Air Hockey was the very first paid application in the App Catalog, and development house Acceleroto recently posted to its blog about their experience developing for webOS and working with Palm. The post details the development process for Air Hockey, discusses challenges that face game developers, and answers some questions people have been asking, like "Why $1.99?" and "How does developing for webOS differ from developing for the iPhone?"
We caught our first glimpse of Air Hockey for webOS back when the Pixi was originally announced. Acceleroto was first solicited shortly after being accepted into the beta program (and after some interesting back-and-forth with Palm) to provide Air Hockey as a tech demo for the new handset. They were then able to get the application polished up for sale in the App Catalog in relatively short time frame:
The demo version was very specific. It was a technology demonstration to be used as part of the Pixi announcement. The paid version needed more polish, more options, more features, etc. The first 90% was done, but there was still 90% to go. Through help straight from Palm and lots of sleepless nights, Air Hockey for webOS was ready the day Palm’s back end developer portal was ready to accept apps.
They detail their decision to charge $1.99 for Air Hockey for webOS, versus $0.99 for the iPhone version. Economies of scale, folks:
Economics 101. It’s no secret that the iPhone version of Air Hockey has been $0.99 since it launched in July 2008. When it launched, there were approximately 10 million iPhones & iPod touches that could run it. At the launch of Air Hockey for webOS, there are something on the order of 1 million Pres that can run it (another guesstimate). There’s more though. There were about 3000 apps available when Air Hockey launched a couple weeks after the App Store opened. At the time of writing, there are 125 apps available in Palm’s App Catalog.
As far as developing for webOS verses iPhone OS? It's "Different." They also highlight some challenges developers face as they develop fast-motion games for webOS.
It seems that Acceleroto's experience with Palm and developing for webOS has been mostly positive - positive enough, in fact, that it looks as if they might have another webOS project in the works. Check out the full blog post for more of the steamy details; it's certainly worth the read.
Comments
I would like to see some improvement, both with this app, and the platform that correct the jerky-ness of the app.
i wonder what that secret project may be? may b its for the iphone and we never really ahve to bother. The lesson learnt seem to be that because of the way javascript works we may never see 3d games unless they coem up with an sdk or webGL.
So writing games for iPhone is better,
but you can't multitask on iPhone?
$1.99 is too much I think. More people will buy it at $0.99
or more people will use it if its free lol. just kidding!!!
Until the memory limit for apps gets fixed I'm more concerned about my partition's "budget" than I am my wallet's.
Agreed. There is another thing taught in Economics 101:
The Law of Demand
The Law of Demand states that when the price of an item goes down, the demand for it goes up. When the price drops, people who could not afford the item can now buy it, and people who weren't willing to buy it before will now buy it at the lower price.
A shame economics isn't just about demand.
The Law of Supply
In economics, the law of supply is the tendency of suppliers to offer more of a good at a higher price.
It's where they meet that matters for everyone to win.
If there were more Pres on the market, the entire Demand curve would shift, which would lower the price point on the Supply curve. The free market is a wonderful device when it's allowed to do its thing.
i don't have the app or have an comments about if it's worth the price but regarding how they chose their price point. i get that they are thinking "what price gets us or money back" but the consumer is probably thinking, "What is it worth" and "how does it compare to other options." Additionally, i have to think that there are people that will consider buying a different phone if it has the same apps but cheaper just like some people will choose a car or condo with cheaper maintenance costs. So if 1.99 gives you your money back, then whatever you release at that price point has to be at the bare minimum exactly what a consumer thinks a $1.99 airhockey game would be worth which may be more features. again this isn't really about airhockey rather product pricing. maybe Economics 102.
It's still Economics 101, since it's just an interaction between their supply curve and our demand curve. What they don't address in the article is the price elasticity of demand, which is really what will determine whether they'll recoup more by charging twice as much and getting fewer downloads versus charging an equal price and getting more downloads. Commodity software like this has very high elasticity, so you're better off charging the highest amount that people will consider a "token price" and getting the maximum number of downloads.
@The article author: Economies of scale is something else entirely.
Until we get WebGL or at least Flash (I vurped a little as I included that), it seems that projects like this are just demonstrations of what the OS can sort of do if you try really hard. I think Palm would be much better served by investing time in some applications that really looked great, didn't need to push 30fps and had broad appeal like a real google maps app, facebook app, flickr app, google reader client, sports scores, ...
Flash won't be a substitute and WebGL is half-baked. I'm hoping Palm implements some sort of game engine that has JS hooks, much like how Unreal Tournament works.
make this app free, and we will see how good it is. If its good, then we will be buying other apps from the creator. im not going to pay 2 bucks for an app that is slow and laggy. so make this free for a trial version. just like moblying i bought all of his games bc he previewed them.
"The first 90% was done, but there was still 90% to go.".. they work on a 180% scale, weird.
Even though 180& sounds wrong but its actually true. I does take same effort to finish the last 10% as the rest 90%. So basically 90% + 10% = 180%. Now where is my math PhD..
I think Yogi Berra is running their program management team.
i don't understand why the paid apps are not on my palm pre app catalog...... i have bell and live in canada so i dunno
One thing that I have not heard mentioned is that there is less competition on a platform w/less apps. Thus, you may be a smaller fish swimming in a smaller school, but you're more likely to be caught. You should be able to make $ by being more visible in a less crowded field.
HOLD ON - HOLD ON!!
That POS app had "polish, options AND features"???!!????????
This PHONE doesn't even have options, NOR features.
Gimme a feakin' break. You guys are really pissing me off now. I, and probably thousands of others deleted that sh*t in the first five minutes of having it.
Palm- can we get some functionality for our money?
HOLD ON - HOLD ON!!
That POS app had "polish, options AND features"???!!????????
This PHONE doesn't even have options, NOR features.
Gimme a feakin' break. You guys are really pissing me off now. I, and probably thousands of others deleted that sh*t in the first five minutes of having it.
Palm- can we get some functionality for our money?
dbd, you are like a cancer of irrational thought in the comments section on PreCentral. Would you kindly bugger off?
What's so irrational about expecting something for ur money?
HOLD ON - HOLD ON!!
That POS app had "polish, options AND features"???!!????????
This PHONE doesn't even have options, NOR features.
Gimme a freakin' break. You guys are really pissing me off now. I, and probably thousands of others deleted that sh*t in the first five minutes of having it.
Palm- can we get some functionality for our money?
well DBD, you posted the same comment three times. Your antics are childish. I guess your paper route money was spent on something worth it. Just deal with it or don't bother posting.
That got posted 3 times by itself. I didn't do that. If you were a regular on this site, you would know that repetitive posts occur all the time here.
And the classy folks go back and remove them.
HEY!!
Ill pay 10$ for a game if i have too !!!
JUST STOP LAUNCHING STUPID USLESS GAMES!!! like polarbear bowling . are your serious WTF is that !!!
WHERE ARE THE STRATAGY GAME ,, tower deffence , RAcing games ,
WebOs = #1 in 2D gaming , right infront of the ORIGINAL Nintendo!!
GET WITH THE PROGRAME!!!!! usless games usless APPS!! .. PALM PRE FTW
I sense some anger.
don't hate on polar bowling :(
I sense a little tension in the forum tonight... Anyhow, my take on the matter is It's $1.99 people, less than lunch at McD's. I just never understand the argument of "Why so expensive." $1.99 folks! I understand we are in a down economy, but to quote NFL on Sundays "Come on man!!!". Either pay the $1.99 or SHHHHHHH. Write your own apps and quit crying like babies. O.K. my rant is now over... Thanks
well put swissarmy! my points exactly
Anyone read the full blog post? Really interesting stuff about the differences between developing for WebOS and some hints on what Palm needs to work on with Mojo.
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