Dave Metzener's Weblog

There has been some confusing press about ngmoco and the developer removing Rolando when Rolando is released in the AppStore. Apparently, ngmoco has decided to not remove Rolando when the sequel is released and they are returning Topple to the AppStore as well.

This news has me a little baffled. In the video game industry, when a new game comes out, say GTA IV, and the distributor has an older version, GTA: San Andreas, still on the store shelves, its pretty easy to understand why that distributor would want to remove GTA: SA to have shelf space for the newer GTA IV.

In the case of the AppStore, a virtual storefront, there is infinite shelf space for all kinds of games and other applications. This is why there are over 50,000 titles in the store now.

So, removing an older title to put up a new title like Topple 2 or Rolando 2 doesn’t make any sense to me. Say a patron hits the AppStore, sees Rolando 2, buys it and finds out that he missed out on the first version of the game and wants to play it too. Well, if the older title is removed from the store, ngmoco has lost a sale that costs them noting to maintain in the store. Pure profit lost. Or, what about the patron that had Rolando, but for some reason, lost the copy from his computer and wants to recover it by downloading it again. He can for free with the AppStore, it costs ngmoco $0.00 for that ability. Yet, since Rolando was removed for the new version, that customer has lost his game that he potentially paid $9.99 for. If I were that customer, I would not be very happy and be looking to Apple to refund that money or allow me to download that game again.

Now, maybe I’m incorrect about the costs involved in keeping the older versions of their games in the AppStore. Maybe they are thinking of development costs of fixing bugs in a version that they consider obsolete.

At any rate, this is all moot since ngmoco is going to not remove Rolando when Rolando 2 is released and is returning Topple to the AppStore as well.

I would love to understand why ngmoco would think its a good thing to remove older versions of games for newer ones.

It was back on December 18th that Rolando [AppStore link] hit the AppStore for the iPhone/iPod touch. It was released with a price tag of $9.99. Pretty steep these days with all the really good games to choose from. A little over a month later, developer ngmoco lowered the price to $5.99. That’s when I nabbed the game. They later lowered the price to $4.99 for a few months before bringing it back to it’s current $5.99 and its been there ever since. This is probably the reason the game is not in the Top 100 Paid titles. It probably was up in that list when it first came out.

It’s not entirely a unique game since LocoRoco is pretty similar to it on the PlayStation Platforms. However, thanks to the accelerometer in the iPhone/iPod touch, it has a very unique take on the style. Plus this type of game hasn’t really been duplicated as much as the Match-3 games have.

I haven’t played all the way through Rolando [game's home page] yet, but its got some amazing levels and the overall look and feel of the game is truly inspiring. There is a great added touch with the fact that there are game elements that the user gets to control to help the Rolando along in their quests.

Overall a great title that deserves a top 10 on someone’s list.

Well, our friends over at ngmoco have released info telling us that the much anticipated sequel of Rolando, Rolando 2 [game's home page] is going to arrive July 1st. Now, I don’t know if that means that the title has been approved and is waiting to be released to the public in the AppStore, or that July 1st is when the title will be submitted to Apple for review. Hopefully the former.

The sequel looks amazing. ngmoco have given Rolando 2 a new look with 3D elements:

It still has the signature user interactive elements to keep the title pretty unique in it’s genre:

With a bunch of new Rolando characters that have unique abilities to give the platformer a cooperative feel.

There has been a lot of buildup to the release of this title on the game’s home page with a bunch of videos and screenshots, info about the new Rolando characters, the ability to make your very own Rolando. They have also added a feature that allows other players to challenge you via the new 3.0 Push technology.

Normally, I hold off on new titles for the price to drop a little, but I have a feeling I’m going to be grabbing this one as soon as it hits the AppStore. I really can’t wait.