So, the short story is that Apple doesn’t let us offer coupons or individual discounts. We can put an entire game on sale (by which I mean we can lower the price and say it’s on sale, although there’s no ‘sale’ price or percentage as far as Apple is concerned), but we can’t individually give a user X% off this purchase.
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Well, it was worth a shot. 
I think Devon hit on some of the more substantive issues…
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How will games be organized within the app? We all want as little friction as possible for the customer, but a few clicks are going to be necessary to intelligently narrow a search. Still, it would need to be decided what the main screen looks like. Placement = sales. The App Store has taken care of this issue before, but now we’re all essentially wanting the same premium real estate.
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What sort of initial info are potential buyers given about a game? Could they lightly click on the game icon and get a pop up screen with the standard IOS game info on it?
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Since we’ll be lumped together (for good or bad), I’d suggest authors be given the option to start their games with the equivalent of a title page, so that after the customer clicks “Play,” the cover image is displayed again on the inside of the game (but this time without any annoying buttons on it), and this version of the cover image includes the title of the story and the author’s name, just like a book would. This might help us with our individual branding a bit.
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Will Choice of Games releases be getting their own (currently bare bones) version of the Ommibus? I was confused because the test model is specifically a Hosted Games omnibus, but Dan mentioned in the OP that Hero Project is the last game to be released a separate app.
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Thanks for the feedback, and yes, offering the players more info about games/more imagery is coming in the next version.
- Yes. COG Omnibus is coming. Very soon. I mean, this is kind of the buried lede here. There won’t be any more individual HG or COG apps on iOS. The next game after Open Season will be released in a Choice of Games omnibus.
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Out of curiosity, did Apple reveal why they’re making an omnibus app a requirement? Also, will individual stories still have their own reviews and ratings somehow?
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This is all in response to what I posted in the State of the Company post. Apple is trying to cull “spam” apps and cut down on the sheer number in the App Store.
And eventually, yes, we hope to have some sort of internal ratings and review system. But we’re rolling with what we can manage at the moment.
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I can’t tell as of yet, but I can tell this’ll affect this’ll he rating of some games.
Perhaps all games will get a bit higher rating as the 1 star ‘costs money’ review will decrease, but rather expensive (in comparison-- for me most are affordable) games may be rated lower when they are competing directly with cheaper games (or the ones where you only pay to replay wiit out waiting.)
Also looking forward to an android release
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Could we have an option to show the games as app tiles instead of just the list of titles? And maybe some sort options and filters, if possible.
Good thing I trawled through my email for COG receipts and saved them all. Looks like I’ll need them in order to make the purchases carry over.
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This is version one. And though we’re working on it, we’re not sure when or if games will trasfer.
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Well, that is a crushing disappointment to say the least. I don’t think anyone pours hundreds of hours of their life into a story with the dream of it being released as DLC pack #146. I do feel for y’all, as I know it has to be unnerving having your entire career up in the air with this. But I can’t imagine too many of the authors generating your content are enthused by this. I thought Apple had decided against implementing this in that last-minute December rules revision, which was why you had been able to release individual titles this year. What changed since then?
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Is this just for iOS or is it coming to Android as well, and if it does will Android still be able to buy individual apps?
It’s currently just for iOS, anything to do with Android is tbd.
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One other question (and I promise not to bombard the thread with them, despite the temptation): would this have any impact on releasing as a self-published app, or is this a limitation specific to Choice of Games/Hosted Games themselves as a company because of the number of games you put out in a year?
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I don’t believe we’ve ever, ever licensed CS for someone to independently publish an app, so good question but probably moot right now.
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Well, just to put this out there… if you look at omnibus offerings like Episode: Choose Your Story by Episode Interactive, or Choices: Stories You Play by Pixelberry … I think it’s safe to say that general audiences will use an omnibus if they are interested in the products being offered through it.
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I think the concern is more if people don’t know about those companies, how will someone find their story? For instance, if someone is looking for a samurai game or a vampire romance game, if they do a search, will Samurai of Hyuga or Wayhaven Chronicles pop up if it’s in the omnibus?
There are people who happen to stumble across these games or search for a specific type of game. I think some authors (rightly) would be worried about losing sales because of that.
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You put into words what I was thinking: This new design would seem to be off putting to newcomers and, if it makes sense, be harder to find if you’re not looking specifically for it.
For the current users however, I do think it will helpful, if not by a major amount
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For the time being, yes: the individual IAPs (stories/products) will be searchable on the App Store.
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@jasonstevanhill
What is the App Store’s current position on 'clone app’s? I thought they reversed the ban after getting a huge backlash from developers. If there is no ban but Apple still wishes to reduce the number of Hosted Games titles, I recommend removing the low-performing apps and migrating them into this omnibus. That will clear up slots for new apps to get their time in the sun.
The omnibus at it’s current state will require months of features and weeks of polish to mimic a quality marketplace. It just isn’t fair to the upcoming releases in the meanwhile to be forced into it in it’s current state. If it is at all possible, make this a “soft” migration by co-releasing titles individually AND on this omnibus app.
Over the span of half a year you’ll have the analytics behind the omnibus to know what works and what doesn’t.
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My interpretation is that they said they reversed their position (which is not the case anyway; they claimed they “moderated” their decision), but in fact they didn’t. Or, at its most generous, their “moderation” didn’t include us.
(Kind of like how Amazon said they weren’t killing their Active Content for Kindle program, and then they did.)
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