Defcon for iPad

Ideas for expansions and improvements to Defcon

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Pyr0qvy
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Defcon for iPad

Postby Pyr0qvy » Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:19 am

it would work, and i would buy it.
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Postby xander » Thu Jan 28, 2010 2:42 pm

Given that the iPad is basically a glorified iPhone/iTouch, Defcon would have to be completely rewritten in order to run. Given that IV are still finishing up Darwinia+, have yet to release Subversion, and are possibly still working on Chronometer, I highly doubt that they have time to port it. Ambrosia could, conceivably, produce a port, but I don't know why they would bother.

Moreover, it looks to me that the iPad probably doesn't have the graphical horsepower to actually run Defcon without some major changes to the way in which it does things. So, even if someone wanted to produce a port, it would likely not be the same game, and would not interoperate with other versions of Defcon (that is, it would have its own little ecosystem). Given that the Defcon community is already rather small, I find it hard to believe that fragmenting that community would be at all healthy.

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Postby Pyr0qvy » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:42 pm

xander wrote:Given that the iPad is basically a glorified iPhone/iTouch, Defcon would have to be completely rewritten in order to run. Given that IV are still finishing up Darwinia+, have yet to release Subversion, and are possibly still working on Chronometer, I highly doubt that they have time to port it. Ambrosia could, conceivably, produce a port, but I don't know why they would bother.

Moreover, it looks to me that the iPad probably doesn't have the graphical horsepower to actually run Defcon without some major changes to the way in which it does things. So, even if someone wanted to produce a port, it would likely not be the same game, and would not interoperate with other versions of Defcon (that is, it would have its own little ecosystem). Given that the Defcon community is already rather small, I find it hard to believe that fragmenting that community would be at all healthy.

xander



And I bet you troll 4chan too, but I do agree about the ipad being a big iPhone but I don't see why you think a game that's essentially colored line has to take a super computer to run. I know defcon takes a chunk of graphics power(it took an upgraded computer just to run) but there's an app called isubs on the AppStore with simmilar graphics to defcon and runs fine, and yes I know the game itself isn't the same but the graphics are simmilar and whats wrong about downing the graphics for a portable version?

I mean really, do you just hate apple or something? There not the best company ever but they make one of the best devises yet to play portable defcon and/or multiwinia.


And if anything else it will increase the playerbase by far more than notif not released.

Also could increase pc sells by increasing intrerst in the game name and products of the company.


P.s. If I'm coming off as a(n) <profane name>, Its because I am an <profane name>
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Postby xander » Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:07 am

Pyr0qvy wrote:And I bet you troll 4chan too...

I spend no time at all on 4chan. I only know of it via memetic references. I couldn't possibly care less about it.

Pyr0qvy wrote:...I don't see why you think a game that's essentially colored line has to take a super computer to run...

Because, as it is written now, it does. If you had bothered to read my entire post, and actually understand what I wrote, you would see that I did not claim that Defcon has to require great graphical horsepower. Rather, I indicated that Defcon does require great graphical horsepower, and that it would require a major rewrite in order to get it to run on something like the iPad.

Pyr0qvy wrote:...but there's an app called isubs on the AppStore with simmilar graphics to defcon and runs fine, and yes I know the game itself isn't the same but the graphics are simmilar...

"Game X runs on System Y and has graphics that look similar to Game Z. Why can't Game Z run on System Y?"

That is something that has been posted again and again on these forums. People want to know why Darwinia won't run on systems that run Starcraft or Quake or Unreal or something. People want to know why Defcon won't run on a system that can handle Doom. The fact is that you cannot judge a game based upon looks alone. Games with "similar" looking graphics may be nothing alike. Do you have any idea how the graphics on iSubs are rendered? Looking at screenshots, it looks like the world map is basically a texture. That means that as you zoom in, you get no extra detail. The world map in Defcon, on the other hand, is a vector object. That means that detail is not lost as the game zooms, but it also means that a hell of a lot more graphical objects need to be rendered.

Could this be changed if IV were so inclined? Almost certainly. However, as I said above, this would require a massive rewrite of the code, and is probably not worth it.

Pyr0qvy wrote:...and whats wrong about downing the graphics for a portable version?

  1. It would require a massive code rewrite, which is time consuming.
  2. The resulting game would probably not be compatible with the current version (i.e. iPad players could not play against PC players).
  3. It may not, in fact, actually be feasible (I honestly don't know).
  4. &c.

Pyr0qvy wrote:I mean really, do you just hate apple or something? There not the best company ever but they make one of the best devises yet to play portable defcon and/or multiwinia.

You are clearly new here. My first computer was a KayPro. However, every computer that I have owned since then has been a Mac. In 1987, I got my first Macintosh (a Mac II with a signed motherboard). I have owned an LC III, a Quadra, a Blue and White G3, and a PowerBook. I also have a MacBook Air (that is what I am using at the moment). I like Macs. I like the OS. I like my 3rd generation iPod, and will probably get an iTouch at some point. I have no use for an iPhone, but if I wanted a smart phone, I woiuld probably lean towards one (though the Droid might also be tempting---as I have no use for a phone, I don't know much about them). Even the iPad is vaguely tempting, though it is not really what I want in a tablet. I would prefer a device that is more like MacBook Air in terms of power, with the iPad form factor. As is, the iPad is underwhelming, and does not fulfill any of my needs.

That being said, I am not a blind follower of everything that Apple does (though you certainly seem to be). I have nothing against Apple, but I see no reason to buy into their hype, either.

Pyr0qvy wrote:And if anything else it will increase the playerbase by far more than notif not released.

I disagree. Rather than increase the size of the playerbase, it would likely fragment the playerbase. The current players would probably not be able to play against iPad players, thus you would end up with iPad players, and everyone else. They would not compete with each other, and probably would not have much to do with each other. I see the same thing happening with Darwinia+ vis-à-vis Multiwinia. The difference is that the XBox is a dedicated gaming platform, and, as such, owners of XBoxes are immediately more likely to buy and play games. Hence there is a large XBox market for Multiwina.

The iPad, on the other hand, is not a dedicated gaming machine. The market is far more fragmented, and someone who owns an iPad may have no interest in any kind of game, let alone Defcon in particular. Thus the market for Defcon on the iPad is going to be much smaller than that on the XBox. Not to mention the fact that, in all likelihood, there will never be as many iPads as XBoxes. With the XBox, IV are going after a small piece of a large market. With the iPad, IV would be going after a very small piece of a small market.

It just doesn't make sense.

Pyr0qvy wrote:Also could increase pc sells by increasing intrerst in the game name and products of the company.

Maybe. Maybe not. But I can think of far better ways to spend marketing time and money than completely rewriting a pre-existing game for a tiny market.

xander
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Postby DinoSteve » Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:24 am

Pyr0qvy wrote:And I bet you troll 4chan too


Says the trolling troll.
The above post is not intended as an attack on you. It's not about making you look stupid for not searching. It merely states the facts. Please don't be offended.
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Postby martin » Wed Feb 10, 2010 3:18 am

Why do you think that an iPad version wouldn't play against a PC version, xander?
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Postby xander » Wed Feb 10, 2010 8:44 pm

martin wrote:Why do you think that an iPad version wouldn't play against a PC version, xander?

I think that the architectures are too different, and that the changes required to make Defcon playable on the iPad would break cross-compatibility. I don't think that a version of Defcon could be made for the iPad that would be compatible with other versions unless (a) the iPad were more powerful or (b) the PC and Mac versions were massively rewritten to accomodate the dumbing down of Defcon for the iPad.

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Postby martin » Wed Feb 10, 2010 11:53 pm

I see where you're coming from, I'm not entirely certain it's true. Defcon is a simple enough game both graphically and logically that I would think it can be simulated in full ona pretty low end computer. Obviously we're both just guessing...
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Postby Legion303 » Mon Apr 05, 2010 1:56 am

xander wrote:Given that the iPad is basically a glorified iPhone/iTouch, Defcon would have to be completely rewritten in order to run.


Since there's an OSX version, an iphone port would require slightly different includes, possibly a minor rewrite of the keyboard and mouse structures to touch, and a quick recompile on XCode. I concede the iphone/ipad probably aren't powerful enough to run it, but it certainly wouldn't require a complete rewrite at all.

Not that I care, because I'm still holding out for an Xbox Live version.

-steve
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Postby bert_the_turtle » Mon Apr 05, 2010 10:36 am

You also need to find an input method that doesn't suck and port everything to OpenGL ES, which is quite nontrivial and not done in a lazy afternoon.
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Postby trickser » Wed Apr 07, 2010 10:41 am

hm, nontrivial lazy afternoon, sounds so ... good.
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Postby Victori » Mon Apr 19, 2010 4:12 am

xander wrote:
Pyr0qvy wrote:And if anything else it will increase the playerbase by far more than notif not released.

I disagree. Rather than increase the size of the playerbase, it would likely fragment the playerbase. The current players would probably not be able to play against iPad players, thus you would end up with iPad players, and everyone else. They would not compete with each other, and probably would not have much to do with each other. I see the same thing happening with Darwinia+ vis-à-vis Multiwinia. The difference is that the XBox is a dedicated gaming platform, and, as such, owners of XBoxes are immediately more likely to buy and play games. Hence there is a large XBox market for Multiwina.

The iPad, on the other hand, is not a dedicated gaming machine. The market is far more fragmented, and someone who owns an iPad may have no interest in any kind of game, let alone Defcon in particular. Thus the market for Defcon on the iPad is going to be much smaller than that on the XBox. Not to mention the fact that, in all likelihood, there will never be as many iPads as XBoxes.With the XBox, IV are going after a small piece of a large market. With the iPad, IV would be going after a very small piece of a small market.

It just doesn't make sense.


ImageImage

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to raise opposition here on the "IV would be going after a very small piece of a small market".

In a single year, the iPhone OS took over 5% of the 10 BILLION dollar video game industry -- that's about $500,000,000 -- half a billion dollars from 2008 to 2009.

Comparatively, for the year 2009, Xbox Live Arcade generated only about $100,000,000 worth of revenue, one FIFTH of the iPhones revenues in the video game market.

With such success for the iPhone, and similar hype and enthusiasm for Apple's iPad, it is not unlikely that the iPad and iPhone will together expand quite rapidly into not only portable game software but the entire video game software market as a whole.

Considering that iPhone's video game software revenues already quintupled Xbox Live's revenues for the year 2009, your claim that IV is going after a larger market on Xbox Live as opposed to the iPad isn't exactly the most sound.

In regards to the statement of the iPad not being a dedicated game machine, let it be said that 58% of the iPhone's app store revenues have gone to games, and 18% to entertainment. So while it may not be a dedicated game machine, Apple users certainly like games on their hand held devices.

I don't exactly know the specifics of creating games for the iPad as opposed to games for the iPhone, PC, Xbox, and Mac, but I'm sure it wouldn't be outrageously difficult to bring DEFCON to the iPad.

And personally, I think DEFCON would be a huge hit among consumers with Apple's iPads. All an app on Apple's app store really needs to do is release itself to have recognition and a game as superb as DEFCON would garner great attention on the app store -- a runaway strategy game success. Nothing else would compare -- the only thing I can think of that iPad users have for strategy gaming is Galcon so far...and I always thought Galcon's planets and triangles were rather dull.


Xbox Live Revenue 2009: http://www.edge-online.com/news/xbox-li ... llion-2009
iPhone Video Game Revenue 2009: http://blog.flurry.com/bid/31566/Apple- ... rket-Share
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Postby xander » Mon Apr 19, 2010 6:48 am

First off, your graphs and links really do not support the point that you are trying to make, namely that it is worth IV's time to make a version of Defcon for the iPad or iPhone. In fact, the second link seems to confirm my point that the iPhone market, when compared to the console market, is relatively small ($500 million compared to $10 billion).

Second, you are looking at the wrong statistic. The total amount of money made selling games on a particular platform says nothing about how well any one game will do. Looking at the Apple store, I get the impression that there are a very large number of relatively cheap games (a quick perusal of the app list gives the impression that most prices are less than $10), while there are fewer, more expensive games on the XBox (again, a quick look seems to indicate that most games are at least 800 points = $10, with a few that are cheaper, and many that are more expensive).

Thus, it seems that the iPhone generates large revenues by selling a lot of cheap stuff. Any one app is (a) unlikely to sell in large volume, and (b) does not make the same amount per sale as an XBox Live game. Now, if you could cite some actual sales numbers on some particular titles, I would be more than happy to admit my mistake, but my (admittedly quick-and-dirty) search of the intertubes simply does not support your assertion that any particular game on the iPad or iPhone is likely to make that game's creator a lot of money, especially when compared to a release on XBox Live.

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Postby Victori » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:49 am

xander wrote:First off, your graphs and links really do not support the point that you are trying to make, namely that it is worth IV's time to make a version of Defcon for the iPad or iPhone. In fact, the second link seems to confirm my point that the iPhone market, when compared to the console market, is relatively small ($500 million compared to $10 billion).


The entire console market consists of all console games, including those ones you go into physical stores and get discs of. The fact that the iPhone games consist of 5% of ALL video games, whereas Xbox Live (which YOU stated would be a better market) consists of 1/5 the size of the iPhone games revenues. You didn't compare iPhone games to the entire console market, you compared it to the Xbox Live Arcade, which is where Multiwinia is distributed and you said had a large market. But if you're going to say half a billion dollars is small, then Xbox Live Arcade (once again, home of Multiwinia) is puny -- which makes my point that your statement that the Xbox Live market is larger than the iPhone games market is false.

Second, you are looking at the wrong statistic. The total amount of money made selling games on a particular platform says nothing about how well any one game will do. Looking at the Apple store, I get the impression that there are a very large number of relatively cheap games (a quick perusal of the app list gives the impression that most prices are less than $10), while there are fewer, more expensive games on the XBox (again, a quick look seems to indicate that most games are at least 800 points = $10, with a few that are cheaper, and many that are more expensive).

Tetris sells for $8 on the iPad. And that's Tetris. Defcon won't be sold for a dollar on the iPad.

Thus, it seems that the iPhone generates large revenues by selling a lot of cheap stuff. Any one app is (a) unlikely to sell in large volume, and (b) does not make the same amount per sale as an XBox Live game. Now, if you could cite some actual sales numbers on some particular titles, I would be more than happy to admit my mistake, but my (admittedly quick-and-dirty) search of the intertubes simply does not support your assertion that any particular game on the iPad or iPhone is likely to make that game's creator a lot of money, especially when compared to a release on XBox Live.


"Last year, a small Mac game developer called Pangea Software ported one of its titles to Apple’s iPhone. Pangea’s Brian Greenstone didn’t expect to make much from the iPhone version of its arcade-style game Enigmo; he expected that the company might sell 10,000-20,000 units over its lifetime. It sold that amount in a single day, and from July 2008 to January 2009, it sold a total of 810,000 copies, earning a profit of $1.5 million, even after Apple took its 30 percent cut."

"And according to publisher PopCap Games, the $2.99 mobile zombie-zapper is officially a mega-hit, selling over 300,000 copies in just nine days. That’s a new record for the App Store, as is the game’s revenue haul of over $1 million in gross sales. The game hit number one in “units sold” and “top grossing” categories on Apple’s App Store charts inside 24 hours of launching on February 15, then managed to hold the top spot until yesterday."

"In the last year, the two brothers have sold 3.5 million copies of Doodle Jump, a simple and addictive game, via Apple’s iTunes store. That accomplishment may make them the world’s most successful iPhone and iPod touch developers."

Mind you, those are cheap $1 - $2 games for the iPhone. The iPads games will be considerably more expensive -- and if IV decided to capitalize on the iPad market now by releasing DEFCON early, then it would most likely be heavily featured on its relatively young iPad app market. A runaway success among the estimated some 800,000 iPads sold in the first two weeks of its release. It should be noted that iPad sales continue to increase in the tens of thousands each day, and a news report ten days ago stated that some 3.5 million iPad apps had been sold already -- or 486 downloads per minute.

Admittedly, these numbers for the iPad are significantly smaller for the iPhone. Nonetheless, the sales are still immense, and it is likely that as the iPads apps improve, more games are released, and Apples devoted fans make some more money, iPad sales will continue to grow (if not at an exponential rate). iPad app sales however will most likely continue to increase at a fast pace, reflecting the iPhone app stores continuing success, so much as to measure up against the traditional video game industry.

And yes, you can say 300,000 copies in a little over a week isn't large volume. Personally, if I ever sold 300,000 games in a week and two days, I'd be pretty impressed with myself.[/i]
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re: iPad version of DEFCON

Postby colourpixels » Fri May 21, 2010 1:56 pm

I'd certainly buy an iPad version of DEFCON. After playing Red Alert on the iPad (not the greatest game / implementation) it at least shows to me that RTS / Strategy gaming on the iPad can be quite enjoyable. I hope that the devs overcome any technical problems and crank out an iPad port, they'd certainly get my money.

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