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MOBILES, MONEY, MADNESS? T

he boom in smartphone technology has done wonders for the handheld gaming community. Where consumers were once limited to £300 a go game consoles, limited in the sense that their utility began and ended with running Wario Land.

Then came the smartphone.

A device that could once only phone and text could suddenly do everything. Current smartphones have the capabilities of tiny laptops.

Right now on the Google Play Store, users can download the entirety of Grand Theft Auto 3 – once considered the most cutting edge piece of technology 2001

had to offer (narrowly edging out Windows Millennium and AOL’s email notifications).

Alas, as with any technology, ingenuity has long since given away to greed. With the mobile platform, publishers had discovered a wealth of new users, and they were eager to squeeze them for every possible penny.

To this end was birthed the InApp Purchase (IAP), and this dark creation has warped the mobile game economy beyond repair.

The typical mobile game now operates on a more sinister level than a traditional game. While a game for the Sega Mega Drive may

Rayman: Fiesta Run

have set you back at steep £40 at the time, users could be sure that they actually owned the game in question – barring actual skill there was nothing preventing players from seeing it had to offer.

the top ten most downloaded apps, reported that the average player spent $549.69 last year – almost £380 – on in game purchases. That’s over half a grand in products that don’t physically exist.

Now users are invited to download the game itself for the meagre sum of nothing (the first hit is always free).

Only once users are comfortably content in their digital paradise are the paywalls erected – games will offer to cut down on wait times and provide players better gear, all for what seem to be low sums. Most IAPs run low, normally in the range of less than £1.

Not all developers are sold on the concept though. MJ Jones, developer of surreal endless runner Cat Cave, believes that IAPs are only useful for games with an already sizeable fan bases – and that they can potentially ruin a game if handled poorly;

It’s a strategy that seems counterintuitive but has proved almost staggeringly successful. Game of War, a strategy game that often lingers in

“None of my games have in-game purchases or ads currently, because I understand that in order to make any sort of profit you need a decent sized user base. Right now I release all of my games for free with no IAPs or ads, but I am considering adding them in the

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future if any of my games ever develop a large following. From the developer side, IAPs and ads are difficult to set up, and I would only include them if I thought it was a worthwhile investment of my time.

As a player, I also feel that ads and IAPs can ruin the experience if done poorly, so I wouldn't include them in my games unless I could find a way to make it nonintrusive to the gameplay experience.”

On top of that, mobile games often

come in with in-built advertising – something unheard of in the days of the traditional games console – but developers can benefit from it. Developer Axel Bee is currently working on Jelly Sling, and was quick to say that ads can even create a community among developers: “I think advertisements can be extremely helpful to the entire app industry along with game developers.

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If I advertised my game on other games, that game would make money off of me, and I make money off of that games audience giving me ad revenue from another game.

It's all one big cycle and it's awesome.�

Not every developer is so keen to embrace ads however: developer Catobyte believes that ads would ruin a vision they slaved so hard to create:

“For Super Bunny Man, I knew from the start that I didn't want to use ads for monetization. I personally dislike adverts used in video games. As I had spent a significant amount of time developing my game, I felt that putting adverts in it would ruin something that I had become proud of. However, I do understand that many developers wish to make money for their efforts and that the mobile platform is perhaps not best suited to the per-copy-purchase way of doing

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things. For these reasons, I decided to go with a try-before-you-buy monetization.

Players can download the game for free and the first ten levels can be played.

After that, a single in-app purchase unlocks the rest of the levels in the game.”

Some devolpers have tried more creative ways to use advertising, with some implementing them as rewards into games. In Boulders, a Dig-Dug-esqe puzzler, players can view ads to undo deaths and continue playing. Developer Koori claims: “At the moment Boulders only has Rewarded Ads. I think it's the most "fair" approach. Player gets something and I get something back. I've also included a way to get the same rewards without watching ads.

“I was thinking about including in-app purchases but after a while decided against it. It's a simple game and I want to keep it simple. I think that monetizing

your work is ok - everyone needs to get paid, but I'm against convoluted payment schemes that lure people into paying for progress (paywalls). If I ever add any kind of payments to Boulders I'll try my best to make it as straight forward as possible and never block anyone’s fun until they pay.”

It’s easy to write off the mobile game industry. Big game publishers have so far ignored the market. Although at this point it could be a losing strategy.

Video game titan Nintendo, creator of the likes of Mario and Donkey Kong has haemorrhaged 60% of its expected profit margin losing over £100 million.

Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian has made the same amount in profit from her own mobile title.

And it’s clear the industry is on the rise.

By 2018, the industry is set to be worth a cool $48 billion. The final question is if it will get there with paywalls and ads intact.

A picture guide to the best of the Android App store

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THE BEST IN UPCOMING

TECH The tech industry is in a state of constant flux. Here’s some of the gizmos and gadgets to expect in the future.

Playstation 4.5 Sony has been knocking it out of the park recently – the PS4 is one of the fastest selling systems of all time (it’s already shipped 36 million units), and is on track to dethrone it’s older brother the PS2 as the king of the console market, with a line-up of stellar exclusives.

But for all of Sony’s bells and whistles, there’s one thing the PS4 can’t do – run games in 4K (It’s chief rival, the Xbox One, can’t even consistently hit 1080p). As TVs begin to display at ludicrous resolutions (Sony even has a phone, the Xperia, that pushes it), and with 8K less than five years down the line, It was inevitable that games consoles would follow.

The problem lies in hardware – the current PS4 on the market is ill equipped to deal with the strain of pushing so many pixels, so Sony’s been forced to come with a revised model.

Dubbed ‘Neo’ after the kung-fu extraordinaire of the Matrix trilogy, the new console promises to deliver more than just 4K, all though what else it has in store for gamers remains a mystery. Rumours abound that the new console could also take advantage of the increased power to launch Sony’s long gestating Playstation VR project, finally allowing console gamers to access the evergrowing virtual reality market.

The New Nexus The arrival of Google’s new phone isn’t just exciting from a hardware perspective (but more on that later).

When Google’s new flagship arrives, it will also give us a chance to get to grips with Android N, the latest version of the Android operating system.

The last Nexus, 2015’s Nexus 6P, was a powerhouse in the specs department, finally bringing the A-game sufficient enough to threaten the thrones of Samsung and Apple, especially with the improved camera and the addition of a fingerprint reader.

While these innovations came at the cost of phone mainstays such as the SD Card slot (not to mention a huge decrease in battery life), the guys at Google have made huge

Android N

strides toward bringing them back, and even went as far as to overhaul the 6P through patches to improve battery power.

Android N also promises to change the smartphone game up. The released developer preview showed us glimpses of a system capable of running two apps simultaneously, and a change to notifications allowing users to reply without opening apps.

It’ll also finally put an end to the mystery of Android’s N true sweet toothed title – the money’s on Android Nutella at the moment.

Expect the announcement of the next Nexus sometime in September.

Tesla Model 3 Electric cars have always existed on the fringes on the auto scene – more the domain of the rich hippie than the working everyman. But the Tesla Model 3 could change that whole perception.

What has held the industry back is the price – Tesla’s signature Model X will set you back a steep $144,000.

The Model 3 aims to address this by arriving

at a starting price of $35,000 (£around £24,000).

to adjust steering, and adjusts every model accordingly.

It’s not just the price that’s worth getting excited about. The entire Tesla line up also features a self-driving mode designed to get better as you use it.

Every car is connected via Wi-Fi to the entire fleet of sister models, and each records whenever a driver is forced to take control

It’s also good news for those who already own electric cars and often find themselves driving for miles to find a charging port – Tesla has committed to assisting gas stations in setting up charge stations alongside traditional petrol pumps.

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Smartwatches The world of smartwatches has went from ignored gimmick to must have gadget faster than anyone could have predicted.

The two major players in this wrist based revolution are the Apple Watch and Motorola’s Moto 360, which has since moved on to a second iteration.

It’s the time of year once again where upgrades are announced, which is especially important for the Apple Watch, which emerged from a bumpy launch period to develop into a serious contender.

Rumours abound that Apple could upgrade their watch with anything from Wi-Fi to a sim-card slot. Regardless, it’s a reassuring step – the first edition iPhone was a far cry from the legend that fills user’s pockets today.

The Moto 360 is also an important upgrade, as it will be the first iteration of the watch under new company owner Lenovo, known primarily for its laptops.

Hopefully Lenovo will bring some of that expertise to crafting another edition of its beautiful signature circular smartwatch.

Also helping the Moto 360 is Google’s recent choice of the product as the official smartwatch of Android over rival Samsung.

The Final F Company SpaceX has revealed that it could have an uncrewed vessel on the surface of Mars by 2018. The purpose of the tests is to see if a sizable craft could land on the surface of Mars without killing any potential crewmembers – crew-wide death puts a damper on any potential road trip.

The difficulty in landing on Mars is in the breaking – the atmosphere makes it difficult to slow down on entering the planet without smashing into the red planet’s rocky terrain.

Space X is the brainchild of billionaire Elon Musk,

Frontier who has vowed to have mankind on Mars by 2030, a feat which even space authority NASA has deemed impossible.

They also claim it would cost excess of $100 billion. Musk has claimed he expects to have a crew of potential Matt Damons up there by 2025.

The eventual goal of Martian ravel is to terraform the planet into something habitable, presumably thought up by idiots who never saw Ghosts of Mars.

A quick jaunt to Mars will only take you on average of seven months.

IN OTHER NEWS...

Apple’s revenue has declined in the first time in over a decade.

The company’s second quarter profits were posted at $50.6 billion, down from the $58 billion posted at the same time last year.

The company’s stock price fell by 7% as a result.

Apple blamed a waning Chinese market and already existing market saturation for the decline.

A conference in Geneva has determined that creating robots with the capacity to kill is indeed illegal. It’s a crushing blow for potential mad scientists everywhere, but reassuring news for anyone not looking to die in a horrible robot apocalypse.

The ruling actually has major ramifications for drone warfare – the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had recently claimed it had created a drone capable of assessing and eliminating targets using a math’s algorithm. Now any kills must have a human pushing the button, if that reassuring detail makes murder any better.

The iPhone accounts for more than 66% of Apple’s revenue – almost 775 million individual iPhones have been sold by the company. CEO Tim Cook said that the company was looking to markets such as India as potential growth areas.

Nintendo has announced that it will push back its new Legend of Zelda back to 2017 to coincide with the launch of its new console, tentatively codenamed the NX. It’s disappointment to Wii U owners, who have now been left with no major releases on the console’s calendar. The Legend of Zelda was originally slated for release in November.

The Wii U is the lowest selling console Nintendo has released since 1995’s Virtual Boy. The Wii U has sold less than 13 million units (the Virtual Boy sold less than a million).

The controversial IP Bill is closer to becoming law.

The legislation is designed to give the current government more surveillance powers, including the ability to demand that companies intentionally weaken security to allow the government to see user’s messages.

Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Microsoft and

Microsoft has announced it has purchased a gram of human DNA to experiment with.

The company bought the genetic material in order to test if it could store data in biological material. It claims that the one gram purchased could potentially store up to a billion terabytes.

It has remained worryingly tight lipped on how it plans to actually access the data, outside of a nightmarish organic usb-drive scenario.

The purchase could also be the first step on the way to a real life Jurassic Park – Microsoft announced that it had managed to sequence DNA thousands of years old.

Google wrote to Parliament last year in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the government to change the bill.

Apps such as Snapchat and WhatsApp could be made illegal under the legislation.

The apps rely on encryption which the Bill would outlaw.

David Cameron has said the Bill is necessary to combat cyber terrorism.