Posted by macki_c
should be purchased from games.mophun.com not shared! they are only a couple of pounds/dollars and if people share them mophun are going to put the price up and thats just going to hurt honest peoples wallets so stop it.
Posted by M3_DeL
Thank-You!
Posted by macki_c
no problem mate.
people never think of the developers..
[ This Message was edited by: macki_c on 2003-08-04 00:44 ]
Posted by WildNomad
Also, think about the possiblity of developers dropping the making of new games because of piracy.
Some of them, like me, are just waiting for the sales report to decide whether continue producing games or just leave the platform development.
I don't think the games are expensive, considering that two polyphonic tones cost more that a full Mophun game, at least here in Spain.
C'mon, you playing with the Mophun future... no games sold = no new games. It's a logical consequence.
Anyway, it's just my personal opinion. Sure: the world would be better if Mophun games where for free, but then I wouldn't have invested so much time in developing my game. That means that probably there wouldn't be so many games available for you "to share".
Some people said that Mophun games where so bad quality that thay wouldn't invest a cent in buying them... Well, it's a matter of opinions, but just give the possibility of buying games legally to the people that don't think that way.
If you don't like a game, don't buy it, but don't pirate. You have demos available to decide if you like or dislike a game before buying it.
I don't want to bug anyone, but how would you feel watching so many people offering your work for free?
Regards...
Posted by justywusty
well said, mr. developer.
which games have you made? i'm interested.
Posted by macki_c
I think Wild Nomad has got to the crux of the point, you can try all the mophun demos and see if you like them, you may find one or two that you think are brilliant like syndroid and buy them thats how it should work. The developer gets some money for the time and effort they have put into developing a game and the consumer gets a top quality game for a very good price, win win. I personally think mophun games are excellent and very good value for money if you test all the demos and pick a game you really like you cant go wrong.
Posted by Keve30
What happens then when our phones run out of memory cos we dont want to delete our games cos we dont have a backup, meaning if we did delete a game we would have to buy it again to play it.
Same thing if we have to reset our phone, all games are lost and have to be bought time and time again.
[ This Message was edited by: Keve30 on 2003-08-04 03:14 ]
Posted by djburno2000
I think we all agree on this.
But.... yes there is a but:
How can customers buy the games when they don't have access to the service in their own country.
check the list on mophun.com or SE site, it's still quite short, meanwhile the mobile phones are sold worldwide.
Why isn't it possible to sell the games over the net?
this solve the problem of access to service and backup problems.
Here in Vietnam, you can't have access to WAP unless you are have a specific membership. this costs a lot of money regarding that plus the calls and connections fees you have to pay the subscription line plus the deposit for the sim card (which is around US$100).
Besides, I don't see why I should use WAP to play games. Most of them are "offline" so I don't need this service.
If I have to pay for WAP access just to purchase the games, it really increase the cost. And then, you can't even back it up....
The idea is nice but I think it's too early to go all the way in mobile internet thingy.
Mophun should put a system on the web that allows you to purchase the games directly by downloading on your computer.
The customer provides the IMEI and payment details and it's all set.
Protection is still there.
Well, that would be nice IMO.
Posted by N.M.E.
I think the fact that you need to pay for Mophun games will be its downfall.
I know you would tend not to agree, but I am in full support of freeware and the open source community. How can you justify spending $4 on 50kb of data? It just seems stupid to me.
All this software on mobile phones thing has really gone up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
1. Paying for Mophun/Java games. So what if it only costs a few dollars? Why even bother? If it bothers you that much that people are pirating phone games, invest your time into something more substantial.
2. Java is meant to be a platform indepentant interpreter. Good to see that lasted a whole 10minutes in the J2ME world.
I would personally be flattered to see that someone finds my software worthy enough to be pirated.
Regardless of what measures get taken to stop it. Piracy happens, it's a fact of life, get over it.
Posted by WildNomad
@keve30
| Quote: |
On 2003-08-04 04:12:13, Keve30 wrote: |
I'll try to explain why this work this way. There 2 kind of distribution models on Mophun: OTA and IMEI-Locked.
On the IMEI-Locked, the game you buy is locked at your specific phone. The distributors which allow this model lets you download your game everytime you want. That is: you buy once and download as many times you need (even with your computer in the case of http://www.mophungames.com). The Spanish operator Amena works this way. I've bought 3 games, and I've been able to redownload them after a master reset for free. By the way... mophungames operates in a worldwide manner, you just need a credit card.
The OTA distribution games are not locked to your phone until the game arrive on it. Those games have an user id embedded which usually corresponds with the user phone number.
You could ask, why not using that phone number for knowing if the game has been downloaded before? In that case they shouldn't charge for anything, should they? Well, as you should know, phone number and mobile phone are not strongly associated: I could just change my SIM to other phone a download the same game again on the new phone for free. That's because many distributors doesn't allow the redownload of previous bought games.
Also take into account that OTA distributors' download platforms are usually built over the software which managed polyphonic tunes downloads via WAP. Do you know any "tones by SMS" service that let's you redownload a lost song? I don't.
@djburno2000
| Quote: |
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@N.M.E.
| Quote: |
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| Quote: |
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We get paid for every game we sold. We get very little of that "few dollars" per game, so we must sale many games to get enough profit to continue. In either way, I also work on other "more substantial" projects, but I've just give a try on Mophun development. Why with Mophun? Because of its strict DRM. I was surprised how pirated J2ME games where available on the net, so Mophun got very attractive.
| Quote: |
2. Java is meant to be a platform indepentant interpreter. Good to see that lasted a whole 10minutes in the J2ME world. |
| Quote: |
I would personally be flattered to see that someone finds my software worthy enough to be pirated. |
Regards!
Edit: Just corrected an errata.
[ This Message was edited by: Wildnomad on 2003-08-04 13:18 ]
Posted by macki_c
Try and argue against that N.M.E djburno2000.
Posted by VT
N.M.E has given a very good argument and I will buy mine from proper sites. We are all, in one form or another, guilty of taking pirated material and if someone were to offer me a free game I would take it. There is no point in slagging each other off. Pirated Material will be around forever. The only way to slow it down is by giving a balanced view and making the cost of the product realistic.
Posted by macki_c
are you living in the third world or something how is a couple of dollars/pounds not a reasonable price?
How low should they be $1? $0.50?
there would be no point in developing them.
If you can afford to buy a handset that retails at over $300-$400 then you can afford the price of a mophun game.
[ This Message was edited by: macki_c on 2003-08-04 14:09 ]
Posted by p3eps
Dependes on the game though.
I only got my T610 a few weeks ago, and in the last 3 days I'l bought my first 3 games - 2 from Macrospace, and 1 from Morphun.
Today I bought Revs from Morphun... its cost me about £3.
I started off with a championship, and within 10 mins I'd completed the game - come first in all races. I'll "maybe" play it again once.. but thats about it!
I know £3 is peanuts, but I still think that the game should have some sort of lifespan! I could have played a game in the arcade for about < £1 that I could have played for longer than that!
Posted by VT
They cost about £4.50 here in the UK that is about $7.25 which I think is too much.
I got my phone free with the contract which is £25 a month. If I buy a game a month, beacuse that is about how long they last before you get board of it or finish it, then it is putting up my phone bill by nearly one third.
Posted by Carlsb3rg
Hmmm .. it seems like this thread turned into an advertisment for mophun by Wildnomad and for free
Posted by macki_c
You can get some PC and console games that cost over 30 pounds that can be completed in an hour it all comes down to your expertise at gaming.
Posted by Keve30
I bought a game (dogcity aka burpcity) from mophungames and clicked the link in the SMS I was sent which took my phone online to another link to download the game, thing is the link didnt work and said something like "please try another link" but there was only one link to the game £4.50 that cost me for a dead link I sent them several emails and didnt get a responce, I was ripped off. If a purchaser of a game can be ripped off why not a developer or a distributer?
Posted by macki_c
Try trading standards im not saying that mophun are the best company in the world i just dont like piracy when it hurts honest developers
Posted by Fritz24
I guess that's one of the reasons people object to the price of the games. At least if you buy a PC/console game from a shop and it doesn't work then you can take it back. If you try to buy a Mophun game and it doesn't work it's not as easy to get a refund.
Posted by macki_c
Thats what the demos are for, i dont think mophun should be subject to piracy because of their distribution method
Posted by Keve30
Ok here is what the message said, cos I saved the SMS I was sent
"The requested page is not available. Please try another link"
How can I when there is only one link on the page? things like this put people off buying, I certainly dont want to keep throwing £4.50 away, how do I know its not gonna happen again?
Posted by macki_c
what email address did you use to contact mophun to complain?
Posted by Keve30
I used 2 email addresses orders@mophungames.com (I think thats what it is) and not sure what the other was probably something like contact@mophungames.com I didnt get a response from either of them anyway.
[ This Message was edited by: Keve30 on 2003-08-04 15:33 ]
Posted by WildNomad
| Quote: |
|
http://www.mophungames.com/eng/documents/mophun_howto.pdf
Nevertheless, I personally find the mophungames.com support rather disgusting. I know they're the people who get in direct touch with customers: they should be solving problems like the one you had.
Regards...
Posted by macki_c
also try posting your problems on the mophun forum if you get no joy.
http://www.mophun.com/forum.php
Posted by Keve30
You should already be able to see a post from me on the mophun forum, I was told that mophun and mophungames are not linked with each other, mophun are developers and mophungames is a distributer.
[ This Message was edited by: Keve30 on 2003-08-04 16:04 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Keve30 on 2003-08-04 16:07 ]
Posted by WildNomad
No, Macki_c. That forum is hosted by Synergenix, and it won't solve his problem.
Mophungames is operated by other company, and has no direct relation with Synergenix, owners and makers of Mophun.
Regards!
Posted by macki_c
right.... thats a bit of a bummer
cheers Wild Nomad
does that pdf help at all Keve30?
[ This Message was edited by: macki_c on 2003-08-04 16:07 ]
Posted by Keve30
It doesnt realy matter now anyway, cos I bought the game somwhere else, I wont be going back to mophungames again, thats for sure.
Thanks for the help
Kev
Edit:
The PDF didnt do any good, cos the game I bought doesnt show up on my details page, there should be a link to download the game, but no link.
[ This Message was edited by: Keve30 on 2003-08-04 16:18 ]
Posted by macki_c
I think mophungames need to sort their support out cos it is appauling you should always expect a 48 hour reply from someone youve bought something off.
Sounds like their systems for updating your online account are a bit dodgy too from keve30 experiences with them
[ This Message was edited by: macki_c on 2003-08-04 16:21 ]
Posted by joebmc
no were near as well they rob me. downloaded a game and it told me to download it again!
Posted by wrath000
Before you read the rest: I am not making an argument to justify pirating mophun. This is simply a statement
A mophun game averaging 70kb, with a lifespan of aproximatly 1 week, and simplicity of 5-10 years ago costs £4
A new computer game averating 1-4gb in size, where lifespan can range from months to years costs £40-£80
Where is the sense in that?
Posted by WildNomad
About the lifespan of Mophun games:
Ok, we are talking on numbers, so let's look at some facts...
- Usual PC: 128 megs of RAM (more available to application due to virtual memory), 30GB hard-disk, CPU 32 bits 1GHz
- T300 hardware: 64kbytes (yes, you've read right) of RAM available to a Mophun application, maximum of 120.000 bytes per game in the filesystem (some vendors won't allow more than 60.000 bytes in any case), CPU 8 bits 12MHz
That does this mean? Programming for a mobile device is always full of constraints. We can't spend precious space in magnificent graphics, thousand of levels or even magnificient soundtracks in MP3, although we would to. Lifespan of these games must be shorter because we got this kind of limits.
As stated below, some vendors won't allow any game with more than 60.000 bytes (like AT&T or Cingular), and that's because sometimes we have to crop our games to cope with that.
We have to spent many hours optimizing the code by hand, chosing the right graphics so that they take the lesser space as possible.
And about the game price:
Here, in Spain, the download of three 10 seconds monophonic tones costs the same than a Mophun game. Do you find this fair? I could compose one of those melodies in just half an hour.
Everything depends on what is compared with.
Take care...
[ This Message was edited by: WildNomad on 2003-08-04 23:24 ]
Posted by M3_DeL
I think people are missing the point......
I don't care if the games cost 1,000,000 dollars.....whether that is fair on not is not the issue at hand.
I don't think it is fair that Microsoft windows is so expensive and Linux is free....does that now give me the right to steal Windows? NO
If you don't like the pricing of these games stick to the java games!!!
If it seems so rediculous to pay for these games.....feel free to start developing games for us all for free. You may enjoy making the first one....but I doubt we'll see much more come from you in developing terms as I am sure you have a job and program free games on the side won't be very fruitfull for you.
just my 2 cents
Posted by wrath000
@WildNomad: I agree with you. Mobile content is overpriced. Why is it so overpriced? Because it's too popular. So popular in fact that nobody feels that they have to drop prices in order to beat comptetition.
By the way, a little of topic here: don't underestimate the effort that goes into polyphonic ringtones. I make polys (not comercially, but for myself. Why? because I gave up on buying them since they all sound like cr*p because the author didn't bother to put more then an hour of effort into it). They are a lot of work... at least the good ones. Adapting a song into MIDI is a pain in the *ss. Are they overpriced? Yes. The latest trend is for the prices to go up and the quality to go down.
Back to the original point though. The mobile content is not aimed at individuals. It's aimed at masses. When a mobile product is made, it's expected that it will be bought by millions. Teenagers use more and more money on this. As a matter of fact it's becoming an addiction to them. So even though £3 a game doesn't sound like much, when you multiply it by a million it becomes quite a large number. I know you will probably say that no game is downloaded so much. Just wait. Mophun phones are not very widespread yet, but they will be soon, and one thing we learned from the mobile content industry is that they don't lower prices when the sales increase.
Posted by Elrond
Can anybody give me a link to download demos via wap? Thx
Posted by macki_c
games.mophun.com mate
Posted by Elrond
Thanks a lot. Maybe I buy a game or 2 or 3 or ... :-D
Posted by macki_c
cool i would recommend syndroid its based on a game that has never got boring to me since it first came out as arkanoid donkeys years ago
Posted by M3_DeL
I would love to see more role playing games in the future....I also would like to see SE add a little more memory to phones so we can see longer games with more detail (no not graphics).
I guess with time this will improve
Posted by Mavito
OK!
The reason why I download cracked Mophun games, is that Ericsson made that misstake to ignore JAVA on my T300. Mophun didn't let users make own applications and share them free, like JAVA. And I don't want to have to pay everytime I want to refresh the phone with some new games.
Another thing I hate about Mophun, is that they only make games and not usefull applications; like remotecontrol and datebook.
If only Ericsson had dropped Mophun from the begining, there would be no problem with cracked software and no more people thinking about the poor company loosing their money...
Posted by N.M.E.
@WildNomad
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People spend $2 for short monophonic tunes (1 SMS). Why not paying a little more for a full game?
--------------
People are idiots I guess. It's just a ringtone....I've never paid for a ringtone/logo on my phone...Theres too many available for free.
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We get paid for every game we sold. We get very little of that "few dollars" per game, so we must sale many games to get enough profit to continue. In either way, I also work on other "more substantial" projects, but I've just give a try on Mophun development. Why with Mophun? Because of its strict DRM. I was surprised how pirated J2ME games where available on the net, so Mophun got very attractive.
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Fair enough. I won't argue with that.
I think Mophun (from what I've seen of it) looks a lot like Allegro..Not that I can claim to be adept at Allegro development, but they both seem to serve a similar purpose. J2ME games shouldn't even have to be pirated! It's ridiculous.
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Really? Then why a Nokia J2ME game doesn't work on my Siemens phone (or viceversa)? Just a tip: I've managed to get my game playable on a Nokia 3650/7650 just by rescaling the graphics. Does J2ME allow this? No, for sure. Perhaps when MIDP 2.0 arrive to the mass market, but not today.
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That was kinda my point :P The whole vision behind Java was to write once and run anywhere. Other companies somehow got too competitive and lost that vision. It is possible to write J2ME apps that will run on any phone, you just have to leave the company specific classes alone. And yes, it is possible to dynamically scale the screen in Java.
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Believe me when I say that I would be more flattered seeing the people who find my software worthy enough paying for it.
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Again, fair enough. I guess that is just a difference of opinion.
@macki_c
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Try and argue against that N.M.E djburno2000.
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Against what? I didn't see you say anything....
Posted by WildNomad
| Quote: |
The reason why I download cracked Mophun games, is that Ericsson made that misstake to ignore JAVA on my T300. Mophun didn't let users make own applications and share them free, like JAVA. |
One of the reasons about adopting Mophun is its speed. It uses a very fast runtime engine that lets the hardware give the best.
| Quote: |
And I don't want to have to pay everytime I want to refresh the phone with some new games. |
| Quote: |
Another thing I hate about Mophun, is that they only make games and not usefull applications; like remotecontrol and datebook. |
| Quote: |
If only Ericsson had dropped Mophun from the begining, there would be no problem with cracked software and no more people thinking about the poor company loosing their money... |
Also, the games haven't been cracked. They are just games not locked to an specific phone.
Regards...
Posted by macki_c
| Quote: | ||||||||||||||||||
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I meant try and argue against Wild Nomads points.
Posted by N.M.E.
I did that already didn't I?
You are making out like someone has a gun to your head with respect to developing mophun games. I'm sure you don't do it for a job. Wouldn't that make it a free-time activity or a hobby? You want to get paid for a hobby? Come on man. Are you really that poor that you need to scrape for pennies by making small, not overly detailed games?
Regardless of how you look at things. People are going to pirate games, and others are going to pay for them. Warez these days makes almost any PC game available for download, but they still sell like hotcakes. I really don't think you will change anything and please stop whinging about how hardly done by you are. If it's that hard, don't do it.
Posted by macki_c
I really dont think any mophun developer does it solely for the money, that would be stupid, use warez pc games if you want too because most of the pc development teams are paid for what they do regardless of sales unlike most of the mophun developers who i think do it mainly cos they see a game and want to play it on their mobile and they should be rewarded for that if they release it into the public, just because they are cheap doesnt mean it should be free, I am just trying to discourage people from getting it for free cos that doesnt help anyone take mobile games forward, and many people wouldent warez games if there was nobody downloading them to continue the illegal chain.
Posted by N.M.E.
So what you're telling me now is that people should be getting paid for developing on concepts designed by other people? If I wanted to play Bubble Bobble on my phone, I should port it and get paid for it? Isn't there a copyright issue on this? Even if I called it 'Magic Bubble Fun Adventure', it's still someone elses idea. If the game is original, fair enough. So it's illegal to download games, but not illegal to steal concepts? Interesting.
Posted by macki_c
Thats a really lame argument games have been copied since pong
developers only develop games for the market and if consumers want certain types of older game on their mobile which coincide with earlier game formats thats ok as long as they dont infringe copyright
[ This Message was edited by: macki_c on 2003-08-05 03:21 ]
Posted by N.M.E.
Games have also been pirated since pong....