作者：Jeremy Alessi

整个游戏产业都朝着免费游戏模式（F2P）而发展。PopCap便极力拥护这一模式，并在转变过程中裁减了不少员工；专注于零售业务的主机游戏开发商也开始改变业务模式；世界各地优秀的设计师也开始歌颂这一新的游戏时代。尽管存在着这些趋势，我们还必须正视一个事实：传统付费游戏能够被当成艺术品而存在，但是免费游戏却不能。

举个例子来说吧。让我们回到2001年11月，即微软推出了新系统Xbox时，一款名为《光晕》的新游戏也伴随着该系统而出现了。

但是有些人却忘记了同时期出现的《合金装备2》。那时候，我在下午时使用PlayStation 2玩了《合金装备2》，并在午夜的时候使用我的Xbox购买了《光晕》。我永远也不会忘记最初玩《光晕》时的感受。

起初我对微软的新主机抱着怀疑的态度，但是当我穿越了繁华的场景，欣赏着星球四周唯美的风景，并朝着聪明的外星人开火时，我意识到自己像喜欢《合金装备2》那样喜欢上了《光晕》！即使到现在我也仍将这两款游戏当成艺术品般的存在，并还是会像10年前那样愉快地玩游戏。

现在让我们快进到2009年。当Ngmoco发行了一款有可能彻底改变游戏产业的新游戏时，我已经成为了iPhone游戏开发者将近1年时间。这款游戏便是《Eliminate》——第一款利用苹果iOS 3.0以及全新应用内部支付系统的免费iPhone游戏。

这是一款非常华丽的游戏，特别是作为手机游戏来讲。游戏节奏非常快速，内容也非常有趣，随时随处都能呈现给玩家多人游戏般的体验。更好的是，新的业务模式也发挥了功效。所以《Eliminate》成为了最畅销的iPhone游戏，并且比起同类型付费游戏更长时间地待在排行榜单上。

eliminate（from gamasutra）

我非常喜欢《Eliminate》。我甚至尝试了新的IAP系统并投入了20美元于游戏中。就像其他开发者那样，我也深陷于各种新技术的魅力中。我将《Eliminate》当成追求目标。但是对于我来说它是否像《光晕》或《合金装备2》一样是艺术品般的存在呢？也许吧——但是与《光晕》和《合金装备2》不同的是，我并不会长时间玩《Eliminate》，我甚至未能真正享受自己所购买的游戏内部的货币。

其实我可以很肯定地说，《Eliminate》并不属于艺术品。对于新技术和新业务模式来说它是一种很棒的承载工具，但是因为它不能带给玩家永恒的游戏体验，所以并不属于艺术品。因为《Eliminate》的业务模式与游戏玩法是相互维系在一起，所以开发者必须投入更高的成本去维护其后端基础设施。而一旦基础设施的成本超过了游戏的收益，这款游戏便不可能继续存在着。更不用说，当货币机制与游戏玩法维系在一起时，游戏本质将永远发生改变。

被抛弃的艺术

如今有无数游戏因为只是作为赚钱工具而遭到当前游戏时代的抛弃。“游戏是否是艺术？”是长久以来游戏产业中所存在的一个问题。讽刺的是，当产业中的人才抛弃了对艺术的追求，转而迎合那些能够提高自己在排行榜单位次的趋势时，我们刚好在史密森尼（游戏邦注：美国博物馆）举办面向电子游戏艺术的展会。

所以游戏产业到底是怎样的？我们是艺术家，工程师还是投资者？都不是。尽管产业中包含了各种角色，但是从核心看来，我们只是游戏产业中的玩家。

而玩家所面对的问题则是他们需要不断寻找目标或挑战，克服它们，并始终朝着目标前进，直到最终实现它。最初游戏未得到重视便是因为技术的限制。随后我们便客服了这一问题。之后游戏又因为不能创造出复杂的角色和故事而再次被忽视。我们又克服了这一问题。但是当我们创造出复杂的角色和故事后，我们又因为不能创造出像其它媒体形式那样的（艺术品般）游戏而又一次被冷落。

内部问题

如今我们又一次遭遇冷落。但是这一次的情况却不同。因为这次错在我们自己。因为我们一直沉湎于“玩游戏”而在游戏领域中迷失了方向。

比起创造让玩家们游玩的游戏，我们开始倾向于创造利用玩家们的游戏。如果玩家们既不购买我们的游戏也不对其进行宣传，他们便不能带给游戏任何帮助。当然了，这是一条漫长的发展道路。我们也不是一下子就创造出像《光晕》或《Eliminate》等艺术品。

我们认为独立开发游戏非常重要。以前许多AAA级游戏都致力于创造出任何人都能使用的工具。当然了，只拥有工具但却不知道如何销售游戏也不能帮助开发者谋利，所以我们便决定转向数字发行。擅长了这两种障碍，我们便能够更加轻松地创造出一款优秀的游戏，并吸引更多用户的注意。

几年前，零售领域还充斥着各种类型的游戏。所以在Electronics Boutique中，开发者的游戏总是很难获得关注。而对他们来说最好的办法便是创造出别人还未尝试过的内容，或去吸引现有的用户。

生活是一种载体，我们将在此面向不同的量级或方向而竞争。创造新内容便是方向上的竞争；而吸引现有用户的注意则是量级上的竞争。游戏的质量越高在其各自领域便能获取更大的利益，但是玩家却不能在商品陈列架上看到这些销售额。

而在iOS的App Store中，所有内容都具有各自的排名。最初我们会支付9.99美元在iPhone上购买像《Galcon》和《Enigmo》等游戏。从小屏幕和局限的控制来看，这是一种合理的定价。但是之后却发生了一些奇怪的变化。即基于排名系统，各大开发者都开始压低游戏的价格。在此之前这一点并不重要，因为所有同样水准的游戏在零售方面都拥有同等的地位，但是现在，下载量最高的游戏则具有最大的曝光率。所以售价9.99美元的游戏迅速降价为0.99美元，并且开发者为了提高游戏的曝光率而开始推出各种简化版本的游戏。

如今，距离IAP的诞生已经过去了3年时间，而免费模式不再能够带给玩家或开发者巨大的利益。如果游戏不能推动用户消费或让他们为游戏做宣传，它便注定不可能进入畅销排行榜单中。如果游戏注重突显F2P功能，它便注定不可能成为艺术品，因为它不能吸引玩家长时间游戏。更糟糕的还是游戏变得不再像游戏，因为它们完全失去了乐趣，沉浸感，并且让玩家不能在游戏过程中做出合理的消费决定。

4年里我们一直努力在减少工作价值（至0）——唯一的方法便是吸引那些想要尝试带有消费决策体验的玩家。就像餐厅收取盐的费用一样。这便是我们所采取的方法，但是通常情况下效果都很糟糕。

如今，游戏开发已经变成是开发一款平均每用户支出必须高于用户获取成本的游戏。但是虽然开发者提供给玩家大量的游戏内容，用户却很难找到值得自己花钱的理由。在免费游戏中用户总是能够看到无数的供应内容。但是随着游戏的过时，他们也会很自然地转移到另一款游戏中。

游戏中的一大组成部分便是最初的体验。不管好与坏，有关游戏主题，控制，游戏玩法等体验便是游戏的主要资产。任天堂便是因为掌握了这一点才从未提供给玩家任何免费的样本模式。同时我们还需要在每次创造出新体验并向玩家收费时，确保这种体验是优秀的。

如今，人们再次开始质疑任天堂在游戏产业中的位置。自从iPhone开始主导游戏产业时我也一度产生这种疑问。而现在，我认为任天堂是少数为游戏产业的发展做出巨大贡献的公司。任天堂从未受到参数的驱动。他们始终坚信质量才是真正起决定性作用的。我认为当F2P开始瓦解时，任天堂便能够快速找回自己的领先位置——尽管现在它在整个生态系统的发展被F2P大大削弱了。

解决方法

如今电子游戏产业中的形势主要是受到进化思维所引起的一系列复杂事件而影响。因为游戏开发者本质上也是玩家，所以我们便能够使用任何能够保证我们存活并“获胜”的工具。游戏总是能够掌握玩家的状态。就像Brenda Garno的《Train》便是一款能够推动玩家有效“获取胜利”的游戏，并且玩家只会在最后才意识到自己并不想这么做。

现在开始扭转局面还不算晚。我们需要采取一些方法去稳定游戏产业。首先，我们需要停止基于全球范围内的排名设置。当我登录Netflix时，它并未呈现给我该网站上最受欢迎的电影，而是根据我看过的其它电影去猜测我可能会喜欢的电影。每一部电影也有自己的星级排名，用户可以根据排名做出选择，但是事实上排名却不如电影的主题来得重要。

游戏产业总是与各种参数纠缠在一起。游戏被称作“数学电影”，但这却不意味着我们需要完全被数字所支配。游戏仍然是一种艺术，所以我们需要识别出媒体的质量元素而不是屈服于数量元素。如果完全依赖于参数，游戏的艺术性将会彻底消失。

这也是为什么会诞生如此多复制游戏的主要原因。在《超级马里奥》大受欢迎时，我们便看到了许多平台游戏；在《毁灭战士》席卷游戏市场时，大量第一人称射击游戏也涌现了出来；而现在，iPhone的畅销游戏排行榜单上则布满了需要轻拍并等待的模拟游戏。

我们必须摆脱参数；也许从短期看来它们是有用的，但是必然会慢慢失去功效。这种情况已经屡见不鲜了，特别是最近遭遇惨败的“摇滚乐队”类型的游戏——因为开发社区始终着眼于参数（在过去是有效的），但却忘记面向未来去寻找新品质的娱乐体验。

接下来我们需要投入一定的资本去制作游戏。因为缺少创造性，AAA级产业开始逐渐衰败。这也是因为开发者只专注于某一元素而竞争。这时候我们需要再次强调，生活是一种载体，我们可以基于量级或方向而竞争。如果只是基于量级而竞争，那么开发者所投入的制作成本将有可能与最终利润形成反比。

AAA级产业的衰败主要取决于两大原因。首先，每个人都只基于量级而竞争，从而导致许多相类似的游戏（基于方向而言）企图比过去进行“更多的”尝试，而这便会引起制作上的通货膨胀。其次，手机游戏市场迅速发展，并提供了大量基于不同方向而传达游戏体验的游戏。

当然了，问题并不只是这么简单。AAA级市场也具有自己的问题，即一般手机市场所不存在的内容，即标准。在手机市场中，排行之所以如此重要的一部分原因便是，这里存在着太多的盗版软件。所以最后真正起作用的还是质量。当用户开始因为各种糟糕的软件感到疲惫时，区别便开始出现了。但是至少资深的平台持有者知道如何让自己的产品到达较高的质量水平。

App-Store-Rank(from apptang)

iOS的App Store亦是如此。但是我们仍然需要进行细心挑选。例如有些平台便会将那些未能获得三颗星以上评级的应用排除出排行榜单。这是一种受参数驱动的解决方法，但至少它是基于用户对于产品的质量评价所决定。也许我们应该参考任天堂早前所设定的政策，即允许开发者一年只能面向某一特定平台发行五款游戏。如果开发者能够频繁地推出游戏，他们便有可能忽视掉游戏的质量。这一道理同样也适用于今天的游戏市场。

也许有些观点显得过时了，但是其功效却并未过时。我只知道，我们需要采取必要的措施去拯救电子游戏艺术。将业务模式与游戏玩法相混合的免费游戏并不是解决方法；这只是能够引起更大问题的进化式回应。

产业总是会不断成长。所以我们将不再扮演玩家的角色，而是变成我们所热爱的艺术的防卫者。所以，让我们将游戏当成艺术，并基于量级而尊重方向。然后将这种艺术形式整合进我们的平台与游戏的基础设施中。

近来的发展

我写完这篇文章已经有一段时间了，但是那时候我并不确定其最终的走向是怎样的。而最近出现了一则有关苹果开发者协议新条款的新闻，即规定第三方不能再通过外部应用去影响App Store中的排名。这便为控制免费游戏的噱头迈出了一大步。

许多外部服务，如Free App a Day，PlayHaven以及Chartboost等都制约着App Store中的下载量。就像Free App a Day等服务便能够有力地提高游戏的下载量。着眼于最畅销的100款游戏（或者是所有应用），我们将能看到极高比例的游戏（将近10%）使用了这类型服务。它们帮助游戏开发者实现了自己的梦想。只需要投入适当的费用，独立开发者便能够让自己的应用与产业中最有名的应用并驾齐驱了。

其实这么做并不算太糟糕，但却给苹果带来了一些负面影响。一方面，随着这些服务的盛行，苹果的商店变得越来越不重要。比起2年前，如今的App Store排行榜已经不再是制约游戏收益的主要元素了。现在对于开发者来说，能否攀上最高下载量榜单更加重要。许多畅销游戏并不等同于最高下载量游戏，游戏多是通过交替渠道去提高下载量和销量。

另一方面，苹果不得不为这些疯狂的下载量买单。苹果将着眼于最高销量的游戏并分析它们的价值定位。他们将联系作为开发者的你们，并收取额外的收益流，如iAd。这便意味着苹果想要利用他们的流量。而如果像AdMob，Chartboost或Tapjoy等第三方服务大获其利，那么苹果便不得不使用自己的带宽去资助这些公司，并且不一定能够获得回报。

最后不得不说说App Store的质量问题。如果仍然是由苹果掌控着该商店，那么排行榜单上便永远都是那些最优秀，最便宜并且是获得苹果推荐的游戏（游戏邦注：这是最重要的元素）。如果我们想维持产业中的艺术性，我们就需要创建一个不受价格，线性排行榜或分析操纵的系统；而是需要一个能够培养更高质量产品以及对等口碑的系统。

结论

不管是游戏产业还是整个世界都以极其快速的节奏发展着。技术指数曲线影响着各种内容，包括游戏是否能够作为一种艺术以及最近的Bond flick。这决定着我们能否留住艺术，但同时，如果是基于财政竞争环境，我们便很难做到这一点。尽管游戏很难再回到最纯粹的时代，但是我们也必须迎着风雨前进，去看看我们的艺术到底能够承受住多大的变化。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Free-to-Play: The Lost Generation

by Jeremy Alessi

The entire game industry is going in the direction of free-to-play. PopCap is embracing the model, laying off workers in the process; retail-focused console makers are opening up to the business model; some of the best designers around are singing the praises of this new era for games. In spite of all these trends, there is a huge elephant in the room: Traditional pay-to-play games live on as art, but F2P (free-to-play) games do not.

Need an example? Ask and ye shall receive. Let’s roll back to November of 2001. There was a new system coming out. It was an unknown quantity from Microsoft we now know as the Xbox. Along with it, a new game called Halo arrived.

What some may not recall is that Metal Gear Solid 2 actually came out at the same time. I picked up my copy of MGS2 (for PlayStation 2) in the afternoon and picked my Xbox with Halo up at a midnight sale later that night. I will never forget my first few minutes with Halo.

I was pretty skeptical of the new Microsoft console initially but as I trudged through the lush environments, admired the picturesque ring encircling the planet, and fired upon surprisingly smart aliens, I realized that I was enjoying Halo as much as MGS2 and possibly more! In the end though, both were works of art that I can appreciate as much today as I did over a decade ago.

Now, fast forward to the summer of 2009. I was an iPhone developer for nearly a year when Ngmoco released a new game with the potential to turn the entire industry upside down. The game was Eliminate, and it was the first F2P iPhone game to utilize Apple’s iOS 3.0 and a new in-app payments system.

The game was brilliant, especially for a mobile phone game. It was fast, fun, and multiplayer from anywhere at anytime. Even better — the new business model worked. Eliminate became the top-grossing iPhone game and managed to stay in the charts much longer than similar, premium-priced titles.

I played and enjoyed Eliminate. I even tried out out the new IAP system and spent $20 on the game. I was enthralled at the possibilities of our latest technologies, just like every other developer. I looked at Eliminate as something to aspire to. Was it art to me like Halo or MGS2? Maybe — but unlike Halo and MGS2, I can no longer play Eliminate, and I never got to enjoy the in-game currency I purchased.

In fact, I can safely say that Eliminate was not art. It was a great vehicle for new technology and for a new business model, but it failed to become art because it was not timeless. Due to the fact that Eliminate’s business model and gameplay were entangled, it required an expensive backend infrastructure to run. Once that infrastructure’s cost exceeded the game’s income, Eliminate disappeared. This is not to mention the fact that the mechanics of entangling currency with gameplay forever change what the game is.

Abandoned Art

There are now literally thousands of examples of games that have been eliminated (pun intended) from the current generation of games because they are merely revenue vehicles. For a long time, the big question within the game industry was “are games art?” It’s ironic that we should have an exhibit dedicated to the art of video games in the Smithsonian at the same time as the industry’s most talented individuals have abandoned the pursuit of art in pursuit of the latest trend that may land them at the top of the charts.

So what is the game industry? Are we artists? Are we engineers? Are we investors? No. While our industry contains all of those roles, at its core the game industry is composed of players.

The problem with players is that they are always looking for a goal or a challenge to overcome, and they run directly at that goal until they smash right through it. Then, it’s on to the next thing. Initially, games weren’t taken very seriously because the technology was limited. We overcame that. Once the technology was in place, we weren’t taken seriously because we didn’t have complex characters and stories. We overcame that. Once we had complex characters and stories, we weren’t taken seriously because we weren’t making art, as it were, compared to other more established media forms.

The Implosion

Now here we are, again not being taken seriously. This time, though, it’s different. This time it’s our fault. We have become so caught up in “playing the game” that we have lost sight of the playing field.

Instead of creating games for people to play, we have begun creating games that play people. If the people are not either purchasing or advertising our game, they’re not doing much. Of course, it’s been a long road. We didn’t instantly jump from $60 works of art like Halo to Eliminate. No, it all began innocently enough.

We decided that developing games independently was important. A large segment of the former “triple-A” set out to create tools that the masses could use. Of course, having tools wasn’t beneficial without a way to sell products so we began to covet digital distribution. With these two barriers removed it was finally possible to make a great game with relative ease and reach a large audience.

Years ago, retail space was littered with games of all genres. Often there was no rhyme or reason to the arrangement of boxes at Electronics Boutique. Your best bet as a developer was to make something that hadn’t been done yet, or conversely to appeal to an existing audience.

Life is a vector where you compete on either magnitude or direction. To make something new was to compete on direction; to appeal to an existing audience was to compete on magnitude. The higher quality games usually fared better in their respective spaces, but gamers didn’t see sales figures on the store shelves, just cool boxes.

On the iOS App Store, though, everything is ranked. This is when we became players again — competing on a new type of leaderboard. Initially, we charged $9.99 for iPhone games like Galcon and Enigmo. That seemed like a fair price, considering the small screen and limited controls. Then something strange happened. Due to the ranking system, it became exponentially advantageous to lower your price. Whereas before it didn’t matter, because all games of a certain caliber had equal footing at retail, now the most-downloaded titles had the most visibility. Games that were $9.99 quickly dropped to $0.99, and lite versions began popping up in order to gain more visibility.

Now, three years after the introduction of IAP, being free isn’t beneficial to players or developers. If a game isn’t rigged to either charge a user or force them to advertise for the game, it is doomed to fail relative to other titles on the top-grossing list. If a game is rigged with F2P features, then it fails as a work of art, because it is not timeless. Worse, it fails as a game because it is not fun, immersive, or entertaining to make spending decisions right in the middle of a gameplay session.

In four years we have managed to reduce the value of our work to zero — the only redemption to which is to pelt users who are attempting to enjoy an experience with spending decisions. Imagine a restaurant charging for salt. That’s what we’re doing, and often it’s worse then that.

By now, game development has become a game in which average user spending must be greater than the cost of user acquisition. Yet, with so much supply, users really have little reason to spend money on any one game. Users have an unlimited supply of free games. As soon as one game gets old, they can move on to the next one.

A large part of any game is the initial experience. Whether good or bad, the experience of the theme, controls, and play patterns of any game are the primary assets. Nintendo has never offered free demos of its games because it knows this. In accordance, it also makes sure that every time it charges users for a new experience, it’s a good one.

People are now questioning Nintendo’s place in the industry yet again. I know I have, since the iPhone came to prominence. Now, I see Nintendo as one of the few companies that will make it though this stage in our industry’s evolution. Nintendo has never been driven by metrics. It has always focused on the qualitative aspects of games and they understand those qualities better than anyone on the planet. When F2P falls apart, Nintendo will still be around — even if diminished by the effects that F2P has on the whole ecosystem.

The Solution(s)

The current climate of the video game industry has been brought about by a complex sequence of events created by purely evolutionary thinking. Because game developers are actually players at heart, we have a tendency to use any tool we can to stay alive and hopefully “win”. However, I think one game may shed some insight on our predicament. Brenda Garno’s Train is a game in which players work to be as efficient as possible to “win”. Only in the end do they realize that they probably didn’t want to.

It’s not too late to turn things around, though. There are several things we can do to stabilize the industry. First, let’s stop ranking apps globally. When I go on Netflix it doesn’t instantly show me the most-watched movie on Netflix. Instead, it shows me movies that I might like based on other movies I’ve watched. There is still a star rating associated with each movie so I know what to expect in terms of execution, but the execution is secondary to the subject matter of the movie.

As a whole, the game industry is too obsessed with metrics. Games have been called “the cinema of math” but that doesn’t give us the right to rule absolutely by the numbers. Games are still art, and as such, we should recognize the qualitative aspects of the medium instead of bowing down to quantitative aspects at every turn. By relying so heavily on metrics, we have begun to remove the art from games.

This is predominantly why we end up with so many clones. When Mario was popular we saw a plethora of platformers, when Doom was on top it started a deluge of FPS games, now the iPhone top-grossing list is full of sim tap-and-wait games.

We need to break away from the metrics; they work in the short term but they eventually fall out. We’ve seen it happen repeatedly, most recently the “rock band” genre fell apart because the development community was looking at the metrics — effectively the past — and forgot to look into the future to find new qualities of entertainment.

The next thing we need to do is spend appropriate amounts of money on the production of our games. The triple-A industry began to fall apart because it lacked innovation. This is because developers were competing on one element. Again, life is a vector and you can compete on magnitude or direction. By only competing on magnitude, production costs ballooned to the point where the probability of turning a profit became too low to innovate.

To put another spin on the story, how about this? The triple-A industry fell apart for two reasons. First, everyone was competing on magnitude, so many of the games were the same (in terms of direction) but each one tried to do “more” than the last; this caused production inflation. Second, the mobile market popped up and offered a plethora of games all delivering experiences in different directions.

Of course, it’s not even that simple. The triple-A market has its problems, but it has something the mobile market does not: standards. Part of the reason rankings make so much sense in the mobile market is because there really is a lot of shovelware. In the end, quality does matter. The difference comes when the audience grows tired of being inundated with bad software. Eventually, they’ll just do something else. At least the old platform holders had a vested interest in making sure your products reach a certain level of quality.

The iOS App Store is very close, in terms of a “good” walled garden. Yet, we still need something slightly pickier. For example, maybe the platforms should prune the top lists of apps that don’t maintain a minimum of a three-star review score. That’s still a metrics-driven solution but at least it’s based on people’s qualitative assessment of the product. Or perhaps we should look at Nintendo’s old policy of only allowing developers to publish five games a year for a given platform. The thinking back then was that if developers could only publish so often, they’d put out a better product instead of rushing to market. The same might be true today.

Some of these sentiments may seem like going backwards, and that’s possible. I don’t have the answers, but I do know that something has to be done to save our beloved art of video games. Free-to-play, with its business model/gameplay hybrid approach is not the answer; it’s just an evolutionary response that brings bigger problems to the table.

As an industry, let’s grow up. We’re not players anymore. Rather, we have become the defenders of the art that we love. In accordance, let’s treat it like art and respect direction above magnitude. Then, let’s build that into the infrastructure of our platforms as well as our games.

Recent Developments

I wrote this article a while back and have been sitting on it, unsure of where it would ultimately lead. Recently, news has spread about a new clause in Apple’s developer agreement, which might possibly restrict third parties from affecting the App Store rankings via external apps. This is certainly a step in the direction of reducing F2P gimmicks.

Many external services such as Free App a Day, PlayHaven, and Chartboost augment organic App Store downloads. Services like Free App a Day can offer more than just augmentation. A scan of the top 100 games — or even overall apps — reveals an exceptionally high percentage (as high as 10 percent) of games that are promoted by such services. In many ways, these are an indie developer’s dream come true. For a reasonably affordable fee, any indie can put their game side by side with the biggest names the industry has to offer.

This isn’t inherently bad, but there are some downsides for Apple. First and foremost, Apple’s store becomes less and less relevant as these services grow. App Store chart placement determined your financial success almost entirely as little as two years ago. Now, placement on a top downloaded list on the store is almost irrelevant. Many top-grossing games are not top-downloaded games, and they earn new downloads and sales through alternate channels.

The second thing to consider is that Apple foots the bill for these crazy download numbers. Apple looks at the top downloads and analyzes their value proposition. They’ll even contact you as a developer to tack on additional revenue streams like iAd. This means that Apple wants to make the most of its traffic. If third party services like AdMob, Chartboost, or Tapjoy are making all the money, then Apple is essentially funding these companies with its bandwidth and not necessarily reaping any of the rewards.

The final thing to consider is the simple quality of the App Store. If the store remains under the control of Apple, then the top apps will be those that are the best, cheapest, and promoted by Apple — the most important aspect of which is just being the best. If we are to retain some semblance of “art” in our industry, then we need a system that isn’t driven by price, linear charts, or analytical manipulation. We need a system that fosters high quality products and peer-to-peer word of mouth, and it doesn’t count if an app writes to Facebook on our behalves.

Conclusion

Our industry, and indeed our world, is evolving at an ever-accelerating pace. The exponential tech curve is influencing everything from games as art to the latest Bond flick. It’s important to retain our art, but it’s exceptionally hard to do so in a financially competitive environment. Although it would be exceptional to see games return to a simpler time, we may just have to ride out the storm and see how our art form weathers it.(source:gamasutra)