Not to mention the exhausting cat and mouse game played with pirates and the pre-owned market. Subscription revenue is needed to bring some stability and provide everyone with a steady revenue.

Apologies to those who get offended by the thought of other people earning revenue.

 

[APlotdevice]

All gaming will be like this one day. The games industry is a horrendous rollercoaster of booms and busts and intense pressure on release dates. Not to mention the exhausting cat and mouse game played with pirates and the pre-owned market. Subscription revenue is needed to bring some stability and provide everyone with a steady revenue.

Apologies to those who get offended by the thought of other people earning revenue.

I wouldn't really call the whole thing with piracy cat and mouse. More like a fools errand. The industries spends all this time and money developing countermeasures which ultimately just punish legitimate consumers. Moreover they operate on the faulty assumption that cheapskates will actually buy the game if they can't get it for free.

 

[chaosbunny]

All gaming will be like this one day. The games industry is a horrendous rollercoaster of booms and busts and intense pressure on release dates. Not to mention the exhausting cat and mouse game played with pirates and the pre-owned market. Subscription revenue is needed to bring some stability and provide everyone with a steady revenue.

Apologies to those who get offended by the thought of other people earning revenue.

Yes, because before you needed to have some account with all your personal information for every game the gaming industry created absolutely no revenue. That's why it is so small today.

 

[seamer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Never heard of that service. I'd have accepted gamefly, but that's not on a handheld device so it's not quite the same.

In terms of iOS, subscription gaming is far, far behind when it's probably one of the largest reasons to have an iDevice at all.

 

[Kaibelf]

Please, $6 a month for access to a whole lousy library of games versus $1 per game that you can cherry pick the best of, and keep for as long as you use iOS devices?

No one would seriously consider that price, would they?

There's no limit to how moronic people can be when it comes to throwing away their money on a bad deal, trust me.

 

[diamond.g]

Does anyone know if this Subscription service extend to say games like WoW, Eve Online, etc? Because it would be nice to get games where you could actually see the other players playing (and have a persistent world).

Seems to me that WoW would be a pretty good candidate for iOS-ification.

 

[D.T.]

Next up: Subscription apps.

Funny enough, a few of the major manufacturers offer[ed] their apps (I believe Adobe?) in a "lease" model, though I'm not sure of there's a buyout/payoff option.

Does anyone know if this Subscription service extend to say games like WoW, Eve Online, etc? Because it would be nice to get games where you could actually see the other players playing (and have a persistent world).

Seems to me that WoW would be a pretty good candidate for iOS-ification.

This is exactly what I thought of when I read "subscription model" for games. Not pushing the whole game, but connecting to "multiplayer game content" at a recurring fee. Not unlike XBox Live ... where the game has a single player or fee based multiplayer.

 

[tigress666]

Does anyone know if this Subscription service extend to say games like WoW, Eve Online, etc? Because it would be nice to get games where you could actually see the other players playing (and have a persistent world).

Seems to me that WoW would be a pretty good candidate for iOS-ification.

Well GL has a WoW wannabe (Order & Chaos), least I hear it is one (never played WoW) where it is an online world with other players.

Cheap subscription fees too, .99 for a month, 2.99 for six I think (I wouldn't play it otherwise. I usually avoid online games cause of subscription fees cause I can't afford to get addicted and then pay something like 10-20 a month to keep playing).