Harry Potter is back, well in Lego form, on the iPad. The first Lego Harry Potter game for the iPad (and iPhone) was a great success in our house. Enjoyed by all and still played a lot today. However we have been looking forward to the next instalment, our anticipation getting hyped even more when Harry Potter: Years 5-7 was released for all the other gaming platforms.
However the wait is over…
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 is now available for the iPad and is only £2.99
So far I’ve only downloaded the 466MB App and no one has had a chance to really play the game… so no idea if it’s better or worse than the original and no idea if it’s any good.
First glance is that the graphics are better than the first one, the app appears to be snappier (but that may be because my first glance was using the new iPad rather the original iPad, however the game is (allegedly) compatible with the original iPad, which is nice as some new games are only compatible with iPad 2 or better).
Gameplay is pretty standard Lego gaming style, combination of puzzles and processes to progress through.
My only real concern is that the latter part of Harry Potter is certainly darker than the first four films. However this is Lego and when you “die” in a Lego game, you basically fall to pieces and you can always build the Lego pieces back together!
Overall I think this is going to be a fun game and at £2.99 is very good value. I don’t know what (if anything) is missing from the game compared to the console version, but at first glance it does look more like the PSP version than the PS3 version.
What this game also does is ask the question, what is the future of mobile gaming systems, when you can buy the iPod touch (which supports this game) for about the same price as the Nintendo 3DS or PS Vita and not only does it so much more than those two systems, but also the games which are of a similar quality are so much cheaper. The same game for PlayStation Vita is currently £24.99
The price of games question is an interesting one. I believe one of the reasons for the lower prices on the iOS platform is that games are tied to a particular Apple store account and can’t be resold. On other platforms, many of the large software companies have been trying to squash the resale market as they find they “lose” a lot of sales, so they argue they have to charge more to offset this.
Also, iOS benefits from development having already been paid for on those other platforms, so companies can migrate games to the new platform without needing to radically re-invest, hence needing a lower return on investment.
Then there is the ecconomies of scale, especially when selling bits which don’t cost anything to reproduce – if you sell cheap, you sell more and can make more money. I remember when Encyclopedia Britanica was charging hundreds for its CD based edition with a view to only selling a small number of copies to libraries etc, but once they dropped the price to a commodity level and sold millions of copies instead, they made much more from it.
There are figures I saw but cant remember which showed the high percentage of sales for the size of the market on iOS compared to other platforms which back this up, although there are a few niche app markets on iOS which seem to still take the premium price route (certain sat nav apps) which is understandable given the different demographic they are aimed at.
The other push on iOS ha been for ad revenue supported apps and apps which include an after sales revenue stream which becomes more important than the sale price. I have a vague idea that the Lego games include options to buy things to speed up progress or unlock different aspects of the game? This I believe is proving to be a very successful alternative financial model for developers.
Lastly, developers are often building in ways for players to become a commodity they can resell too. The ad model is one way, but also user generated content which they “own” or statistics about people then can resell etc are all becoming alternatives to making money from the sale of the app itself.
Some of these alternatives have made there way to other platforms too to different degrees – I heard that the PC version of Colin McCreigh Dirt was cheaper because it included in game billboard ads where as certain other platforms didn’t have the same benefit.
Another interesting game trend on the mobile platforms – the rise in popularly of asynchronous gaming. The rteurn of more turn based games rather than real time multiplayer. Sure, there are still pleanty of real time games too, but the success of “games” like DrawSomething could mark a shift back to more asynchronous gaming which does tend to suit the “pick up and play anywhere when you have a moment” nature of a mobile platform.
That last point could have implications to consider when designing user experiences for learners too?