Slitherine

Why are you not building more iPad games, I miss the old iPad games you used to have

The short answer is: Apple are a pain to work with

The longer is that it's about the amount of development bandwidth we have, and the cyclical nature of the phone/pad market. We got in at a point where 'premium' games could do fairly well, but then that fell off as free to play began to dominate. Now that market is eating itself, it looks like there is some premium desire in the market, but we need to balance that against limited bandwidth.

Never say never, but it's unlikely in the short term. Sorry!

Cheers

Pip

HI,
Thanks for the honest answer, Pip — most publishers would just say "no plans" and leave it there.

From the player side, think the premium mobile audience you mention is real, it's just quiet. Free-to-play took over because it shouts louder in the store charts, but the players who buy a proper strategy game once and then play it for years are still there. In the grand strategy niche especially, people keep paid mobile games alive for a very long time through mods, scenarios and community guides — the game stops being a product and becomes a hobby.

That said, the bandwidth point is fair. A small team porting to a platform that changes its rules and store policies every year is a gamble, and a bad port hurts more than no port. If it ever does happen, my guess is the strongest back-catalogue titles would be the safest test — the audience for those already exists and is patient.

Either way, appreciate the straight answer instead of marketing silence.