Tunnels, First iPhone Game to Get a Negative Score.
Yet another reason to avoid Tunnels.
As a school project, Tunnels would probably receive an above average grade. As someone’s first attempt at game programing , Tunnels would be a considered a pretty good first effort. As a $1.99 paid game released on the iTunes app store, Tunnels is a total rip off.
Terry Peng, the developer of Tunnels, originally released his very simplistic, overly difficult top down scroller as a free iPhone game. Even with a price tag of zilch I scored the game a 1 of of 10. Other people in the iPhone gaming community, while not as harsh, gave Tunnels similar marks. The game just wasn’t fun or interesting in anyway.
So, why change a horrible game from free to paid? I’m not really sure, but, some have suggested the developer of Tunnels is attempting to exploit Apple’s “top games” algorithm. Apparently, at the iTunes App Store a game’s download statistics do no reset when the price of the game is changed. Since free games typically get more downloads then paid ones, a developer can release a game for free, get a whole bunch of downloads and then switch it to a paid game. Either way, Tunnels wasn’t fun with no price tag and it’s now exactly -2 fun at a a buck ninety-nine
My Tunnels Review can be read here.
By: Aaron Robbins
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Apple needed to fix that weeks ago. I think they haven’t because the iTunes Store is so archaic that they can’t make it more attuned to delivering apps. They need to scrap the whole thing and start over.
I think the developer realized that people weren’t interested in the game, even free, so he figured he’d cash in on any unsuspecting customer that buys it for $1.99, unaware of how terrible the game is.
Greed is rampant in the App Store, unfortunately.
The App Store definitely has a lot of problems. It’ll be very interesting to see how the Android Market compares.
I don’t think it’ll even be a contest. Android Market was created from the ground-up for that specific purpose. Whereas the App Store was shoehorned into a digital music delivery system.
My 2 cents here is that even if Apple has some shotcomings there is one undeniable fact, the iPhone is popular and nearly everyone wants it.
In addition to that the device has only one configuration. I’ve been developing for 6 years, almost at the start when smartphones are gaining in popularity, on different mobile technologies like J2ME, BREW, Symbian and WindowsMobileOS. Honestly working and optimizing your software, adjusting the look and feel, etc. for different handsets with different hardware specifications, different screen sizes, and so on is a pain and very unproductive.
Sure the Android will get its piece of the market but the Appstore will still be on top solely because of the iPhone. It’s also a godsend for indie developers who doesn’t have much resources or the luxury of time to test and optimize their software on ten different handsets with varying hardware.
P.S. LOL at -2 Aaron
By the way, I’m pretty sure that Apple has fixed the free-to-paid rankings loophole. Sometime this week, Expando disappeared from the top 100 paid list, after being in the top 10 the day before. It’s still pretty high up in its category, if sorted by popularity, so it looks like they’re filtering the top 100 paid list for any apps that were previously free.