Why We Finally Decided To Develop for WP and not iPhone

[anon(8985111)]

Thank you very much for sharing your story with us. Wish you all the best for the development and make sure to inform us how it goes.

 

[Ashalinia]

I understand that those terms are kind of... snarky, but isn't it a bad idea to pass up a potentially large user base over that?

Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic that developers want to develop for WP first, but it doesn't seem like a fantastic business move.

 

[Ryzzlle]

I also think the Apple terms are a bit weird. The point they're trying to get across is something I agree with, I don't agree with the way they say it though.
Anyways, best of luck to your team and the games you're making! After all, if the WP market has to be more appealing business wise, someone has to take the leap forward. Just a tip: When WPC posts about your games one of these days, be sure it has that little 512 MB support tag,some of us little budget phone users would love to play the games you make!

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

Some of these people in this thread are ignorant and ridiculous.

I look forward to seeing your products. Definitely have a buyer in me

 

[EMINENT 1]

I will gladly pay for your app. Thank you for supporting the platform!

 

[Bee Mon]

I understand that those terms are kind of... snarky, but isn't it a bad idea to pass up a potentially large user base over that?

Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic that developers want to develop for WP first, but it doesn't seem like a fantastic business move.

Even entering the mobile app market is already not a very good business move nor making an agreement where details are vague and lopsided. Regardless of the size of any market, there's no guarantee of success and there is always an element of luck involved. For every success in an app store, there are hundreds of others that will not make it. We wouldn't have even tried to come back if we didn't have something to fall back on in case things don't work out. We are doing this because game development has always been our passion, something that we want to return back to, not because each of us wants to buy a Ferrari.

 

[Bee Mon]

I would've thought you choose WP because its the most hack free OS out there, It took some guys 2 years to hack it ( they still couldn't create a way for other people to hack it) and the funny blow to the head to those guys was!!! A huge new update got introduced rendering their hacking obsolete, So unless someone goes into great length and converted his phone into a developers phone, he will not get to install an app out of the store, (which voids the warranty btw) it also means In App purchase models in WP are the best out there because Android users with root have access to ram, meaning many apps can be played with no actual profit, (since these apps are free to install and don't feature ads) and that's how I basically destroyed my friends love for Candy Crush

Since Android was not under consideration at that moment, we didn't need to care about the hacking and piracy. If we did chose to go Android, definitely we would have to rethink the payment model for the game and what additional methods that we can use to mitigate loses through piracy and hacking. If we couldn't find a suitable solution based on the structure of our game, that could be also a major reason why we would choose iOS or WP over Android. Hate is a strong word to use and I admit we may not have coined our initial statement correctly. It would be fairer to say we dislike developing for Android for many reasons (including the prevalent amount of piracy) and we hate the arrogant practices of Google.

Another thing is that we made the decision to go iOS way back before WP 8.1 at a time where we were unsure exactly where Microsoft was heading. If WP8.1 (including the latest update) and Universal apps were introduced at a much earlier time, we would have been more confidence on WP.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Thanks for choosing to develop for Windows Phone.

I'll definitely check out your games.

 

[James8561]

can't wait to see what you will make! i'll definitely buy it if it serves my needs or entertain me well

 

[Bee Mon]

Thanks for all the positive support! We are so humbled. We could not have imagined this when we decided to create this thread. After the amount of abuse that have been going around the Internet for the past week, it feels so good to be in the company of such a positive and civil community!

 

[Skamath]

Between all the Yays and the Nays Bee Mon has a point and so has Snowmutt
unimportant as it may be there is not much of a difference between a tester and developer, while the developer can walk into Bee Mon's party with his polished knob of an app doesnt necessarily mean that the tester doesnt have the ability to create quality app. The only difference between the two I would say is the tester tests and then turns into a publisher (caterpillar to butterfly theory)

Now some like the butterfly some like caterpillar but who is Apple to say that the caterpillar should not bore a hole through it. For all you know there are butterfly admirers that appreciate the effort the caterpillar put in, to turn into a butterfly that it turned into. In short the butterfly lovers dont mind the caterpillars. Let the people decide if the app is good or not. It is called a rate and review/ feedback system.

 

[Phone Guy 4567]

IMO there is nothing wrong with Apple deciding what to allow or not allow in their store. The only negative is the second part the OP highlighted, because it sounds like a threat, but what they're saying is common sense. If you have an appeal don't publicly bad mouth us because it won't help your appeal, which is good advice for any type of appeal with anyone.

IMO the OP decision to develop for WP sounds like a plan B, hardly a ringing endorsement of WP. If development has already started with iOS why throw away all that work instead of just submitting it to Apple once it's finished and see what happens? My guess is the OP knows the app is not polished and would most likely be rejected. If I was truly cynical I might even think the WP app will be used as a beta test and things learned applied to a future iOS & Android versions, not really because of a stand against Google or Apple polices.

 

[Nerdy Woman]

IMO there is nothing wrong with Apple deciding what to allow or not allow in their store. The only negative is the second part the OP highlighted, because it sounds like a threat, but what they're saying is common sense. If you have an appeal don't publicly bad mouth us because it won't help your appeal, which is good advice for any type of appeal with anyone.

IMO the OP decision to develop for WP sounds like a plan B, hardly a ringing endorsement of WP. If development has already started with iOS why throw away all that work instead of just submitting it to Apple once it's finished and see what happens? My guess is the OP knows the app is not polished and would most likely be rejected. If I was truly cynical I might even think the WP app will be used as a beta test and things learned applied to a future iOS & Android versions, not really because of a stand against Google or Apple polices.

It doesn't sound like you read any of Bee Mon's post beyond the inserted Apple agreement. Their team was about to invest in Apple equipment when this revised agreement was published. No work using Apple's required Objective-C language has been done. They have experience developing for the now defunct WebOS and got good reviews.

Next time you want to criticize, you might take the time to read the OP. I don't think they intend to use WP as a test platform. Rather, I suspect they see Apple's attitude as one that does not bode well for any future association. Perhaps experience is a good thing to have.

 

[Bee Mon]

IMO there is nothing wrong with Apple deciding what to allow or not allow in their store. The only negative is the second part the OP highlighted, because it sounds like a threat, but what they're saying is common sense. If you have an appeal don't publicly bad mouth us because it won't help your appeal, which is good advice for any type of appeal with anyone.

IMO the OP decision to develop for WP sounds like a plan B, hardly a ringing endorsement of WP. If development has already started with iOS why throw away all that work instead of just submitting it to Apple once it's finished and see what happens? My guess is the OP knows the app is not polished and would most likely be rejected. If I was truly cynical I might even think the WP app will be used as a beta test and things learned applied to a future iOS & Android versions, not really because of a stand against Google or Apple polices.

You are free to have whatever your opinions you want but we only care to address opinions that are based on facts not presumptions. However I would like to point out the fallacy of some of those opinions in case some other readers (which in my opinion includes you) did not read my entire post and replies but simply skim through them to cherry-pick a few points for your arguments.

First of all, Windows Phone was never a Plan B, it was part of the master plan. Plan B is when one plan fails, you need a backup. We clearly indicated that we would support both platforms which is one of the reasons behind choosing C# through Xamarin, so that it will be easier and faster to port over to Windows Phone. iOS was just chosen to be the initial platform. While we like C#, the new Swift language is pretty neat, so why fore would we consider paying a not-too-cheap Xamarin license if we had no intention to support WP in the first place.

Secondly, we did not attempt to paint a pretty picture of WP with our post to get favors. In fact, on the contrary, we actually described a very bleak picture of WP at the beginning of the year in our post when we made our initial decision. When we decided to create the thread in the first place, we were ready to get a huge backlash from WP owners angry that we would choose to go iOS first and not the platform that we actually love.

Thirdly, if you have actually read our post carefully, you can see clearly that we have not started substantial coding yet. What resources that we have implemented so far (graphics, music, animations) can be applied to any platform so we don't lose anything by switching. Also even if we had done some code, since we have chosen C#, it's not a big issue to switch. Now if we had already make a big "monetary" investment on one platform, then definitely we would have to still bulldoze through it to recover our investment before leaving it. And if you had also read through a lot of our replies, we have indicated a few times that if Apple was to revert or to specifically clarify exact requirements, we would reconsider our stand. Againt prove that we weren't painting a pretty picture of the WP situation.

Finally, even though as the developer of a software that got a 8/10 review from a major site and could have gotten more except that we only supported English, we are not insulted by your assumption that we were afraid of being rejected because we knew our game/apps were not of "quality". However IMHO, you just insulted your own community by suggesting that WP users would accept crappy software rejected by Apple. Whether our software is of good quality can only be easily ascertained at the time of release. We cannot address it now but we emplore you so stay around and do not delete your comment. At the time that we offical release our software, I would like to come back to revisit your comment so that we can work together to compare our software with what is available on the Apple AppStore and I would appreciate your evaluation at the time.

We hope in the future if you have any opinions on any of our posts, that you first read our posts and replies entirely. You are free not to but the time that we have to take to address your straw man opinions could have been better spent on designing and making "quality" games/apps for your platform.

 

[berty6294]

Interesting read. Won't buy your app though. I hate IAP and I think your app won't be that great to be honest. If it won't make it in the app store why should we windows phone users be excited about it?

I for one am excited because of the overwhelming passion this developer has. As far as how good the game will be? Time will tell, but such a passionate dev definitely deserves at least a chance to prove to us he is good at what he loves!

 

[Bee Mon]

Regarding another fallacy opinion, we have not published anywhere in our post or replies that we support IAP exclusively. The only thing we mentioned in a reply is that we love to support all available payment options in order to reach a wider audience. How this translates to IAP in someone's mind, I'm not sure but its important that I should clarify this. From this point on I will no longer address any queries or opinions on software that is not already on the Windows Phone Store; either in a beta or launch state, because that is not the point of this thread, and there will be a separate product page at that time to address your concerns. Meanwhile any specific queries can be sent to me through PM.

 

[Cortimi]

So what's the name of your company, so I know what to look for?

 

[EC Translating Services]

Nothing new about Apple policies. The renown of their arrogance has reached global scale.

 

[Bee Mon]

So what's the name of your company, so I know what to look for?

We're leaving the company out of it for the moment. Software development is not the core business of our company at the moment, it's something that we are only just returning back into after years being away. We do not want users to search for us and get anything that is not WP apps/games related nor get an empty page as there are no apps/games released yet. We will be documenting the progression of our port in the Developer's Corner here. I'm afraid that is the only way to track us at the moment.

 

[StephanW]

I think "we have a lot of serious developers that do not want their quality apps to be surrounded by amateur hour." leaves little room for interpretation.

Just my point: You guys here say this sentence is arrogant. But it's also 110% true!
Every single customer doesn't want **** apps! I HATE Windows Phone apps who aren't looking pretty on my 1320. Or aren't written in HD 720p resolution so it gets stretched out where lots of bad things happen. So, perhaps it's a little arrogant to people who just get their first app together.

But Apple is #1 in "App on the Mobile Phone" and they didn't get there by being nice to everyone.