Hi It launched today. It looks nice on the description sites, but I haven't tried it yet. I won't be on Mac for some time - has anyone tried it? Old links on and to Apple Downloads work still. Do you think it will change the Mac market for games? Will portals rise royalty rates for Mac games? Will give 30-day exclusives to MAS (or something similar) before launching on portals? cheers Roman
I don't have any game on it, but I am waiting for the first blog post from a dev making $1M/day with a prank app though Jokes apart, the only thing that I can bet on is that will cause the mac games prices to fall down by a lot.
looks good to me, it has games with prices ranging from $1 to $25, and there are not many games right now. I agree with the tendency that prices may drop soon.. although I believe good games can still be priced high.
In the first section, near the top, a group of apps is listed as 'New and Notable', does that mean some new apps are not being displayed? I suspect they just mean 'new apps'.
Not many games yes, but too many for everyone to be front-paged. But hey, at least I got this link I can hawk at Mac folk. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smiles-hd/id404674513?mt=12 New and Notable (from iOS) isn't exactly a "what's new" list, but what Apple considers Notable that week.
I don't expect to have such an Apple store effect on prices. Main reason iOS is so interesting to work for is the fixed hardware range. On Mac, you may play flash games, hardware features vary a lot, lots of portals already give Apple games, etc. The only real downside is Apple itself, promotion and marketing will be so hardcore than I can see other portals having problems to deliver games to Mac computers. My 2 cents.
Yes and it got broken (i only have an URL saying what to do, not actual news item). Although the thing is so silly (you just copy some files from a free app's directory to a demo's directory to unlock it) that it'll probably be fixed until tomorrow or something. The method still sounds very weak, but i suspect they're only after casual piracy.
Wow having to upgrade my laptop OS from 10.5 to 10.6 just to access the App Store would be a big turn off if I wasn't a developer who should probably do it just to capitalise on the new sales channel.
The DRM is more complicated than copying a few files around, but it's understandable that a Dev may not fully implement it due to the annoying US encryption export laws. Any claims of it actually being cracked are grossly exaggerated.
The DRM isn't broken, it's just apps that doesn't use any DRM that has been cracked by copying those files (link), but I'm sure the DRM will be broken soon though.
Got the 10.6.6 update to take a look. First thing, its very accessible, its first item in the Dock and 3rd item on the Apple menu. I think they want this to be the only/main way to get mac apps, but I guess it will take a while to establish itself. It basically works/looks like iTunes, though its quite a bit faster, and the interface less cluttered (at the moment!). I wonder why this isnt in iTunes, or iTunes in this? I spotted some quite high prices of ported iphone games, we'll see how long that lasts. The store already has quite a lot of (dare I say) quick iphone ports. The app installation process is truly effortless, the app icon just flies down into the dock -- done. It couldnt be simper. Checking for updates is also super-easy. I'm sure I read that apple didnt want demo/lite versions, but there are plenty on there. Maybe I read it wrong. The store could be used by companies to provide free versions only, and direct customers to their site, thereby giving no money to Apple? Its not like iphone, where theres no other way to buy something. Perhaps they reject apps that do that.
according to the GamesIndustry.biz the Mac app store DRM was broken/cracked within hours.... Not good! Galen
Well I cannot believe they'll let people do that. Otherwise WHY someone would sell through them instead of redirecting to their sites and get full money+customer email?
I don't see how they can enforce it... if they do then why wouldn't they go so far as to say if you don't distribute your game exclusively on the store they will not distribute it.