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MakeGamesWithUs developer here. Your point about the required computer is fairly valid, but you could get away with having a early-2009-generation computer, or

MakeGamesWithUs developer here. Your point about the required computer is fairly valid, but you could get away with having a early-2009-generation computer, or with the cheapest Mac mini ($600). If you were truly strapped for cash, an iPhone/iTouch device is not actually necessary given the iOS simulator. And we'd totally be willing to test games on our in-house test devices if a developer doesn't have an actual device. Ashu, the guy who wrote the blog post, actually developed his game before he got his first iPhone. Developers also don't need to worry about the license, as the game is published through us. I'd disagree with your point about Objective-C. Firstly, automatic reference counting (ARC) mostly eliminates the burden of memory management. Also, learning the language is a requirement if you're at all serious about getting into mobile game development or mobile development in general. Any serious mobile app/game on the market HAS to have an iOS version. While Android certainly has greater market share than the iOS, the fact is that Android has lots of device/OS version fragmentation. Greater proportions of iOS users, on the other hand, tend to upgrade their devices. This makes us comfortable enough to drop support for devices older than the iPhone 3GS and not have our developers worry about backwards compatibility (the new iPhone 5 screen is a non-issue). People have also found that despite lower market share, iOS versions of the same game offered on Android usually gross more revenue. That being said, we are definitely moving towards publishing on Android soon.

mamcx 14y ago
Is not clear to me if is only on-site, or for anyone in the world...
- brianchu 14y ago
  Anyone in the world.
  - mamcx 14y ago
    Great! What happend if somebody (me) is already familiar with xcode/obj-c and have created apps but never games?
    - brianchu 14y ago
      Sign up on our site and contact us!
akurilin 14y ago
To clarify, my comment was only related to the didactic aspect of the program with respect to software development. Regarding everything else, the business side in particular, I completely agree that you cannot do much better in mobile than with iOS today. Perhaps there are some esoteric options with 3rd world cell-phones and selling services through SMS, but let's overlook those for now. That of iOS is a demographic of people who are willing to spend money, and thus it's a good match for your need. As you mentioned, assuming iPhone games, only having to support 1 OS version and 1 resolution with 2 easily bridgeable screen sizes is a big boon. On a sidenote, I still don't agree that iOS memory management is at all a good entry level paradigm. Reference counting, choosing between strong, weak, copy, assign, unsafe_unretained etc., retain cycles, transferring memory ownership from CoreFoundation libraries are all not trivial concepts for the average 16 year old. I'd be curious to read a blog post from you guys to see what your experience with this will have been.
- brianchu 14y ago
  Using industry-standard game libraries (cocos2d/kobold2d) with ARC, a 16 year old would never need to touch reference counting or the CoreFoundation (the exception is using Box2D physics). It is also not necessary to understand copy, assign, and unsafe_unretained, though it certainly might help in some edge-case situations, with which we would be glad to assist any student developers. And while it is more helpful to know the difference between strong and weak references, that is IMO a very accessible concept.
Tichy 14y ago
With respect to device fragmentation on Android: why do you even have to support all the devices with your first game? Thinking of it another way: by developing for iOS, you "dropped" support for even more Android devices (all of them). So why not just develop for the latest Android version, and expand if your game becomes successful. Is the "iOS grosses more than Android" thing still valid? Have any of your interns made good money with their games?
dvhh 14y ago
so you are advocating that kids should drop +600$ to make games. While they could code game in Lua, python, any other language/script that would be more platform agnostic and probably more rewarding for learning. I would even put that coding in javascript for a game seems cheaper more cross plaform and more rewarding, and allow them to expand if they want to learn more.
thechut 14y ago
Sounds like MakeGamesWithUs has installed an Apple Koolaid dispenser in the break room

mamcx 14y ago

Is not clear to me if is only on-site, or for anyone in the world...

brianchu 14y ago
Anyone in the world.
- mamcx 14y ago
  Great! What happend if somebody (me) is already familiar with xcode/obj-c and have created apps but never games?
  - brianchu 14y ago
    Sign up on our site and contact us!

akurilin 14y ago

To clarify, my comment was only related to the didactic aspect of the program with respect to software development. Regarding everything else, the business side in particular, I completely agree that you cannot do much better in mobile than with iOS today. Perhaps there are some esoteric options with 3rd world cell-phones and selling services through SMS, but let's overlook those for now. That of iOS is a demographic of people who are willing to spend money, and thus it's a good match for your need. As you mentioned, assuming iPhone games, only having to support 1 OS version and 1 resolution with 2 easily bridgeable screen sizes is a big boon. On a sidenote, I still don't agree that iOS memory management is at all a good entry level paradigm. Reference counting, choosing between strong, weak, copy, assign, unsafe_unretained etc., retain cycles, transferring memory ownership from CoreFoundation libraries are all not trivial concepts for the average 16 year old. I'd be curious to read a blog post from you guys to see what your experience with this will have been.

brianchu 14y ago
Using industry-standard game libraries (cocos2d/kobold2d) with ARC, a 16 year old would never need to touch reference counting or the CoreFoundation (the exception is using Box2D physics). It is also not necessary to understand copy, assign, and unsafe_unretained, though it certainly might help in some edge-case situations, with which we would be glad to assist any student developers. And while it is more helpful to know the difference between strong and weak references, that is IMO a very accessible concept.

Tichy 14y ago

With respect to device fragmentation on Android: why do you even have to support all the devices with your first game? Thinking of it another way: by developing for iOS, you "dropped" support for even more Android devices (all of them). So why not just develop for the latest Android version, and expand if your game becomes successful. Is the "iOS grosses more than Android" thing still valid? Have any of your interns made good money with their games?

dvhh 14y ago

so you are advocating that kids should drop +600$ to make games. While they could code game in Lua, python, any other language/script that would be more platform agnostic and probably more rewarding for learning. I would even put that coding in javascript for a game seems cheaper more cross plaform and more rewarding, and allow them to expand if they want to learn more.

thechut 14y ago

Sounds like MakeGamesWithUs has installed an Apple Koolaid dispenser in the break room