Why Alto’s Adventure was F2P on Android

When we discussed the Android port of Alto's Adventure, that idea of reaching more people was even clearer. First of all, Cash said that the first game reached 30 million downloads on Android. That's not bad for a company with Apple baked deeply into its DNA.

Team Alto worked with an Android game publisher for the Android version, in addition to talking to Android developers about the best approach, and they informed the strategy:

For Alto's Adventure, we did work with a publisher called Noodlecake, another really awesome community and company. They interface with the whole Google side of things a lot more than we do on a regular basis, but I've heard things, like you can do multi-region pricing, which is something we don't do as a free-to-play game, but you could price your game at like $5.00 in the US and $8.00 in Canada, but like $1.00 in China and $3.00 in Germany, let's just say.

Notice he mentioned that Alto's Adventure was a free-to-play game. Don't get too confused; it was F2P on Android, but not on iOS. Cash said:

The reason behind us trying free-to-play on Android was primarily because we had heard from so many indie game developers who had made premium content for iOS that, on Android, they were seeing anywhere from as low as two percent to at the very, very, very best, 30 percent. I think I heard one person say 50%. But for the most part, it seems to be between five and 15% revenue on Android compared to iOS, yet, for all intents and purposes, let's say they have just as many pieces of hardware out in the market... So for us, we've kind of said, "OK, that doesn't seem great. What are other people doing?" And I think Crossy Road launched several months before Alto's Adventure came out, but it was just before we launched on iOS, and Crossy Road was the first time that my eyes opened up to, "Oh, you can actually do free-to-play in an ethical and nice way."

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Last year, I attended a talk at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco about Android game development, and developers said that the piracy rate on Android games was dramatically higher than that on iOS, such that special strategies were required for the platform. When asked about this, Cash confirmed the concern, saying, "We had also heard a lot of people saying 'If you make it paid, most people are just gonna crack it and download it with a jailbroken device or illegally or whatever.'"

But he had other reasons to add:

I think I was a little bit more closed-minded before, where I just sort of thought, "Android people don't buy games." And I think that certainly is one aspect of it, also. Android devices have a much lower price barrier, or barrier to entry, so people are getting free Android phones and stuff like that. But also, I think Apple's created a much more premium ecosystem in general, and people understand that they're paying more for a device but they're getting quality with it. So they're sort of already a little bit more used to spending money for premium content or creations. But I think on Android, there's also another massive reality, which is people in developing countries around the world that make the equivalent of... I don't know, I don't feel comfortable making out numbers, but they make as much money as some video games cost per month in their local currency, and just simply buying games is not an option. You know, people are making a few hundred US dollars a month in some countries, so going out and spending $5.00 on a game is kind of just irresponsible for them and their family. So I think there's actually quite a different market around the world, and those people should still be able to enjoy games, and if advertising is the only way to reach those people... So I think it's more complicated than just, "Android people don't buy things, and all they do is jailbreak things." I think that's certainly a part of it. There's a lot of fragmentation in general, like most people aren't on the latest version of Android software, whereas most people are on the latest version of iOS. It's just a bit crazier of an ecosystem, so I can't say I've fully wrapped my head around it, but I think I have a better understanding of it than when we launched originally.

As for an Android version of Alto's Odyssey, it's coming, but Cash wasn't willing to share many details. "I don't have any concrete plans on anything Android-related other than that we love our Android players and that we will be coming to the platform in the months ahead," he said. "But I don't have any concrete details on availability and things like that."

Now let's talk Apple.

On working with Apple

"Overall, our bread and butter is built on Apple ecosystems, and I kind of come from a background of just that whole space," Cash told Ars. He said:

The company I worked for before this made business software for the Mac, and I started working there right before the very first iPhone was announced, and then they started building software for the iPhone, and then the same thing happened with the iPad. So I was around kind of an all-Apple ecosystem for five years before leaving and starting Snowman, so Apple's sort of all I really know.

Both he and Cymet said that Apple's platform is attractive to game developers for several reasons. The one that kept coming up again and again is the fact that Apple users are more likely to be on recent devices, and they're much more likely to be on the latest version of the device's operating system. That means Team Alto and other developers can make decisions about using certain features or API without as much fear of alienating potential users on the platform.

Cash said:

It's certainly a lot easier to develop for the iPhone, which now—there's five iPhones, let's say, out in the market, from iPhone 5Ss, to 6s, to 6 pluses, to iPhone 10, so it's a little trickier than it was back when the iPhone was only one size. But compared to Android, it's a lot simpler. The fact that most of Apple's customers are on the latest version of their software makes it a lot easier to make software for the platform.

Samuel Axon

Samuel Axon

Cymet added that Apple has made recent changes to make it easier for developers to promote their games on the platform:

There's a renewed—and in some cases increased—focus on letting people inside sort out the "why?" behind creation, as opposed to just the "what?", if that makes sense. I think there's been a conscious effort in the revisions that have been made to the App Store in iOS 11 that have put renewed focus on telling the stories of individual developers.

In part, he's referring to the newly redesigned App Store in iOS 11, which adds a "Today" tab that features editorially curated profiles of developers and lists of games in addition to the older browsable section of the App Store app. This struck me because I used to work with game developers in marketing and advertising, and I have seen many of the small indies I used to work with express frustration about the very addition that Cymet is praising. They say it puts the focus on the upper echelon for curation; most people won't leave the Today tab to browse and find smaller games anymore, they said.

Cash was sympathetic but doubled down on the value of the new App Store:

I definitely hear the concerns brought on an up-and-coming developer or something like that, for sure. I do think, though, that that App Store used to change every Thursday, which was once a week, and now the App Store changes on a daily basis. Both the Today page, but also the games and the apps tabs. They'll be updated more frequently than just once a week, and I think there's actually much more of an opportunity for new developers to be highlighted in the store. They also actually have an official—they never had this before, but they now have an official way for developers to submit their stories for the Today page. So they've actually come out and said, "Hey, we need your stories. Give them to us." I firmly believe that if you use that form and you submit a story that's worth sharing, it doesn't mean you're guaranteed to be there and it doesn't mean you're gonna get the best spot as often as you might want, but I think it's definitely better than it was before. It gives everyone equal access to submitting those kind of stories.

Implementing Metal, and other iOS development considerations

Both Cash and Cymet said that the prevalence of recent devices and software among iOS users made it possible to make convicted decisions to support certain features or use certain tools. Cymet said:

That puts you in a position where you are smoothing out concerns for the exceptions to the rule, but you can count relatively confidently on the fact that the majority of your players are gonna have a great, smooth experience because you've chosen the latest graphics engine, and you know that they're running devices whose OSs are optimized for that graphics engine. That runs the gamut from big decisions, like "Do we use Metal?" or "Do we do something that maybe is a half step or a compromise?" All the way down to, "Do we explore smaller parts of the API that might be more readily usable on these latest OSes, things like haptic feedback and 3D Touch?"

The team also switched to the latest version of Metal with Alto's Odyssey, which was made in the game development tool Unity just like its predecessor.

Here's what designer and developer Jason Medeiros had to say about this switch:

The switch to Metal happened when we started focusing more deeply on performance. We started profiling and noticed some strange OpenGL performance behavior which we wanted to remedy. We tried switching to Metal and those issues were resolved. That said, some of our custom shaders needed to be tweaked, but it wasn't a significant amount of work, and we were happy to do it!

The team also moved to the latest version of Unity, Unity 2017. Medeiros said this helped with performance, too:

Unity 2017 brought in lots of small performance boosts—particularly for graphics and rendering. We switched from hand-drawn sprite animations over to Mecanim—not new to 2017, but new to the project—which, [when] used alongside all of the new 2D sprite tools, allowed us to create really smooth and easy-to-tweak characters. The Unity profiler itself was significantly upgraded, allowing us to dive deeper into exactly what was creating GC and eating up frame time.

As for other new Apple APIs and tools the team adopted, Medeiros said:

We already used many Apple provided APIs in developing Alto's Adventure, and we continue to use them in Alto's Odyssey. Some of the key features include GameKit for controller support, Game Center for achievements and high scores, and Share Sheet for our photo mode. As mentioned, using Metal for rendering was a really great performance win! We did encounter some challenges with Game Center, simply because you can no longer add friends in iOS 11. That said, we really love it for the ability to offer achievements and global high scores without our players having to sign into an account, and it also means we haven't needed to build and maintain a system for this ourselves.

But what about supporting older devices? Medeiros said this was still an ongoing concern.

We certainly increased the complexity of the scene in Alto's Odyssey, so supporting older devices was an ongoing concern and process throughout development. For example, we ended up writing a set of less-complex shaders to run on older devices, which is a compromise we were willing to make in order to provide a smooth experiencer for players. After much profiling and optimization, we're quite happy with where we've landed.

What’s next

The people at Snowman are now working with other developers to publish games on the platform, like Where Cards Fall, Skate City, and Distant. When we asked about what comes next, Cash said they're working on more projects that relate to our discussions about reaching new, non-gamer audiences with mobile games and improving the quality and perception of mobile games. We're not sure what that means, but we might talk with them about that more at GDC next month; until then, Alto's Odyssey is available now on iOS and Apple TV, and it's quite good—and not just "for a mobile game."