New omnibus "Hosted Games" app

We’re experimenting with a new omnibus “Hosted Games” app for iOS, and we’d like you to try it out. Jason alluded to this previously, in his post about the State of the Company.

Important notes:

  • If you’ve made an in-app purchase in one of our existing iOS apps, you can’t transfer that purchase into this app. (We’re working on it!)
  • If you prefer to use our other existing iOS apps, feel free to keep using them.
  • This app is currently available for iOS only. If y’all love it, we might port it to other platforms as well.
  • This app is a work in progress. Your feedback can help us decide how to shape this app in the future.

We made this app not only because we think it might be a good idea, but also because Apple has told us that we have to build it. This week’s release of The Hero Project: Open Season will be our last new iOS app release as a separate app; all future iOS releases will be a part of an omnibus for the foreseeable future.

(Android releases on Google Play Store will remain as they are, though if the omnibus is successful, we’ll presumably make an omnibus available for Android, as well.)

For now, the omnibus is a new, additional way to enjoy our games. We hope you enjoy it, and we’re looking forward to incorporating your feedback.

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Wohoo, it’s here!
Hopefully the Android version got released soon. Can’t wait to try it out :yum:

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No.

I’m sorry to say this, but I won’t trust an independant app with my data. I can buy the game because I pay a bonus to my phone company to have 10€ in apps every month, so I don’t give it to Google either. I won’t go through another app to do this.

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It’s for iOS currently, not Google Play. Not sure how you normally consume our games, or why an omnibus app is appreciably different than individual apps for you.

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What if you have separate number-letter keys that generate for each person who has purchased the individual apps and they can use those keys to unlock the full games in the omnibus version?

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As Dan said, we’re working on transfer ability.

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I know the company wasn’t given a choice, so it is what it is, but I assume the company will be doing a big marketing push with email, blog, etc., to educate the customers about this? I don’t guess any of the casual fans even know this is coming.

It’s a bit nerve-racking thinking about being released inside an app and then having to compete against the free-to-play games that are prominently featured when the customer opens it up.

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Today, the only announcement is here on our forum, but we’ll do a big marketing push once the app has been out for a while and we’ve had a chance to get feedback from our fans.

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If you mean to suggest that the omnibus app will be the data handler for your credit card information, I seriously doubt that’s the case. :wink:

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It isn’t. The games in the omnibus app are in-app purchases, which means that Apple is still the entity from which games are purchased.

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Well, the omnibus is basically like a mother-book of all the titles.
So you’ll no longer have to put tons of HG icons on your screen; just one “HG Omnibus” icon to access all the HG titles.

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I don’t want to be that guy who suggest’s the same thing as everyone before them without listening with why the idea is bad, buuut could you guys implement advertisemnt’s into this new app?

I think due to the high traffic and shizzle it could be a good idea? But it may be hard to do and get advertisers and stuff

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Our advertisements are the same right now as they are in the individual apps (set up individually per game, with the purchase of either the full game turning them off, or as a separate purchase equivalent to the full game), so currently nothing has changed there.

As for the ads in the navigator of the omnibus, I’m not certain we’d want to even if we had a good model of how to do so. Besides detracting from the UX, we’d have to figure out where that money would go.

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There’s more going on in the app icon than in the app itself! But in all seriousness, there is a ton of user interface work that needs to be done. I should be able to get a glimpse of the cover and a short summary of a story without clicking anything. I would recommend implementing tabs to sort by New Releases, genre, A-Z and so forth.

I haven’t purchased any of these stories, so I’m not sure if this functionality is implemented, but an icon for each story already owned would be ideal. Maybe that’s going to require “logging in” by giving our emails for the omnibus to check save data.

Right now this app is a proof of concept. I think it’s so barebones at this stage that many additional features need to be added before any marketing push is made.

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See above. It’s the same as before. The apps are just not individual apps.

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Yeah maybe it’s a bad idea, I just thought like a banner at the bottom could be relatively okay but rake the dough in for you guys to hire additional copy-editors, develop the coding language (and apps) and treat yo self guys

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Thanks for the thought :slight_smile: Unfortunately ads are basically as lucrative as searching through the couch cushions for loose change.

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…Well I’m making a HG, how about you guys publish my game, let me use a dope coding language you develop, and I’ll give you tons of the profits!

You could make tons of money from it, and you might not even need ads!

I’m surprised you guys haven’t thought of this business model before!

:wink: :sweat_smile:

I wonder if there’s a possibility for internal ads?
You know how paid games usually go on sale when they first come out as part of a promotional period?

  • What if there was an ad I could click on, during that promotional period, that would earn me a coupon for a percentage off of an older game?
  • The offset would be that instead of getting the new game at a discount, I would pay full price (but earn that coupon).

Just a thought.

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