Who here is brilliant at making iOS games / apps?

[Nate]

Hmm that's a novel way of doing it, interesting. Andrew Russel is actually quite clever, I think he could deliver on that project. He was my hero for a while for figuring out soft shadows in this game of his:

I didn't know he had a reputation. I read ExEn is based on a fork and just the way he writes doesn't instill confidence.

[princec]

Hm, having a bit of trouble finding a willing victim for this work. Riven?

Cas

[dishmoth]

Hm, having a bit of trouble finding a willing victim for this work.

Isn't blah^3 in the iPhone/iPad biz these days?  He might have names for you.
Just a thought.
Simon

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[princec]

Yeah, but he's hideously expensive, though I've yet to ask him. He might be on hols.

Cas

[pjt33]

FWIW, Super Meat Boy is on Windows and (the very similar) Xbox360, with an upcoming release for Mac. Wikipedia has this about a Wii version (...)

So they probably started out with XNA (hmm, maybe libgdx should have a J# XNA backend ;-)) and now completely rewrite/port it to Mac/Wii.

I believe the original Meat Boy was Flash. Certainly I've played it on Kong. Whether they've ported or reimplemented from scratch for XNA, I have no idea.

[erikd]

I can't argue that iOS will make you more money, but there's still money to be made on Android. And the performance issue is mostly a non-issue if you want to port it to C++ anyway.
As for fractured, just target 2.1+ devices and factor in some variations in screen sizes and you'll be mostly fine.

But I agree it would make much more sense to target iOS first, and if it's a success, consider targeting Android later.

I've worked with a team of Chinese game developers who specialise in iOS and Android (mostly iOS). They ported Hyper Blazer for me to Android for $300 and I think they did a good job, even though I did have to put in quite some time and effort to manage things. It was a bit of a testcase for me, but I got my investment back so I consider it a success. Not sure if they still do outsourcing work though, but if you want I could point them to your project?

[Eli Delventhal]

I can't argue that iOS will make you more money, but there's still money to be made on Android. And the performance issue is mostly a non-issue if you want to port it to C++ anyway.
As for fractured, just target 2.1+ devices and factor in some variations in screen sizes and you'll be mostly fine.

But I agree it would make much more sense to target iOS first, and if it's a success, consider targeting Android later.

I've worked with a team of Chinese game developers who specialise in iOS and Android (mostly iOS). They ported Hyper Blazer for me to Android for $300 and I think they did a good job, even though I did have to put in quite some time and effort to manage things. It was a bit of a testcase for me, but I got my investment back so I consider it a success. Not sure if they still do outsourcing work though, but if you want I could point them to your project?

$300 to port a game? Jeezus that's cheap. I'd charge like $5,000 at least probably. The standard rate around here is $100/hr.

[erikd]

$300 to port a game? Jeezus that's cheap. I'd charge like $5,000 at least probably. The standard rate around here is $100/hr.

It was ridiculously cheap, and I think they might have underestimated the work a bit when they took the job. For example they had to rewrite the complete rendering engine because I was just using brain-dead immediate mode rendering which is not supported on Android. I actually felt a bit like I was ripping them off towards the end, but they never complained and finished their job as agreed.
We did agree that a next assignment would be for an hourly instead of a fixed price, which was still cheap (but very reasonable for talent by Chinese standards) and I didn't even have to negotiate on that rate.
I'd still hire them at that rate without hesitation (they're talented, and very nice guys to boot), but you always have to factor in the extra time and effort: Outsourcing is not easy and don't expect to be able to throw your project over the fence and get a perfect product back without putting in the effort to manage things like cultural differences in things like expectations and such.

One thing to remember if you're going to opt for outsourcing: Don't do it only to save money, do it because there's a lot of talent outside of the western world! It already cost me quite some time and effort to find these guys in the first place, but in the end it was a good experience.

[lorddon]

Andy Moore, the dev behind Steambirds, made 1/3rd of his income off the Android version of the game.  Nothing to sneeze at there.

[Nate]

A typical estimate is that Android makes 1/5 of what the same app should make on iShit.