One of the worries many big game developers have had about the iPhone is that they can’t put enough money into a game to make it good because unless they sell it at $1-3 it will get lost in the shuffle.
Apple may have found a solution to that problem however. PocketGamer.biz is reporting that Apple is planning on introducing a new section to the App Store with premium game titles priced at $19.99. The developers of those games would be hand picked by Apple and the games themselves would be of “PSP-quality.”
PocketGamer’s sources didn’t have any information as to when this new section would be implimented but WWDC seems to be a fairly logical announcement venue.
Not only will this convince some big developers to invest more money into game development but it would also indicate that Apple has been listening to criticisms about the problem with low priced iPhone apps.
The one thing that hasn’t been mentioned in all of this is that from a money standpoint Apple couldn’t care less about the price of applications in the App Store, as long as the amount of money spent on apps as a whole stays the same (they still get 30%). The only incentives Apple has for doing this is to keep the developers happy and to keep the quality of applications high.
I do think that this would fix many problems with the App Store but does add another one. How will Apple decide who is going to be in the premium section? I’m sure many indie developers of high quality games that don’t get into the premium section will be pretty peeved off that they are not included. The fact is that Apple isn’t going to make everyone happy with the App Store but this move gives some more indications that they are at least trying to.
Apple to Open $19.99 Premium Games Section in App Store? – Mac Rumors.
More Confirmation of a $19.99 Premium Games Section | Touch Arcade.
personaly I prefered the free ones =) but its ok
@SmallBusinessEntrpreneurship the free games are great but I don’t have very many of them on my iPhone because I’ve found that the quality of the free apps isn’t nearly as high as the for pay apps. I also like to see indie developers get compensated for their work (as long as it is a fair price).