No plans for Madden/Tiger Woods 12? EA Given up on Android?

[wes78]

Well, Madden 11 only came out for Droid, and now I see NOTHING about Madden 11 or Madden 12 for ALL carriers.

What is the deal? Has EA given up on Android??

 

[Vanquished]

Probably not completely, but they obviously don't care for it. There are two poles on their facebook page. The first is two posts down on the wall and the second is nine posts down. The first asks where people mainly download their games, and the Android Market is winning with like 150 votes or something. The second pole is which game we'd like to see next on Android, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is winning with about 110 votes.

EA Mobile | Facebook

 

[HeadcaseGames]

they'll be back. I understand why it doesn't make too much sense for them to compete in Android right now, it's still such an early phase in the overall market - whereas their time/involvement is much better spent in the iOS market at the moment as it's far more competitive with what they are trying to do.

Android will get there but it's got a ways to go (although I think it will pick up a bit faster than people might be expecting). A year from now it should be a lot more figured out, although still not close to where Apple is right now.

 

[Vanquished]

A year from now I won't be here so it doesn't matter, sadly, since EA has quite a few cool titles.

 

[Yeahha]

they'll be back. I understand why it doesn't make too much sense for them to compete in Android right now, it's still such an early phase in the overall market - whereas their time/involvement is much better spent in the iOS market at the moment as it's far more competitive with what they are trying to do.

Android will get there but it's got a ways to go (although I think it will pick up a bit faster than people might be expecting). A year from now it should be a lot more figured out, although still not close to where Apple is right now.

I have to disagree, android is the market leader currently and devs that embrace android and co-develop iOS and android games will do better than those who rely only on one platform.

Many iOS devs have issues going to android because they have to provide support for many different phones instead of just a few devices and google doesn't act as an intermediary between the user and dev like apple does

 

[ludist210]

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and D.A.R.K. to their Flexion store recently (for Xperia Play only, for now), so they're supporting it...just slowly.

 

[Vanquished]

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and D.A.R.K. to their Flexion store recently (for Xperia Play only, for now), so they're supporting it...just slowly.

Exclusive titles aren't adding support, IMO...That's like putting Madden on the Droid all over again.

 

[HeadcaseGames]

I have to disagree, android is the market leader currently and devs that embrace android and co-develop iOS and android games will do better than those who rely only on one platform.

that's hard to say. Obviously I am supportive of Android (otherwise I wouldn't be posting here) but talking to a lot of other developers, and after having experienced the differences myself, I can see why it just doesn't work for many devs (particularly smaller ones) to try to develop for multiple platforms.

There's definitely advantages and disadvantages to both, and I'd suspect that right now is probably one of the hotter times to be involved on this side of things - but I can understand how many developers might feel it is too exhausting to deal with both markets, rather than concentrating on what works for them/"what they know."

Personally I will straddle the line as much as I can (it's easier to get visibility/sales on iOS, there's less competition for quality software on Android) but as a tiny dev I can consider to abandon one market in favor of the other if one is drastically more successful than the other for me.This is a bad long-term vision, but in the short term (particularly where burst-sales/success mean all the difference between living and dying) it does make sense.

As for a giant like EA, they can probably work hard to develop their mobile strategy in a place like iOS where it makes sense for them to be more active right now (they are often dominating the charts in many ways) and when Android catches up (culturally) then they can probably just slide it over here, easier in the future than if they have to spend a lot of time/energy/money forging this path as well, right now.. if they really see a strong need to.

 

[Yeahha]

Yeah I can see where you are coming from. I think google is trying to make the market more friendly for devs, if I recall correctly you can specify which phones the app is able to run on. I also can see how if you are a small company and trying to develop for android you will have many more devices than if you are developing for iOS.

 

[supermanlegend]

It just depends, small developers have more of a chance on android in my opinion because less competition also there are plenty of success stories on ios but there are so many failure that cost developers a ton of money. Plus more users. Most success stories come from huge big name developers. Gamevil, Com2us, Chilling, etc but what you dont see many of these companies start out with failures too. I think Rovio had made like 13 games before Angry Birds. If you're just starting android is the place to be if you're willing to work and not give up because you can constantly update your game without waiting on approval and get instant feedback to make your game better.

Many big companies think you're just suppose to make a game and let it sell because hey we didn't make any mistakes. Wrong. Every single EA game had problems on android as in not working, crashing, or not downloading additional data correctly from the start but did they work hard to fix it? No. Even with these problems and many low reviews due to huge problems. Most of there games still got more than 50,000 download that's a lot for a game with no updates, broken, and no support plus bad reviews. I can imagine if they actually tried. I think they just expected people to just except problems like many ios users or not have to actually support. Plus they just buy and can't get a refund when something wrong. Many developers want Apple to handle all the problems and not give people refunds etc. Well that's good for the developer but what about the user.

Also, while your game may get promoted nicely the first week on ios which you don't have control of actual release date if it goes off the radar like most games after the first week then your game is pretty much lost forever unless its really good or you have a big name. Plus what if you made a critical mistake upon release and low reviews made sales bad and the game lose popularity while you're waiting for Apple to approve that fix. And that fix probably could of kept the game selling well but most people would never know the game is fixed because now your game is off the radar and there is no just in section to show people your game again after an update. Where do you think the 99c sales came from? Even big companies have to do this just to be seen again even with good games. While on android if you make it to the top you stay there for a long time especially if you keep supporting the game.

So you might make a lot of sells initially but the life of your game dies faster than you could ever believe. If you're a big company coming to android expect to support your game or get lower than expected sales bottomline. So hire a tech or two to support android.

 

[HeadcaseGames]

I think a lot of what people say in forums (this one, iOS forums) is based upon presumptions and unless you've dealt with it first-hand, then it is wise to keep that in check Even in the case when people HAVE dealt with it first-hand, the climate is continually changing - particularly with these mobile devices - so certain factors that may have had a large impact even 6 months ago could be somewhat irrelevant after such time has passed. Anyway..

Yeah like I said it really is pros and cons between the two markets, and it is absolutely not a clear case of "one is better than the other" by a longshot. As a developer, you have to decide what will work for you based on what you can do, and what your history is. A huge expectation I had when coming over to Android was that "oh there's so much crapware to compete with, I'll easily stand out" and that turned out not really to be the case, the infrastructure of Android independent development scene is dramatically different than the iOS landscape - how one goes about getting the word out, promoting and marketing, a lot of that kind of stuff (a pretty vague umbrella but I don't want to turn this post into a novel). Let's just say that if one wants to develop for both devices it involves a lot more than merely making sure it runs on a fragmented hardware base and under a different engine, there's so much other stuff involved aside from merely building and maintaining the code. And even (perhaps especially) in the cases with larger companies like EA, these issues can perhaps be substantially magnified and even more costly (especially if they don't have a particularly solid gameplan due to a very new way of doing business, which runs contrary to how they've been selling software for the past 30-odd years)

 

[Yeahha]

Doesn't apple have a policy where they do not allow games that have basically the same game play? Like once tiny wings was released they would not allow another game like tiny wings to be released on the app store?

It seems to me that would slow innovation and discourage competition, while on android a fever doesn't get to claim ultimate rights on an idea and you would have to keep your app updated to compete in the ecosystem

 

[HeadcaseGames]

Doesn't apple have a policy where they do not allow games that have basically the same game play? Like once tiny wings was released they would not allow another game like tiny wings to be released on the app store?

It seems to me that would slow innovation and discourage competition, while on android a fever doesn't get to claim ultimate rights on an idea and you would have to keep your app updated to compete in the ecosystem

that's a new one on me I'll say I have seen dozens (at least) of clones of the most popular things, easily

however, if you make an iPhone game and go ahead and do an iPad version, they may reject one if it is not different enough from the other in some ways (if it's just simply a rez-up and that's it, for example)