David Braben: App Store quality is high — as in a ‘high pile of rubbish’
Even if Apple’s App Store recently passed the 2 billion downloads mark, not everyone is impressed. David Braben, respected LostWinds and Elite creator, for one, has spoken out about the lack of safety nets in the App Store to ensure quality games, thereby producing “rubbish”, as opposed to Nintendo who “raises the bar very slightly.”
Even if Apple’s App Store recently passed the 2 billion downloads mark, not everyone is impressed. David Braben, respected LostWinds and Elite creator, for one, has spoken out about the lack of safety nets in the App Store to ensure quality games, thereby producing “rubbish”, as opposed to Nintendo who “raises the bar very slightly.”
Said Braben in an interview with CVG,
There’s a little bit of a ‘gatekeeper’ thing with Nintendo which raises the bar very slightly because you’ve got to have dev kits, but that’s a good thing. Look at iPhone; there are so many games that aren’t up to scratch, without being too negative about it. It’s very hard to find the good stuff amongst the rubbish.
Another thing I resent is applications or games that are designed to look like something else that’s been successful and people accidentally buy them, or they’re slightly cheaper and they assume they’re getting a cheaper version or the same thing.
Braben also had a retort for Apple’s claim that they have, in fact, more games than the DS and PSP combined. To that, Braben said,
Having a higher pile of rubbish isn’t good, it’s how many good nuggets there are within it. It’s not so much regulation [that’s needed], it’s discrimination so that it’s easier for a user to be able to see what other people thought of something. The rating mechanic is a very good one. I think that helps with iTunes as well.
Braben clearly is a quality over quantity kind of guy.
Related Articles:
Via CVG