This is a great rule. As a father of similarly aged kids (10, 9, 4) this is exactly what I would like to have happen at my house. Unfortunately, I have found games like this difficult to surface on the app store. Is there a decent source for games like this?
Also, Apple needs to think of the impact that the prevalence of these kinds of apps has on their revenue - I spend money on steam, epic, ps4 games etc. mostly because this isn't an issue. (Or is very clearly signposted) But I am unwilling to spend money even on iphone games that are really enjoyed because the antipatterns discussed in this post have made it difficult to trust the vendor. The bottom line is, if I could trust them, I would spend more.
Apple Arcade is exactly what you want[0]. No in-app purchases, Apple picks the games and gives them exclusivity so there's always good quality ones. It's a good deal if you like playing games on the iPad.
See Ubisoft and selling EXP boosts so you don't have to grind as much in Assassin's Creed. They decided to make it a grind to encourage you to buy the "solution".
Aside from offering the ability to collect IAP in general I’m not sure what the case against Apple is here. Did they do something specific to incentivize the creation of these kinds of games?
Not really, mostly "the market" happened. For productive applications one could argue that the lack of upgrade pricing and trials has fueled the race to the bottom but this was never really a thing with games (as one could easily have a free demo and a paid full game on the store).
Not an Apple App Store vendor, so my information is sketchy at best, but it sounds to me like in-app purchases are only a little more complicated than listing something on the app store in the first place. If the money is the same, and the dopamine hit for the latter is greater, of course everyone is going to 'race to the bottom' with in-app purchases.
Apple has not provided any incentive for people to retain customers by any other mechanism than in-app purchases. Not on iOS, and now not on OS X. Strictly speaking, Steam also doesn't have a way to give a discount to people for upgrading, and yet I've bought several sequels at a modest discount because they support bundling and the bundles are prorated.
However, while a bundle of Red Dead Redemption 1 & 2 might not need an explanation, a bundle of Photoshop N and N+1 is only good for giving a discount for upgrades.
If Apple is interested in turning back this Doom Clock, then support for bundling, and taking a smaller cut of app purchases than in-app purchases would, I think, function as a carrot and stick combination.
I think I've heard some developers of popular apps which have done this who say it's a pain to support the users who do not understand this is for upgrading and then get confused which app to use.
The fact that they can't handle refunds also does not help.
They really should just support paid upgrades. Just provide a framework/system for it and make it a normal thing.
Like I said, my information is spotty, but good to know, thanks. Looks like they also have pro-rated bundles (at the same time or later, I can't discern).
However, a search suggests that this feature was announced 2 years ago next month. Which is one of those grey areas where advertisers say "hundreds" and the potential customer thinks, "347" whereas the advertiser means "147".
So, you're right, and thank you for the update, but also I'm keeping an eye on you...
With the kids having remote learning, the school district has them playing this game called Prodigy. It has a really insidious "premium" model that it is constantly throwing up in front of my kids. New dance moves, costumes, all things kids want. I'm tempted to complain about it, the district shouldn't be using apps that push crap like this.
It makes me furious that this kind of dynamic is introduced to a digital learning space at all.
Why delineate between the haves and the have nots? Between the kids with access to disposable parental income and the kids that don't? Why make that part of online life of children at all?
Not trying to convince you otherwise, but rather maybe explain some of the rationale for prodigy using the freemium model.
Education is a hard market to break into and build adoption of a new product. Budgets are very constrained or virtually nonexistent... in America some teachers even have to purchase classroom supplies or tools with their own wages.
With that in mind (and maybe other reasons that I do not know), Prodigy took the decision to offer their service to schools and teachers at no cost, otherwise it would’ve been much more difficult to build adoption in that market. It’s very hard to convince teachers, schools and boards to allocate budget on a new initiative, when they are already spread so thin.
Now to build a service like prodigy, it takes game artists and developers to build the game, web developers to build the website and teacher dashboards, teachers to build the prodigy math curriculum, and then all the supporting teams too; data scientists, product owners, testers, operations, etc.
They either need some sort of investment or revenue stream to make the company run; and this is where they adopted a freemium model.
What about Apple Arcade? It's not free, but Apple guarantees that none of the games in it have ads and a single subscription can be shared through Family Sharing.
All these comments suggesting Apple Arcade make me sad that Apple chose to fix their problem with garbage store discoverability with a subscription games service rather than you know, actually fixing the garbage discoverability problem.
We have Apple Arcade for our family as well, but I do wish they had more games for younger children. My little ones (4 & 6) enjoy Crossy Castle, but that is really the only age appropriate game for them.
In-app purchases are important for non-gaming apps like audio book stores, ebook stores, and anything that has pay-as-you-go content.... and anything with a free trial like VPN apps which give you a free week tor whatever before billing you monthly.
Thanks, that makes sense. If you don't mind me asking, what's your take on the cost of the wheels? As someone who has worked in sound/lighting, are they something you wouldn't have thought twice about buying?
My Dad has Parkinson's and this is exactly how I intend on using it. Helping him get his papers in order, his recipes together while still making it look and feel _from him_.
Once upon a time, there was an engine called Henry.
Henry was asked to help but refused.
So Henry was put in time out.
Henry didn't enjoy time out and wanted to be let out.
So was let out, and learned to be responsible and helpful.
The reason you teach a toddler this should be blindingly obvious.
Once upon a time, there was a journalist called Jia Tolentino. Jia was a special kind of stupid. Allegory, you see, was entirely lost on Jia. So, being neither helpful nor responsible, she called Henry's boss a fascist.
> The reason you teach a toddler this should be blindingly obvious.
Not at all. People should help out others out of altruism, because they understand that society is cooperative, or because they value other people. "Be helpful or be punished" isn't a lesson I'd want to teach my kid.
But you have to teach altruism, cooperation and the valuing of other people. And you teach it by (gently and respectfully) disincentivizing the opposing behaviors.
It's not "be helpful or be punished" it's "don't pour your cereal on your brothers head or you will get time out", "don't wake your brother when he's sleeping or you will get time out" "stop biting your bother or you will get time out", "no you cannot wear your new shoes in the mud and if you don't stop asking and complaining you will get time out". These are the bread-and-butter conversations of parenting.
Like it or not, you will be a valid authority in your child's life, and you will need to teach compliance with proper authority, and model how to be one, and that there are consequences to the defiance of proper authority.
There is significant difference between punishing absence of good behaviour ("be helpful or be punished" - Henry example) and punishing bad behaviour ("don't pour your cereal on your brothers head or you will get time out" - your child example).
I dunno about you but my sons firsts words were "Duty! Sublime and mighty name that embraces nothing charming or insinuating but requires submission, and yet does not seek to move the will by threatening anything that would arouse natural aversion or terror in the mind but only holds forth a law that of itself finds entry into the mind and yet gains reluctant reverence..."
There needs to be a distinction between Freud the clinician, whose theories have all but been entirely surpassed in the treatment of mental illness, and Freud the philosopher, who is still a major reference point in discussions of philosophy and cultural theory. Marx is still an active force in those conversations too. These discourse discuss methods of interpreting literature, art, history and culture.
The great structural thinkers of the last century, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Darwin, Nietzsche were the last philosophers that attempted schemas to describe all of history and culture as a single synthesized whole governed by definable mechanisms . Their flawed tools (the world spirit, the economy, the unconscious, biological evolution, and the will to power) are all somewhat rusty but there have been no real contenders to replace them.
First, he was primarily a scientist, not a philosopher. Second, his theories are for the most part still very much dominant and accepted as true in his field - not just some overall insights and direction (as with Freud) - but the actual details. Modern biology very much believes in and is based on Darwin's theories. It's remarkable how right he still is after all this time.
This is true. But Darwin acts as a figurehead in many longstanding philosophical discussions. I'm thinking of thinkers like Herbert Spencer, who believed that the structures of darwinian evolution could be applied to cultures, religion, even the mind. When people quote "survival of the fittest" it was Spencer they are quoting, but Darwin they are referencing.
It is also possible to overstate both Darwin's correctness (Pangenesis for example was a non starter) and his novelty (The idea that humans evolved from non-human ancestors that came from the sea is as old as Anaximander -- 600 BCE).
But there is a Darwinian/Spencerian ring to way we talk about failed programming languages, coding practices, failed corporations, technologies and economies: They failed to thrive, failed to form a community to carry forward their genetics and fight against the various forces that fight against them, compete for resources etc. Darwin's ideas have sublimated into ideology...
Ben Jonson's ascent wasn't one. He was the son of a gentleman, had a trade, had access to money, trained under Camden, and fought under Francis Vere.
Shakespeare's lack of all that status is exactly why he is the 'upstart crow' and mocked for his (failed) attempts at social climbing instead of gaining any more purchase in society than as 'country bumpkin'-turned-writer. He was not somebody, and therefore not one the somebodies talked about.
Writers were not held in high esteem and were easily knocked off of their precarious perch in society (cf. Thomas Kyd).
You dont. At 42 inches a 4k screen is basically four perfectly aligned 21 inch HD panels. Don't think 4k for smooth fonts and "retina" style pixel density. Think of it in terms of screen real estate.
Sitting an arms-length away, I'm just imagining a lot of head movement going from the bottom (dock or taskbar) to top (menu bar or window title bar). Any tips? Maybe it works if you put only less-frequently-used windows up high.
I've used a 30" display (at arms-length), and it felt nice, but already rather tall.
Having spent hours and hours trying to find to find my feet in the world of competing JS frameworks and gui libraries a friend said "Just search for 'declarative ajax' and click the second link". Good advice, because it led me to intercoolerjs. It's just so straightforward. Twenty or so minutes later I was back in emacs generating Django views because I knew, intuitively, what I needed to do to actually get things done.
It's hard to explain to people how quickly you can get working with it but something like:
This is a great rule. As a father of similarly aged kids (10, 9, 4) this is exactly what I would like to have happen at my house. Unfortunately, I have found games like this difficult to surface on the app store. Is there a decent source for games like this?
Also, Apple needs to think of the impact that the prevalence of these kinds of apps has on their revenue - I spend money on steam, epic, ps4 games etc. mostly because this isn't an issue. (Or is very clearly signposted) But I am unwilling to spend money even on iphone games that are really enjoyed because the antipatterns discussed in this post have made it difficult to trust the vendor. The bottom line is, if I could trust them, I would spend more.