Developer Ethics - Fair vs. Unfair

I have always fully supported that small price for an application, or "buy me a beer" button for the developers within the mobile community, for afterall, it is they who unlock an otherwise air-tight platform within technology. I have, and will always support and understand their needs to make a living out of what they do.

This is, when played fairly, a request which I accept, and find myself in deep frustration when others do not. An advertising banner; in-game purchases; lite versions; add-ons - the list goes on. But there is a limit. There comes a point where a person can loose all respect for a developer otherwise favoured amongst all when their greed comes to light.


I have for now, beyond a month, been following an extremely popular developer (or development team, as it appears) within the android market, GameInsight, otherwise known as Cooper Media Corp. Where originally they were a development team focussed on iProducts only, they have recently opened up to audiences on Facebook, but struck gold with their support on the Android platform. Almost instantly Paradise Island, their first Android title, sprung up to the top of the list for most grossing on the android market in both the US and the UK, and has so far maintained its position.

My Country, by GameInsight/Cooper Media Corp

Within the past week (or two, as it may have been) GameInsight released their second Android title, My Country. As a fan of the first title, I felt inclined to try it out, and I was not dissapointed. It is however, the developers greed that has outraged me. The product is fine. The product is great. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for he or she behind the product.


The aim of My Country is to start off with one road and a selection of buildings, and expand over a wide canvas. I'm actually on my second play through as I managed to totally screw my phone up this weekend, but that's another story. It's the ol' scenario of many in-game items being free, but with luxuary items as a cost for "country bucks", the in-game premium currency. This is very fair. If I want to play the lite cut down version, I simply ignore those that I cannot afford. If I want to treat this as a product that has had time and money put into its creation and support the developer, I buy an object or two. This is fair, too. Whether or not intentional however, the placing of buttons that use premium currency normally tends to be in areas that are easy to accidentally press with a double tap. For this, I should lay part of the blame on myself, but scour across the market page and the facebook page, you begin to see this as a common problem (amongst others such as launching the game to find your island/city has been wiped clean with no additionally earlier purchased premium currency), which the developer fails to even acknowledge, let alone take action upon (a confirmation of purchase would be nice) hinting more towards this being an intentional "mistake". But, even to me, to lay any disrespect to the developer for my own fat fingers would just be tedious. This is not fair.

But the thing which, of all other things is most unfair, is the grid system, and the developer's dirty tactics of luring its players in. The game uses a 4x4 grid - You start off with one block of land open, and the ability to expand using either in game currency of premium currency. A block of land is good for a varied amount of time - i.e. initially you won't need to expand for a day or two, then maybe a day, three days - it depends on a combination of your game style, pace, and in terms of requiring item drops, your luck. Getting the forth land block took me 2 days, however I played the game from wake till sleep - regardless of whatever else I was doing at the time (I know, kinda sad, but hey ho), so for a casual gamer it could take 6-10+ days before unlocking your 4th land block. This is when the shock hit me - I then noticed that, in order to unlock the next block of land, I could only use in-game currency. ok - so maybe I could collect those in game countrybucks you earn when levelling up - but then another moment of acknowledgement when I realised how many countrybucks were required... €170 - in real money that's just short of $20 (the game requires premium currency to be purchased in USD). Now - when I say I support the developer, buying them a beer costs about £5.

For anyone familliar with the modern mini-"build em up" format, will be familliar with the fact that expansions are critical to in-game growth. It's the same with FarmVille, and many games of the same genre.

Having seen this, I felt instantly deceived by the developers greed. Had I seen this in the market for $20, for what it is, I would have just left it. But it felt as though the developer of this game planted a bomb-shell by getting it's players addicted later on in the game, after the player has already (in many cases) already used real-world cash to purchase premium currency. Lets face it, if you're going to support the developer for a great product, it's likely going to take less than 6 days before you've made that judgement. So had I bought the developer a beer, so to speak, donating £5 - or the closest I could at $10, I would only have been paying for the trial/demo. Only once the player becomes hooked on the game does the bombshell drop.

As much as I enjoy the games which GameInsight release, I have always had an eerie impression of them - the first "mission" (as it where) is to write a 5 star review of the game on the android market (my review was 3 stars - I still passed the mission) - no wonder it comes across as being so popular! Another mission is to take a photo of your country and submit it to facebook - Paradise Island contained these shameless promotion missions too, but not to the extent of My Country.

GameInsight came into the Android Market a little on the late side considering their presence on iDevices, so it's no surprise their arrival co-insided with the launch of in-game purchases on android. I have seen proposals of new advertising methods too (going off topic a little, but still on the right side of 'the line'), most notably advertisements on the notification bar. The general opinion of this advertising proposal was extremely negative, from consumers and advertisers alike, though I doubt something like this would shame the likes of GameInsight, so watch out for these ads, coming to a notification bar near you!

In my opinion there are many lines to be crossed, and understandably not crossing any of these lines gives you little room to move, but in my opinion, little over a long period is much more better than a lot at once, and developers (and other businesses) that use deceiptful methods only last so long before their true colours shine.

So I'm interested to get your opinion on this - what are your views on in-game purchases vs. the more conventional payment methods for free vs. premium, such as demo vs. full? How do you see proposals of notification bar advertising affecting the industry?

I look forward to hearing what others have to say - but the best way I can conclude this (particularly long) blog post is to offer the advice to steer clear of GameInsight/Cooper Media Corp.

Test Lab - Chapter 2

Back in February this year I was offered a proposition that would change my position within the mobile phone industry, and that was to be part of a brand new test lab for Sony Ericsson Products. In march we launched with a bang, a successful get together where we all enjoyed our initial meet and greet session before being handed our brand new Xperia devices and heading off the to Xperia play launch party with special guest, Tinchy Stryder.

Yesterday it was time to return to london to meet my fellow test labbers for a second time, and to speak to some of the important people within Sony Ericsson UK about how we have been getting along with our new devices. It was the perfect opportunity to get a few things off my chest, but also to praise Sony Ericsson for the year they have had so far, something which could save them from what was their impending doom. Now - I personally think they have a great chance of coming out the other end, fresh and on top.

The session began at Iris Towers in London, Whilst the weather wasn't completely up to a day out, the primary focus of this visit was to speak to Sony Ericsson. After introductions, we were introduced to the Workshop with a very generic question, but a good way to start off, and that was asking us, "what do you think of your phones?" This question was presented by Dave Hilton, Marketing Director of Sony Ericsson UK. There were a mixture of positive and negative comments, but the one thing I wanted to get off my chest immediately was the lag which the arc suffers from time to time. My main focus within a mobile phone has always been convenience, but balanced with security, so these were my two primary focus points during the session. Being that waiting or the phone to respond significantly reduces the convenience of the device, this to me was an important issue, and having raised the issue I do not feel my comments went amis. This was met with comments from other test labbers on their Xperiences with lag, and I hope that, following on from our discussion, this will be met with additional focus on stability and performance in future products. I did ask also on what Sony Ericsson's opinion was on meeting supply for the demands of a vanilla instance of Android for the Xperia range, as well as how Sony Ericsson will be approaching the developer community following Samsung's recent love affair with CM7, something that I believe has truly contributed to the success of the Samsung Galaxy S II. Both of these questions received pretty much the same response, which was that Sony Ericsson have unlocked the bootloader in the newer devices. Whilst this is true, I still believe Sony Ericsson to be playing catch up to Samsung here. Whilst Sony Ericsson are currently one of those who are satisfying the developer community, I don't think unlocking the bootloader is enough. If Samsung are supporting the developer community by sending out new devices, then Sony Ericsson need to go one better, and right now, I think Samsung win here. In terms of releasing a vanilla version of Android, I was advised along side the bootloader being unlocked, that releasing a vanilla Android would still require aditional Sony Ericsson customisation if the consumer wanted to see features such as the camera and google products working. This I feel is fair enough, particularly as SE have recently won back the hearts of some of it's consumers by promising faster updates, something that would only be hindered with two versions of every firmware.

Next were given a demonstration of the product lifeline for a mobile phone. This was an eye-opener, as it was the first time I've ever had the oportunity to see both sides of the story, from the moment an Idea is thought up to the moment the consumer purchases the device, and from the moment of purchase to the moment the consumer ends their affair with the said Sony Ericsson product. It was interesting to realise that, from the moment an idea is born, this then goes through several stages in the beginning of it's life (Design, consumer research, tech-research - which I will mention again further on, etc.) before rearching it's initial prototype. Post the birth of the prototype, the product is then thoroughly tested through a period that extends over 9-12 months. This consists of 6-9 months of internal testing, and then a period of testing between Sony Ericsson and the operators that will be carrying the devices. This interested me a lot, as it went to show why sometimes the decisions which manufacturers make don't always seem a good step up to the competition. Nokia sprung to mind; a mobile phone manufacture that conquered the dumb phone generation and held it's head high when feature phones were at the helm, but failed to master the smart phone market. The manufacturer that we all at one stage thought invincible, currently dying a very painful death - a sore subject. In terms of technology research, the "technology office" in responsible for finding out where we are going to be in up to 10 years from now, and the technology involved to make these things happen.

Next, I got to take a look at the Xperia Ray and Xperia Mini Pro, two handsets that are expected to arrive within the coming months. I recently ran a blog post on the Xperia Ray, when first announced by Sony Ericsson and couldn't wait to get my hands on the device to see for myself how well it performed. I was not dissapointed in terms of what a wonderful device it is, however felt a little empty when it was time to put the devices down and to proceed onto the next step. The back casing of the ray is of a material similar to that of the X10, therefore not only looked smart, but felt smart to hold aswell. Size wize I was concious of the high resolution on a small screen, and unsure on how my fingers would cope with this. Generally when people complain of "fat fingers", I feel privilaged of my tiny hands. Finding watches and jewelry for my hands whilst avoiding the childrens sections is something that doesn't come easily, but this benefits with touch screen phones. The Ray however, had even I wondering how well I would be able to perform with the high resolution on the small screen. I was pleasantly suprised - The screen recognised absolutely everything I wanted to do without error - whilst had I spent a whole day with the phone I imagine I would have been saying something else, within the moments I was able to get a grasp for the phone, it felt intuitive and slick to use. The one downside to the phone, and really a necessary evil with the screen size, was the sacrifice of the qwerty keyboard for a 9 key input, however the qwerty keyboard would return when tilting the device to a landscape angle.

Following this, I had the opportunity to play the up and coming Xperia PLAY game, Desert Winds. I hadn't actually used the Xperia PLAY up until yesterday, so as a heavy gamer, felt it necessary to give this a spin to once and for all decide where I sit in terms of whether or not I was a fan of the device. Unfortunately I just didn't feel the love for the PLAY, however for fans of the device, the few minutes I had with Desert Winds played well, and the graphics are superb for, what is primarily, a mobile phone. This was a quick session, before moving onto the next topic, what we'd like to see in the future.

There were several hints as to what we could expect from the future of Sony Ericsson, however all of this was down to interpretation. The biggest thing of interest was the keen interest on seeing how we would fare with more space on a phone, if a phone were able to have more estate in terms of screen space, without increasing the size of phones from their current position. With this in mind, I had thoughts of a dual screen phone, so whether this is what's next for Sony Ericsson is again, open to interpretation. I commented on my own experiances that, whilst productivity was something that tablets could handle well, advanced productivity is something that certain consumer markets crave to be capable of whilst on the go. My examples were Image Editing and Music Production. Music Production is something that is close to my heart, a keen hobby of mine, for going on 15 years. Whilst tablets contain the screen space to have something such as Photoshop working well (I've never used photoshop express on tablets, but on Android mobiles, it's not a pleasant experiance) mobile phones struggle a little bit here, however it's not impossible to make something that works, especially when considering the interface used on the arc's camera. The one downside, as I mentioned, was processing power. Both Image Editing and Music Production are very intense on processing power, however I was quickly assured this this is not an issue. Again, open to interpretation.

There was one more thing left to do, and that was to meet the creators of, and watch the trailor for Sony Ericsson's new social online mini-series. To add a little light humour to end the event, we met Gary, a character that has been created based on the Sony Ericcson Xperia PLAY. One thing that Sony Ericsson does well is to engage it's fans not only in what devices they release, but also in providing fun, social media based entertainment. Meeting Gary was pleasant few minutes. The character (Gary) in one who has played pretty much every game in existence, and has moved onto the Xperia PLAY as the next logical step. He has again, managed to finish every game and along the way has picked up many skills. He'll kick yor ass at call of duty, and wipe the pool table clean before you have a chance to say "Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro". He has however been challenged to "get a life" and so takes up on the callenge, and gets himself a job - as a superhero! It looks like a fun project that, in time will become the audiences own creation. Using facebook and other social services across the internet, members of the audience will be able to challenge gary to a duel at something they find they are good at. Whether it's Tae Kwon Do, Snooker trick-shots, or a hurdles race. Members of the audience will be able to submit their challenges, and based on the response from other members of the audience, gary will be sent to challenge the audience member. It's all a little vague right now, however the advert really managed to engage. It's very well done, and I look forward to finding out more about Gary when he makes his debut on the Sony Ericsson UK Facebook page on Monday. I did have a look around for the video on Youtube (I noticed during the presentation that the video was hosted on youtube) however failed to find it. If I manage to locate it I will embed it here for your own viewing pleasure, however look out for Gary, coming soon, if your into the whole additional entertainment thing that Sony Ericsson does.

Well, this was pretty much it for the Sony Ericsson workshop. The rest of the evening involved eating Chinese and getting very drunk around London - Very drunk indeed. So now I'm going to tackle my headache with the hair of the dog. It's friday night, after all!

New 2011 Xperia Phones

Today saw the announcement of an additional two new phones to hit the 2011 Xperia portfolio, during the CommunicAsia conference held in Singapore. I have to admit, upon the announcement of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 (and the long wait that followed) I had high hopes for the device, but not much hope for the series itself, but I seem to have been extremely wrong on my judgement, in that each revision of the series so far has taken the Xperia range leaps and bounds.

The two new phones, both featuring the Gingerbread flavour of Android, come packed with additional enhancements which in 2011 have become standard for an Xperia device. These include Facebook Inside Xperia, the mobile BRAVIA engine, Exmor-R reality display, along side everything you could expect to see on an Android device such as the Android Market, and synchronisation with google services.

From a personal perspective, the Xperia Ray focuses on desirability whilst maintaining the full Xperia experience. With just 3.3" of screen, the interface used here is the same as the interface we've seen in the larger Xperia devices of this year, but maintains the same resolution as the Xperia arc. This sounds impressive to some degree - I'd like to see exactly how the phone looks, particularly with video playback, but the drawback here is that I really don't know how my fingers would cope with all that's going on in such a small space.



Xperia Ray



The Xperia Active, whilst less appealing visually, will be a highly impressive device for the more active user, and in particular those who endulge in water dwelling activities. The Active promotes itself as a device you can take anywhere, under any circumstances. It claims to be water resistant for up to 30 minutes in fresh water up to 1 meter deep, but also bosts a scratch resistant screen that works seemlessly with 'wet fingers'. Whilst nothing was officially mentioned, the device also looks to be surrounded with rugged protection. The Xperia Active uses the same 4 corner interface as the Xperia mini.

Xperia Active

Other announcements include the Sony Ericsson txt, LiveDock, an official docking station for the Xperia arc (and presumably other Xperia devices) and LiveSound headphones, said to be tangle free, with LiveKey control.

It is also worth noting that no announcement was made for the rumoured Sony Ericsson Xperia duo.

via. Sony Ericsson Product Blog

Is that a dual-c-.... oh wait.... no it's not.

"The DR" Xperia arc clone

Engadget today reported on a new device from the chinese market, cloning the XPERIA arc in cosmetics, although that's about as far as it goes in terms of what is comparible between the arc and the new chinese device. The biggest thing that stuck out to me, however, and the reason I wanted to run this article, is the dual-core perspective of the device.

The device reported by Engadget supposedly sports a dual-core ARM processor - but wait, it goes beyond that. Not only does the device supposedly contain a dual core processor (I say supposedly, as it's not true dual-core, just a half arsed attempt), but those cores are already reserved; one for the OS, and one core exclussive to the radio partition.

In the great debate of 'to dual, or not to dual', I have to admit, I openly express my opinion that dual core in mobile phone technology is not the end of the world. It's just an extension to the posessors e-peen. You can have dual core that, if not implemented correctly, is a waste of time. You can also have single core devices that are done well enough to challenge dual core devices. Personally I think that may have been the objective when Sony Ericsson built the arc, and this clone goes back on that.

With 624MHz in total (and to put this into perspective, the first Android phone released to the general public in 2008 ran on 528MHz), and 208MHz reserved for the radio, this 'dual-core' device is on no par with the actual Sony Ericsson range, but that's ok. We wouldn't expect it to be. But what this does go to show is just how having a dual core phone doesn't instantly make your phone better than one with a single core. I do however imagine many people will ignore the numbers that actually mean anything, and head straight for the buzz word that plagues this story due to it's innacuracy, 'dual-core', drooling at their screens in Envy that they do no posess one of these Chinese rarities.


Source: Engadget

make.believe. Then make.reality

Well, firstly thank you for visiting my blog. First blog posts are always the hardest, right? It's the introduction stage, telling the world about you, who you are, and what you do - all without straying too far from the point.

Who runs this blog?

So firstly, a little about me. My name is Steven Crossley, and I live in sunny England; not too far from London. When I think back to how long I've been a 'techy', I struggle. I struggle, but that doesn't stop me. I began my technical journey on Day 1, and for as long as I can remember have been involved in some way or another, in modern technology. Be it taking apart VCRs whilst shitting my nappies, or my first computer (an AST). In school, IT lessons were the one thig I took notice of (can you tell how bad my english is yet?!), and after school I studdied a diploma in IT. In 2003 I purchased my first ever smart phone, the Sony Ericsson P800i, second hand from ebay, and it was then I began my journey in mobile computing.

Fast forward to 2011, and here we are. I work in IT, although my product support portfolio includes a wide range, from SQL Server to Windows Mobile based portable barcode scanners. I am also a member of a very secret society!! Actually, it's not all that secret, or at least that's not the intention. The group I speak of is a selection of hand picked contributors to the Sony Ericsson online social media community. We are the Sony Ericsson UK Test Lab, and are an extremely active group of participators in a number of tests on Sony Ericsson devices. We are also responsible for testing firmwares as well as providing innovative ideas into the future of Sony Ericsson's product portfolio. We're a small group, and rather new (test lab launched on the 31st March 2011) and so our best is yet to be seen. Watch this space!

Who is this blog intended for?

Audiences are a funny thing, almost a bit of a catch 22. With one, restrictions are put in place, but without one, nobody feels welcome. I have an audience, but in doing so I try not to make people feel unwelcome in reading my blog, and therefore have only a loose basis for an audience, and that is 'Intermediate entry level portable computing'. The first three words probably seem to be a bit of a contradition of terms. How can you have "Intermediate" entry level? In this case, the Intermediate represents the millions and billions and gazillions of fellow tech-heads out there, whilst the entry-level stands for the portable aspect. We're heading into the next tech-bubble - or so some say. Some say we are, some say we are not, although personally I've felt for a long time that technology was about to make a big impact in our lives - no, bigger than that. Much bigger than ever before, and this in my opinion, is mostly down to how portable computing has become, from tablets to mobiles, to netbooks - even to the end of Microsoft's monopoly. People are challenging the technology industry. It's no longer good enough to be curious, and THIS is the cause of the recent explosion of technological advances.

So to summarise, this blog is mostly intended for people who already have experience in technology, but want to make the adjustment from the desktop to the pocket.

What can you expect from making.believe?

making.believe is all about usage. You're not likely to find the latest news, here, first. If that's the reason you're here, then I'm affraid to have to dissapoint. The primary focus here is to share my findings within the portable computing industry, be it old news with new relevence (particularly making extra use of what we are already familliar with), points of interest (I eventually aim to include a glossary of terms within the mobile industry), or conceptual community ideas (I'm BIG on innovation). I will also be posting a daily (within reason) summary of the past 24 hours in the mobile industry.

There is another big catchment for what this blog will be used to share, and that is that (again, within reason) the majority of news shared here will be in relation to Sony Ericsson products.

And then...

And then there was now. I've pretty much covered everything I need to, in terms of what to expect for the future of making.believe, and now I'm excited. I'm really excited! I've been wanting to do this for so long, but I've never found that 'the right moment' was present. Now I can finally rest in assurance that my 'mobile enthusiast' blog is up and running. Excusing the poor Eglish bound throughout the blog in days, weeks, months, or who knows, even years to come, here's a toast to the future, and in hope that I am able to help many people through the transition from desktop to pocket computing.