As we know, currently, there's a huge amount of small indie companies making their bucks with smartphone/tablet game development but after reading a review of iPad 3 I was left to wonder if the higher crunching power will take it all away. By the looks of it, tablets start to get enought power to run these kind of games that give bigger companies the advantage(3D and so on).

So my question to the community is what do you think about the matter?
Do you think the fact that these screens(in my opition) favor simpler 2D games is sufficient to keep the players playing games that could be developed by indies?

I don't see anyone paying $50 for an iPad game in the near future, even if it is a triple-A title. Until the money is there, the big studios aren't going to be sinking tens of millions into tablet titles. Indies will be competitive on mobile for a very long time.

Indies / Small companies will stay competitive because self publishing is feasible. However, big companies will make the big bucks, like anywhere else!

The quality bar has been steadily increasing, and that means bigger-budget products and in turn more expensive products. People are demanding more, which is why it is more common to see $5, $10, and even $20 apps on the stores. This trend is not going away in the near future. People want bigger and better, which means more money for those products.

I've paid $15 each for several major apps that I use on a near-daily basis. I've been buying more $5 apps than $1 apps because I know the more expensive app fits my needs.

There will always be a demand for the inexpensive stuff which gives hobbiests and independant developers an edge for now. But you can watch for the time when the $1 apps are the exception, not the rule.

Indies / Small companies will stay competitive because self publishing is feasible.[/quote]

There is only a handful of examples where individuals made profit and even in best times, few companies could support themselves exclusively using App store.

For high-end products, profit margins never were there, unless the company hit a lottery through a perfect storm of viral exposure, features in blogs and top spot in store.

To sustain a 3 person company, one needs to make $200k in revenue or more, to grow, preferably much more. Very few standalone products ever made that through their own effort.

You don't really have to be big to do high quality stuff.

You just have to limit the number of assets and chose game ideas that need less scripting and other content.
Doesn't have to feel "shorter" because of it

In short, work smarter.

Btw, there do exists ways to increase the possibility of that "perfect storm" to happen, its not all just a big lottery.
At least we don't want to think that 4 of our 5 titles have been massive successes on the app store only because of pure luck

As I see it, the higher crunching power only makes it easier for smaller teams to make high quality titles, specially if they chose to go 2D.

One benefit of the mobile price structure and market uncertainty for small developers is that a lot of bureaucracy necessitated by larger companies kind of nullifies a lot of the benefits large companies have over those smaller developers.

Indies / Small companies will stay competitive because self publishing is feasible.

There is only a handful of examples where individuals made profit and even in best times, few companies could support themselves exclusively using App store.

For high-end products, profit margins never were there, unless the company hit a lottery through a perfect storm of viral exposure, features in blogs and top spot in store.

To sustain a 3 person company, one needs to make $200k in revenue or more, to grow, preferably much more. Very few standalone products ever made that through their own effort.
[/quote]

I didn't say it was easy! ;)

But it is possible. If you want to run a small company that's profitable on mobile apps alone, you need to produce a huge amount of apps, so that the hits pay for the misses. That's pretty much the role of the publisher in "traditional" gamedev. It's tough, but doable.

For Indie / Hobby devs, that do not have an interest in running a company it's much easier, because there's almost no cost involved, besides spending time. That's not possible with "traditional" gamedev at all (well, except PC/Mac games).

So, my point is, that the diversity of games and apps that we have at the moment won't go away, because the big boys are rolling into town and will be eating everyones lunch, as has happened in "traditional" gamedev.

Note that I'm only speculating about the diversity of mobile games, because I don't really play a lot on my tablet / phone, but usually the advantage of having a lot of small developers is said diversity.

you need to produce a huge amount of apps, so that the hits pay for the misses.[/quote]

Well, no.

The "huge amount" is an old and solved problem. You hire 50 people in third world country and give them a quota - 3 apps per day per person. So you end up with 900 RSS readers and app-ified word documents. All you need then is a few sales per day and money trickles in. If you do some extra SEO or some other tricks, you can increase that considerably. And this is not a made up case, it's established practice.

The "huge amount" is frowned upon because it's spam. And since it was abused in that way since day one, it may quickly cause a backlash.

A well-oiled team needs 1-2 months to produce something simple, but it'll quickly be several man years for something innovative or with higher production values.

For anything less, there's 100,000 students who instead have 1 year to spend to deliver something "for free", yet on the market they are your direct competition.

besides spending time[/quote]

There's a difference between running a company and doing something in spare time. Android is flooded with apps written in spare time. And due to the way appstores are organized, getting featured is next to impossible simply due to this overload.

AppStore is similar, with paid voting services which put you in top spot. For company, all of these mean expenses. For indies, you either come up with $1000 to buy enough votes and risk getting banned, or take the chance with being featured. Either way, if you want predictable results, it's far from free.

you need to produce a huge amount of apps, so that the hits pay for the misses.[/quote]Well, no.[/quote]
I was thinking more in the line of companies like Kairosoft (http://kairopark.jp/), that have a reasonably big portfolio of relatively simple games, which are still unique IMO.

However, I have no idea how big that company actually is, or how long they take to produce their games. As I said, not much clue about mobile gamedev industry.

I'm not advocating 3rd world sweatshop software development at all. Or any sweatshops...

besides spending time[/quote]

There's a difference between running a company and doing something in spare time. Android is flooded with apps written in spare time. And due to the way appstores are organized, getting featured is next to impossible simply due to this overload.

AppStore is similar, with paid voting services which put you in top spot. For company, all of these mean expenses. For indies, you either come up with $1000 to buy enough votes and risk getting banned, or take the chance with being featured. Either way, if you want predictable results, it's far from free.
[/quote]

You miss my point completely. I apologize for being unclear and will try again:
The good thing about mobile gamedev is, that, since you can self publish and have almost zero up front investments, everyone can develop and _publish_ a game, given enough time and skill.

Whether that game makes money, or is played by anyone or gets to the top of the list is not important. The game is there for players to enjoy (or hate, or whatever). Everyone can download and play. There's a potential audience.

And if the game is "good" (whatever that might be) enough to attract a certain amount of players, it _can_ even be a financial success.

In "traditional" gamedev, especially on consoles, you can not develop, let alone publish a game, ever, unless you join with established developers. So all your efforts can never really reach an audience, never be discovered, never even have the chance to make any money, if that's even something you're looking for.