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Monthly Archive:: February 2014

Why games should enter the public domain

Games 57 Comments

A few days ago I inadvertently caused a bit of a fuss. In writing about GOG's Time Machine sale, I expressed my two minds about the joy of older games being rescued from obscurity, and my desire that they be in the public domain. This led to some really superb discussion about the subject in the comments below, and indeed to a major developer on Twitter to call for me to be fired.

I wanted to expand on my thoughts.

Fascinating article on Rock Paper Shotgun from John Walker on why he thinks software copyright (and possibly other kinds too) should come with a much shorter shelf life. Although ostensibly about videogames, much of it could be said to apply to recent events in mobile OS development too.

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How in-application purchases have destroyed the industry

Games 74 Comments

I don't like writing negative articles that don't include a solution to the problem, but in this case, there is no solution. The state of in-app purchases has now reached a level where we have completely lost it. Not only has the gaming industry shot itself in the foot, hacked off their other foot, and lost both its arms ... but it's still engaging in a strategy that will only damage it further.

Why are these gaming studios so intent of killing themselves?

Because massive application stores created a race to the bottom - as well as a huge pile of crap to wade through. Ten to twenty years from now, we won't look back favourably upon the App Store or Google Play.

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Honest Android games

Games 14 Comments

Every game that is featured on this site is either completely free with no advertising, has a one time up front cost or one time IAP to unlock the full content ad free. All screenshots are from a Nexus 7 2013, full sized and un-cropped.

For your game to be considered please make sure the game is aesthetically pleasing and controls well on a touchscreen (no ports that were originally designed to be played with controllers). Games must also support proper full screen scaling (no letterboxing) and HD graphics for tablets.

With mobile gaming torn to shreds by scummy in-application purchasing, this is a great initiative.

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Sailfish 1.0.3.8 released

Wireless 50 Comments

In my review of Jolla and Sailfish, one of my biggest issues was the rather lacklustre browser, which didn't support landscape mode. Yesterday, Jolla released the January update for their operating system, version 1.0.3.8, which includes many small new features, bug fixes, and performance improvements, but most of all, it has vastly improved landscape support.

Half of the screen no longer turns blank when opening the keyboard in landscape mode, and support for it has been added to the default browser - which suddenly becomes a whole lot more useful, since browsing the web without landscape mode was a major pain in the butt. Jolla has also implemented full gesture support in landscape mode; before this update, gestures would not rotate with the screen orientation, but now they do.

The update contains a lot more improvements, and as promised, it was delivered in January. In addition, The New York Times has an article about Jolla as well. Not a lot of new information for those of us keeping up with all this stuff, but it's interesting to see major news outlets talking about Jolla.

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