gamestore
Latest
Epic Games will take on Steam with its own digital store
Buoyed by Fortnite's phenomenal success over the last year or so, Epic Games is launching its own digital store to take on the likes of Steam, EA's Origin and Blizzard's Battle.net. However, Epic is giving developers a higher revenue share than most of its competitors. Much like creators who sell items through the Unreal Engine Marketplace, developers will keep 88 percent of revenue and Epic will take a 12 percent cut.
Discord’s game store is open to everyone
Discord is marching further onto Steam's turf by opening up its game store to all users. The store arrived in August in a limited beta, and now everyone can pick up games directly from the app.
GameFly to publish iOS and Android games, launch 'GameStore' for Android
GameFly is moving forward with its plan to "help good games get made" by not only publishing said games on both iOS and Android platforms, but by opening its own "expertly curated" marketplace on Google's mobile operating system.GameFly's "GameStore" for Android is set to debut sometime this holiday season and will cater to both smartphone and tablet Android users, supplying games for both formats. The app will also support social discovery mechanisms such as friend recommendations and ratings/reviews from other users. Whether GameStore will exclusively stock GameFly-published titles is still unknown, but considering that the app will reportedly house "thousands of the best games," we expect content from other publishers to be present.As far as GameFly's in-house publishing prospects are concerned, the company expects to release its first game sometime this summer. Mobile developers interested in being published by GameFly should send an email to GameDev at GameFly dawt com.
GameFly to begin publishing smartphone apps, will launch its own Android game store
Having already made headway into the digital frontier last year, video game subscription service GameFly is now ready to expand its sphere of influence into the world of mobile. The company's aspiring for greatness, announcing this morning that it plans to begin publishing iOS and Android titles as early as this summer. And that's not all, folks: we can expect to see the GameFly GameStore, a gaming-oriented competitor to the Play Store and Amazon AppStore, sometime this fall. In addition to its goal of being the biggest and baddest kid on the block, GameFly intends to don the role of philanthropist, setting aside a fund to assist struggling devs who might just need a few extra bucks to finish the next mobile masterpiece. If you fall in this category, the company's already accepting submissions, so read through the press release below to get all the necessary details.
Nintendo's gunning for retailers, expanding eShop offerings for Wii U, 3DS
Nintendo is going to sell its 3DS and Wii U games through the eShop as well as on the high street. Concerned about the money wasted in "inventory," the company will let consumers choose where they get their fix from. The first two games to get the treatment will be New Super Mario Bros 2 and Onitore Brain Training (working title) for the handheld, with more expected in the future. As consumers transition to downloads, the company will keep its brick-and-mortar partners on-side by allowing them to sell "activation codes" to the digital titles -- although that does mean you'll have to drive down to Gamestop and back.
Daily Update for January 5, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Apple refunds purchases for 'prematurely released' GameStore app
As those who follow such comings and goings closely may have noticed, a rather mysterious "GameStore" app seemingly made by Apple itself recently appeared in the App Store. It didn't provide much in the way of functionality for its $0.99 price tag -- displaying only a few in-app purchases that couldn't actually be purchased -- and now Apple has offered an explanation, of sorts, for the app's existence. In a message to folks who bought the app, Apple said that the app (since pulled from the App Store) was "prematurely released," and that it has refunded all purchases. Of course, that raises the question as to whether it will eventually be released officially, but Apple expectedly isn't getting any more specific at this point.
Apple offers refunds for 'premature' GameStore app purchases
A strange Apple-built iOS app called GameStore appeared and then quickly disappeared in the App Store last week. After its disappearance, we picked the app apart and determined that GameStore was essentially sample code that demonstrates how to perform in-app purchases. Many people downloaded the app sight unseen since it came from Apple, while still others downloaded it out of simple curiosity. GameStore cost US$0.99, and according to Mac Rumors and a few other outlets, Apple is now offering refunds to people who bought the app. An email sent to customers who purchased GameStore says that "the app was made available for sale prematurely," and refunds will be issued within five business days.
What was GameStore? Looks like sample code
Earlier today, Kelly posted about GameStore, a new Apple app that appeared on the App Store right before the New Year and was pulled several minutes ago. I forked over my dollar and downloaded a copy to see what the app was all about. It turns out, that there wasn't a lot of there there, and what there was looked an awful lot like...sample code. Specifically, sample code that demonstrates how to perform in-app purchases. The application's identifier was com.apple.iphonesdk.GameStore. Compare this with com.apple.Cards, the identifier for Apple's Cards app. "iphonesdk" hints that the application was meant for developer audiences, i.e. users of the iOS Software Development Kit. Next, I looked at the contents of the application bundle. Therein I found numerous listings for consumable and non-consumable items. These included things like "Awesome Sword" and "Consumable Bullets" as well as the less descriptive "sku.gamestore.nonconsumable.item1." All the classes in the app consisted of such generic elements as "MyProduct," "StoreEngine" and "ProductInfoViewController." Basically, it looked like sample code. Adding to this hypothesis is the tab called "PaymentQ." The queue is of deep interest to developers and absolutely of no interest to end-users. So how did this app end up on the App Store? I have an hypothesis. As I point out in my developer cookbook, although you can easily add IAP features to applications that are already for sale on App Store, you cannot fully develop and test your in-application purchasing for new apps without submitting your application to iTunes. What developers do is upload a working skeleton application to iTunes Connect. You do this with the full understanding that you'll be replacing or, for tutorials, rejecting your binary at some point in the future. Once uploaded, you can test your IAPs, and make sure all your purchasing processes work. Looks like the app was submitted in order to provide a live testbed and may have gotten approved inadvertently. After consulting with the TUAW team, our take on this is "likely sample code accidentally deployed to App Store" by Apple and then quickly pulled once people took notice. TUAW reached out directly to the developer we suspect was behind the app upload before it got pulled.
Odd GameStore app by Apple appears in App Store (Updated)
Everyone with an iPhone is familiar with Game Center, but have you ever heard of GameStore? Discovered by Florian Schimanke, it's a game-oriented app from Apple that went live on December 31st. Unlike other iOS apps from Apple, which are well-known and well-publicized, GameStore is a mystery. As far as we know, Apple has not publicly acknowledged the app. It appeared without any fanfare and is only a shell. The description is very sparse and says only, "This application allows you to buy different things from within the app." The app costs 99-cents, and you can buy and download it to your iPhone. The app itself is barebones but references to "F1 Grand Prix Track" and "Laser Gun" suggests it'll let you by in-game items for your characters and profile. There's also a cart and a checkout process that'll track recent items and let you restore your past purchases. There are lots of things Apple can do with this app, but the obvious theory is that Apple is launching an App Store for in-app items. Anyone care to guess what Apple has up its sleeve? %Gallery-142740% Update: Apple has pulled the app.
Samsung M3710 to become Corby Beat, offer Bada-esque game store
It's not actually running anything approximating Bada, but Samsung's new M3710 has at least one feature that'll apparently become a staple of Bada-powered phones: a built-in Games Store that serves up Java-based apps. That's the word from omniscient industry pundit Eldar Murtazin, anyhow, who also pegs the M3710 as the Corby Beat -- a logical extension to the already-bulging Corby line, we suppose, given the similarity in appearance to some of the existing models and the presence of dedicated music keys along the bottom. As specs go, this sucker's got a 2.8-inch QVGA display, 3 megapixel camera, and WiFi; if you're noticing a striking similarity to the M5650 Lindy, that's because this seems to be exactly the same thing save for a lack of 3G and video call capability. mobile@mail.ru pegs it for a February launch for around 9,000 rubles ($304) SIM free, and realistically, odds are good you can eventually expect it in most of the same countries other Corby phones have hit so far.
