Fish with Attitude

Fish with Attitude is one of those in-app purchase scam games which I mentioned in a previous blog post. I think this game is aimed at kids, but probably some prole adult women are also playing it. It’s aimed more at girls than boys, because there’s no competition, either against other humans or against the computer AI. Rather, the goal is to collect as many fish as possible, and all you can do is watch the fish swimming around in your fish tank.

I experimented with this game because it’s one of the top-grossing games in the App Store, and because the 2D graphics don’t look all that sophisticated; probably something I could learn to program myself, and you can find freelance unemployed digital artists who will work cheap at sites like deviantart.com to create the animated fish sprites, and some guy in India from a site like freelance.com to help with the programming. There have been stories of people who created apps without knowing anything about programming at all, but it seems unwise to me to place that much trust in some guy in India, because I’ve been very unimpressed by the quality of Indian programmers in the corporate billing and account management systems area which I am more familiar with. Actually, now that I think about it, I’d rather pay an extra $5/hour for a programmer in Eastern Europe.

Fish with Attitude begins with a tutorial that teaches you how to play the game. The tutorial gets you in the habit of using “pearls” to speed up the process of breeding, hatching, and growing your fish. After you’ve successfully bred and hatched your first fish, but the fish into the fish tank, and grown him to adult size, then you are left on your own. And after that, it’s not long before the game incessantly tries to get you to buy more pearls to speed up your fish breeding, or “coins” so you can buy more fish tanks.

The game also keeps trying to get you to link with Facebook, by offering you twenty free pearls, and then every time you accomplish something in the game, like grow a new fish or get some cool object for your fish tank, you are encouraged to automatically post a picture to you Facebook page. This Facebook synchronization is obviously a key part of the marketing scam, because it creates links to this game on Facebook, and the developers hope this will cause the game to go “viral,” which it did. I will have to create a fake Facebook account to see how this works. I certainly don’t want a bunch of fish pictures from a children’s game posted to my real Facebook page.

If you’re a parent, you want to make sure you don’t let your kids play with any game that has in-app purchases of currency. Of course, developers do have to make money, so I think it’s fair if a game is offered for “free” to allow you to play for a while and try it out, but then has an in-app purchase to unlock more of the game. It’s the fact that a game allows purchases of currency, with names such as “gems,” “coins,” “gold,” etc., that alerts you to the fact that it’s a scam game.

Comments

[jtollison78]

People say Indians are good for quantity, but use Russians (and other Eastern europeans I guess) for algorithm work.

I had a friend (poker player) who paid ($1000) for Indians to write a game to his specifications. He wanted to make a change after the fact and fortunately, had insisted on owning the code. I offered to take a look. The game was 4k lines of code that could've easily been 3k lines, but it doesn't matter when you're paying $1k. I don't know how much might have been in house boiler plate, but it would've been hard for an american to make for that amount. He did say there was a lot of back and forth to get the product he wanted, so that might make it worth hiring an american depending on how valuable your time is.

Also, you previously said something about there not being much room for Indie programmers. I've pursued indie game programming on and off for a while. Over that time, I've half heartedly followed this guy: http://www.greyaliengames.com/ .He's uninspired, churning out clones of his first game, but respected by a lot of people because he has "made it" as an indie. He has posted about his income and it's not horrible, but it's not great.

I've also read http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/ .He's much better, more creative, more detailed oriented, seemingly more interested in making games because he actually likes to make games. He also posted about his income for one year, and it was on into the 6 figures. I want to say 169k, but don't quote me.

There are others, but it is hard path and there's no reason to think it would be better than whatever other programming job you have.

[Half Sigma]

jtollison78, both of those guys are doing it wrong. They are making PC-based games.

The big money for independent developers is in iOS apps.

[Jake]

HS, why not make an HBD themed game?

You could turn the model on it's head and punish people who make in-app purchases. "Poor financial management , you lost 100 points".

It could also make it post stuff like ranks to facebook. "NAM", "Prole", "SWPL" and "Elite".

Of course the only way to achieve the highest score is to uninstall the game.

[LibertyRisk]

It's hard for me to understand why you hate these games so much. It's just people trying to make money like any other business. I do agree with you that the games are stupid. That's why I don't spend money on them. However, I do spend money on plenty of other stupid things just like everybody else.

The kid angle seems like a better point but I think it's much more a sign of bad parenting than evil game companies when a kid ends up blowing hundreds or thousands of dollars on these things. There is no way in hell any kid of mine would ever have a password linked to a system that could use my credit card.

[Jake]

I think the problem with these games are the same problem as stuff like cigarettes , they are addictive but don't really add value to anything.

At least if there is a skill based game it will teach people to use their brain and be competitive whereas a game where you buy your way to the top teaches nothing other than rampant consumerism.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"And after that, it’s not long before the game incessantly tries to get you to buy more pearls to speed up your fish breeding, or “coins” so you can buy more fish tanks."

Is this wrong? Western civilization's greatest achievements all depended on reckless impulse buying.

"If you’re a parent, you want to make sure you don’t let your kids play with any game that has in-app purchases of currency."

Perhaps you could cook up a "value transference" iOS app that warns users if they are about to lose money to a marketing gimmick?

[The Undiscovered Jew]

Speaking of value transference, the New York Times just stole another blog post from Sigma. This time they basically copied Sigma's post about how the Hispanic vote was still too make a major impact in the election, especially in states like Wisconsin and Ohio. It looks like the reason Romney lost was because of much higher black turnout and an unenthused Republican base.

Obviously the Times couldn't have figured this out on their own without Half Sigma because nothing confuses Pinch's privileged liberal arts major "journalists" more than basic arithmetic. Aside from science, facts, and basic logic.

Here you go:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/assessing-how-pivotal-the-hispanic-vote-was-to-obamas-victory/

For example, in Wisconsin, 3,056,613 votes were cast, of which 4 percent, or 122,264 votes, were cast by Hispanics according to exit polls. Mr. Obama’s margin of victory in Wisconsin was over 200,000 votes — even if all Hispanics had voted for Mr. Romney instead of voting for Mr. Obama by more than two to one, he would have won the state.

Not unexpectedly, the Hispanic vote was also not decisive in Iowa or New Hampshire where Mr. Obama could have carried the states even if he had won none of the Hispanic vote whatsoever.

In Ohio, where the president received an estimated 54 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit poll data, we find he could have won the state with as little as 22 percent of the Hispanic vote, and in Virginia, where he received 64 percent of the Hispanic vote, we find that he could have carried the state with just over 33 percent.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

York: Hispanics favor Dems but didn't decide election

http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-hispanics-favor-dems-but-didnt-decide-election/article/2514164

They're looking at key questions from the campaign, like how much of Barack Obama's victory was attributable to Hispanic support. They're also looking at the Hispanic electorate itself to see how big a role immigration, versus a wide range of other issues, played in voting decisions. The goal, of course, is to win a larger portion of the Hispanic vote, but first to take a clear-eyed look at what actually happened on Nov. 6.

And the lesson for Republicans is: Take your time. Calmly reassess your positions. Don't pander.

[shiva1008]

They're not just fish... they're fish with attitude.

So is one like a skateboarder and one is a surfer, and one has shades lol

[Gilbert]

The circle is complete! I remember, when I first joined Facebook in 2005, all you had was your own page. One of the more popular things to install on your page was a fish tank, and people would give you fish for your tank. There were many other such things, such that one's page could be quite long with all sorts of tacky graphics... eventually the Facebook people wised up and changed their format to hide all that crap. But now you can post Fish with Attitude pictures to your profile! Awesome! I feel like playing this game just for the nostalgia.

[Drole Prole]

Facebook better be careful with their Myspacification of the site.

[I_Affe]

There are a few sites that offer free online games. Some of them are quite well-made and some (perhaps very few) of them do charge money to get premium content.

See the games at:

http://www.kongregate.com/

http://www.newgrounds.com/games

I don't know all the details about the makers of the games, but it seems to me that many of them are made by individuals or small groups during their free time.

[Alexandra]

Mobile apps are hot today. But hiring a programmer is too expensive. I used snappii.com to make apps. It's really easy, the web service allows to make mobile apps in minutes, and without programming skills at all. If you are short of time, they can make an app for you very quickly.