Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open! [LWN.net]

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Feb 18, 2012 7:02 UTC (Sat) by elanthis (guest, #6227)
In reply to: Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open! by oever
Parent article: Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Companies that actually sell things will just buy tags (it's buying _advertising_ after all, and that's what we do) that they think even slightly matter. Also, "free" apps are hard to classify in today's environment. Just because I don't charge for the app itself doesn't mean that I'm not making money off it, between in-app payments, in-app advertisements, and product synergy.

In the end, users don't search for apps with tags (aside from the very broadest categories) that much anyway. The app store is going to have a group of people whose job is to select "featured" apps and place them on the front page before users even select tags. That's where users find apps. And that's what app developers strive to get into.

The rest of the users are going to find apps via Internet links, so it's very important to make sure there's a URL scheme for loading up a particular app in the app store from the device's browser. That way a review of the game on GameSpot or PocketGamer or whatever can link directly to the app info/purchase screen in the user's phone.

(Bonus points for making this an HTTP URL and not an actual HTTP scheme, in which the device browser detects the URL and loads the app page internally but other browsers load up a regular page, allowing the user to view and purchase apps on their PCs by logging into their app store account, and then have it automatically downloaded to their device.)

The silly model that the Linux package repos keep pushing of the 50 categories and sub-categories and split-up packages aren't how users work.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Feb 18, 2012 20:27 UTC (Sat) by tshow (subscriber, #6411) [Link] (17 responses)

You're arguing for the apple app store model here, and the apple app store is frankly a disaster.

Sure, it's working great for apple, but it's a pile of crap for the users and the developers.

The curated "featured" section is designed to turn the app store into a lottery for developers, with everyone scrambling over each other to get featured. Featured apps pull in more money in a day than a non-featured app pulls in over its lifetime.

As a result, you've got everyone gaming the system.

As an example, apple drives their featured page based on popularity. They shut down at christmas, though, so all the big publishers drop their apps to free or minimum price right before christmas so they can ride through the holiday in the featured list while the apple folks are on hiatus.

It's a stupid system unless you're the owner and you don't care about small developers.

The featured section is useless for users too, unless all you want from the machine is to play throwaway casual games. There are too many useful and interesting things to fit on a featured page.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 11, 2012 17:34 UTC (Wed) by steffen780 (guest, #68142) [Link] (16 responses)

As a user of the Android market I could not agree more with your sentiments. Finding serious games in the store is so much work I've pretty much given up on it. Add to that arbitrary restrictions on the size of mobile downloads and a completely useless search function (as you can't even filter out e.g. paid games - I don't have a credit card and will not get one just to buy a 5€-game; nor can you search and then order the search results; nor can you search within the search results) and you've got a complete usability disaster. It's very sad indeed that this is the best you can get in a mainstream system (from the descriptions here I take away that Apple's store is roughly the same).

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 11, 2012 17:47 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (15 responses)

It's very sad indeed that this is the best you can get in a mainstream system (from the descriptions here I take away that Apple's store is roughly the same).

This is sad, true, but the saddest part is that this awful experience (which can be explained by the newness of it all: both Apple's Appstore and Google Play are less then four years old) and is still better then what you have in Linux (after more then decade of development).

Finding serious games in the store is so much work… - 100% agree. But compare it the experience of finding serious game on Debian or Ubuntu!

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 7:40 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (14 responses)

this awful experience (which can be explained by the newness of it all: both Apple's Appstore and Google Play are less then four years old) and is still better then what you have in Linux (after more then decade of development)

Personally I find it a lot easier to locate stuff in the Debian repository than in Google Play. For example, the Debian repository supports tags and searching through software descriptions.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 7:53 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (13 responses)

Personally I find it a lot easier to locate stuff in the Debian repository than in Google Play. For example, the Debian repository supports tags and searching through software descriptions.

How nice of you to ignore the real question. Steffen780 initially complained that task of finding serious games in the [Google Play] Store is just too hard sometimes. Well, that's true, I can agree. Now, please explain how the fact that Debian repository supports tags and searching through software descriptions helps you to find games which are not in the repository in the first place!

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 8:16 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (12 responses)

Steffen780's observation that it is hard to find »serious games« in the Google Play store is not due to the fact that there aren't any there to find (I would think there are), but that it is difficult to tell them from the junk games, especially since there are probably 100 junk games for every »serious game« in the search results. This is presumably what Steffen780 means when he calls the Google Play search function »completely useless« and the store itself a »usability disaster«.

Within the Debian repository, these usability problems are arguably addressed in a better way. Whether there actually are games in the Debian repository that you would consider »serious« is irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is the usability of app store/repository search results. (Chances are that, according to you, anything that is in fact in the Debian repository can't be a »serious game« in the first place. I can personally find enough games in the Debian repository to keep myself »seriously« entertained but that is probably because I'm not much of a gamer to begin with and my tastes aren't that jaded.)

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 8:50 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (11 responses)

Whether there actually are games in the Debian repository that you would consider »serious« is irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is the usability of app store/repository search results.

100% pure, unadulterated, distilled BULLSHIT.

The very same process which produces nice-to-use tags and desriptions excludes “serious” (== high-budget) games from said repo. It's flip side of the very same coin!

The end result:
Google Play Store - it's hard to find the thing you want to find.
Debian repo - it's impossible to find the thing you are seeking.

I'll pick “hard to do” over “impossible to do” any day of week, thank you very much.

You can find few “serious games” in Debian repo (things like Quake) but if you'll install them and try to run them you'll find out that you can not do this because they don't include the actual game, they only include game engine! And you'll need to continue your search till you find the actual game somewhere else. Sure, you can use said game engine to play some fan-made levels, but it's hard to call the experience a “serious game”, sorry.

I can personally find enough games in the Debian repository to keep myself »seriously« entertained but that is probably because I'm not much of a gamer to begin with and my tastes aren't that jaded.

But that's just the thing: most games in Debian are at level of “junk games” in Google Play Store, it's not hard to find these there either. Believe me it's not hard to find solitaire or some ugly race game in Google Play Store!

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 10:36 UTC (Thu) by spaetz (guest, #32870) [Link]

> 100% pure, unadulterated, distilled BULLSHIT.

I've had it. It's a pity to exclude an obviously smart person that says true and interesting things at times. But I am not willing to have half of the LWN comments cluttered by someone who is that agressive and repeatedly insults people rather than respecting that the world might consist of different opinions than ones own. Sometimes its smarter to just let a topic go even if you disagree. My filter list is an entry richer now. Sorry for the noise.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 10:43 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (9 responses)

Two points:

The shortcomings of the Google Play store with respect to navigation apply to all types of media available there, not just games. In particular, the same usability criticisms can be made based on application types which are well-represented in the Debian repository.
The Debian ecosystem, due to what the project aims at and how it works, isn't especially geared towards »serious games«, so it doesn't come as a big surprise that there aren't that many of them available from the Debian repositories. You might as well complain that there are so few underwater BBQ sites for scuba divers. Try to find »serious software development tools« in the Google Play store and compare the results to the Debian repository. What, no Eclipse on Android? Android must really suck. It is doomed!

And there's no need for that language. Go wash your mouth out with soap.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 11:37 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (8 responses)

Third point:

Most shortcomings of Google Play can be fixed and/or alleviated. The problem of _lack_ of good games is much harder to fix.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 19:35 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (7 responses)

It really depends on what one considers »good«.

There are loads of »good« games for Linux as far as I'm concerned, but as I said I'm not much of a game enthusiast, so the bar is pretty low. Many »independent« games these days target Linux as well as Windows and the Mac and I'm told they can be quite entertaining.

Of course if your definition of a »good« game is »one from a big-name game programming outfit that just came out for Windows« then you're probably going to be disappointed most of the time.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 20:09 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (6 responses)

Many »independent« games these days target Linux as well as Windows and the Mac and I'm told they can be quite entertaining.

We were talking about Debian repo, remember? How many of these »independent« games can be found there?

As for »serious software development tools«… we'll probably see them in Google Play Store before 2027 (that's when Google Play Store will be as old as Debian is today).

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 20:43 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (5 responses)

We were talking about Debian repo, remember? How many of these »independent« games can be found there?

I told you before that to be in the Debian repository a package must be distributable by Debian. Stuff you're expected to pay for is generally not distributable by Debian, which if having to pay for something is part of your definition of »good« is a bit of a show-stopper, but derives from the principles on which the Debian project is founded. You give the impression of having been around the block often enough to know about these, so I'll assume here that you're just being obtuse to be obtuse.

There would be (and I think I said this before, too) no problem whatsoever in putting up a for-pay »app store« for games that will run on Debian. This could integrate smoothly with the Debian packaging system and enable the use of whatever convenient libraries Debian provides already. We just need somebody to want this badly enough. Here this discussion turns full circle.

we'll probably see them in Google Play Store before 2027 (that's when Google Play Store will be as old as Debian is today).

We may see them then if we will actually be able to find them in the store among the millions of apps that are not worth anybody's trouble. There will probably be 10.000 software development tools available, 9.995 of which will be useless and/or unusable junk, and we can just hope that the Google Play store folks get their act together in time so we can tell which ones are which without having to look at them all, one app at a time.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 20:49 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (4 responses)

doesn't Ubuntu have an integrated software store where you can buy commercial software as well as using everything in the plain repository?

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 12, 2012 22:32 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Yup. It includes small smattering of things (things like Acrobat Reader or DB2… Java was also there till Oracle decided to pull the plug). Most of games are not there either (in fact the last time I've checked partners repo have not included games at all).

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 13, 2012 2:40 UTC (Fri) by spaetz (guest, #32870) [Link] (2 responses)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Games/NativeNonFreeComm...

yeah, it contains at least 14 nonfree for-pay games, magazine offerings and whatnot. in fact it quite resembles an app store, by now..

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 13, 2012 3:01 UTC (Fri) by spaetz (guest, #32870) [Link] (1 responses)

uh, my bad. it seems the games at above link are not necesarily in the ubuntu software store. but they definitively have for-pay content now too.

Seigo: Spark pre-order registration is open!

Posted Apr 13, 2012 10:22 UTC (Fri) by kklimonda (subscriber, #60089) [Link]

Hmm.. why not? I can definitely buy them from the Ubuntu Software Center