Size versus Quality -> Moved from SDKBOX vs Sonar System Helper which on to use?

Off Topic
#1

So is quality.

Then they don’t have a problem with the size of an APK, as their devices don’t support resolutions bigger than 1k.
If they want the 2k or 4k experience, they just have to accept that either their device does not support it, or that the APK is big in size.

I think size never attracts people to try, but quality and originality does. I never heard people saying: The game looks like crap, but I will try it, because its so small in size.

Of course I can, because they urge to play quality games, not small sized games. Gamers that look at the latter, won’t be the gamers, which will be/feel engageg with your game anyway. The play those games to kill some time.

Look at Apple. People urge to play games on iPhone4, but they can’t, as it does not support iOS 8. Nevertheless people buy their stuff like sliced bread. If people want stuff, the have to accept the parameters.

SDKBox vs Sonar System Helper which on to use?
#2

Steve Jobs said at D8 that Apple products are packages of emphasis and that many people sort of pay Apple by buying product to make the choices they need to have made for them.

#3

You see? And an APK >50MB is made for the customer to experience the best asset quality they can get :smile:
They don’t need to decide which APK to get, small size, big size, HD version, SD version. Just download the one APK and thy don’t have to decide for anything.

#4

@iQD

How about this point :
If your app is too large in size, user may not hesitate to remove it from their device when they need more space as your app is not a need for them.

For the smaller size can attract user, it is mean when user search the app and found plenty of same functionality app. If they have slow connection problem or small storage, they would go for smaller size first.
Don’t judge app quality from size and app is not only about games with plenty of images assets.

You can target any audiences you like with your app.
But do remember, as a developer, we would like to attract as many user as we can.

All people have their own preferences when they choosing app to download, so you can’t think on your own view only.

Between, it is not good to hijack people post to discuss size problem.
You can try open a new post to discuss this point.

Edit :
App Store do have rules that app over 100MB(last time 50MB, not sure now how much) can only download through wifi. Mobile connection would not able to download.

#5

Actually we did test the size impact of SDKBOX, the sdkbox core it self should be about 200K after the app is compiled and packaged.

However, the SDKs (for example chartboost) does increase your app size by 1.5MB or so, that means if you want to integrate chartboost yourself, It will increase your build size. So I don’t think the foot print of SDKBOX is a big issue.

#6

Small APK Size is definitely important especially for emerging markets.
That’s why there are Facebook Lite, Line Lite, etc.

#7

@nite

Thanks for the size test.

I think you should mention about the size of SDKBOX and SDK in the integration guide as it can clearly tell developer how much size the app will increased after integration.

@winipcfg
Yeah, smaller size definitely is an extra benefit to our app.

#8

If they don’t need the app, there is no benefit for the developer either. The developer earns money from the apps usage. If the user does not use it in the first place, there is no point to keep it for the user and no point for the developer caring for users that don’t use the app anyway.
If a user needs the app and wants to use it, he will not abandon it. As long as there isn’t an equal-quality tiny sized app/game as an alternative, he will stick to the original one.
Revenue is generated from user retention, not from temperamental users, which leave your game at the first sight of a “cheap” alternative.

Well, not exactly. We would like to attract as many revenue generating users as we can :wink:
What’s the benefit in having 200k users, that do net generate revenue? Exactly, none.

Of course, but I can think of the best audience to address. If your game is >50MB, 2k Quality whatever, you are targeting exactly the users, which fulfill the requirements of those games.

Of course, but to hijack a thread needs more than one individual and my T-Shirt with “Guilty!” printed on it, is already full :wink:

And what to people do about that silly restriction?`They complain about it! They do not appreciate it!
This limit was established to conserve user’s mobile data plans. Again, not a problem, as the people will download the game over their home ISP connection, if they WANT your game. If they don’t, chances were very low, that this would have been an revenue generating customer in the first place.

Which ones exactly?`

Wasn’t this all about GAMES, as cocos2d-x is a game framework, not an app framework.

If you want to reduce your assets, just use procedural textures, which take a lot of RAM. Wait, not everyone has decent RAM in their devices. Damn…

#9

@iQD

Actually all the points you talking are bias to your own view and judged with certain rules.

  1. If a user keep your app in their devices, there is still the chance that one day they will reuse your app.

  2. You never know which user will generate revenue for you. At first they may not generate revenue but you can’t guarantee that one day they will generate revenue for you. That’s why i say attract as many user as we can and make them stay.

  3. I can’t think any lose with smaller size but same quality app to user.

  4. I’m using Cocos2d-x to create app which working fine. Don’t limit Cocos2d-x usage to game only. It can do more than you think.

Don’t limit your app audiences to certain category unless the app is designed for that category only.

#10

Of course it is biased to my own view. It seems that you are forgetting, that I/YOU am/are making the app/game, the developer. It’s him, that decides, which audience he is aiming for. The developer judges the rules, offers something and sells the app/game.

A chance won’t generate revenue. A developer does not aim for a chance, he aims for retention.

A faithful, supporting user will. A player that actually plays your game on a frequent basis will.
Yes, make them stay. But a game, that is only small in size, won’t make them stay. Quality and caring about the user will make them stay. Just look what Apple or any of the console/GPU/Game companies do.
A new game comes out, takes 50GB+ in size, a high-end GPU or whatever. What are the people that WANT to play that game doing? They buy new hardware! Be it a faster GPU or a new hard-drive, to fit the game onto. If people are engaged with your stuff, the don’t care about size, or if you need the next big GPU for it to play it on ultra settings or whatever.
If someone can’t afford it, he always have the option to go for lower settings. Compared to a mobile game, it will be reduced in sized, cause of the lower resolution assets, but if they want THE BEST, they have to accept, that it comes with a different rule-set.

Of course there will be no lose with smaller size BUT the same quality. The problem is, that it’s not possible to have same quality by keeping the small size. I’m not talking about apps, I’m talking about games and the visual/audio quality. We all know that 2k textures need more space than 512bytes textures. 16Bit 44kHz stereo audio needs more space than 8Bit 22.5kHz. 12 language sets of font atlases need more space, than one language set.
The code size stays the same. E.g. 3MB for your game. The assets for the iPhone take 10MB, but how much do they take for the iPad with a 2k resolution? They can easily take 100MB.
Plenty of developers don’t want to present their game with smudged, fuzzy and washed out textures. They want to go for the best quality possible on the specific device. I guess that’s also what users expect on their fancy full-blown smartphones. If I have a car, that can go 300km/h, I want to go that fast.

That’s not the point. You can also make apps with UE. They are still tailored to games. If you want to make pure apps, you are way better of with using an app framework, because they are tailored to that.
It’s also possible to nail some wood with some pliers, but you may be better of by using a hammer.

Isn’t an app always designed for a specific category? There is no such thing as a generic app for everyone. An app does fulfill a purpose. There are only some people/audiences looking for an app that fulfills the purpose they need.

By making a specific app, you are automatically targeting a specific audience.
The only exception would be an app that does everything, or no app at all, because there is no need for nothing.

#11

@iQD

If you don’t get the chance first, you won’t get the retention because they never use your app.

Not limit to certain app audiences is as what you mentioned.
Player can set quality of app from low to high which able to run on their device smoothly.

But i can see you are more likely to target only audience which afford to play in high quality unless i misunderstand. That’s why i suggest not to limit audience to specific category.

I see this as a discussion by giving opinions and ideas on point of general app which everyone can discuss and learn if possible.

If discussion is too biased with certain rules, that would cause argument.
So i will stop at here.

Edit : To clarify why i said you are biased with certain rules

People care about size is because they making app which would only in few MB to tens of MB.
App size increased by few MB after integration of SDKs can considered huge different in size.

But you compare it with app in hundreds of MB which few MB increment is nothing at all.

#12

I of course offer them a chance, but it’s bound to requirements.

If you want retention, you have to limit the audience. Look at Apple, what their audience really is.

Yes, but if they want high, they need to accept, that the game needs e.g. >50MB to download.
That’s my point.

I target audiences, which can afford to download 50MB packages, and want to get high quality.
And I target audiences, which cannot afford to download 50MB packages, and want to get low(er) quality.
I’m NOT targeting audiences, which cannot afford to download 50MB packages, BUT want high quality.
Quality in regards to visuals and audio, not game-play wise, of course.

The problem is, that people with legacy hardware or slow bandwidth also want high quality, but these parameters just don’t go together.

Your opinion, your decision. I don’t have a problem with that.

Sure, that’s why I’m talking about games. An app does not have huge and tons of assets, like a game has.
That’s why I said: the binary of a game is about 3MB. The assets are 10MB.for SD, but the assets for HD maybe 100MB. The binary size is not changed at all.
If you boundle a new SDK, your binary may be increased to 4MB, which is nothing compared to the assets.
On the other side you may release a 4K version of your assets. They may take up 200MB now.

It’s a judgement you have to make: are you providing different versions of your game or one version with all asset resolutions in there.

An OS is an “app” right? It takes about 4GB of hdd space. How much takes a AAA game? 50GB+, but the binary itself is about 10MB. It’s the assets, that account for the packages size. And this is why you just can’t compare apps to games. You will never have a size problem with the game binary, but with the assets.

You don’t have such binary/asset ratios with apps, but with games.

Sure, but that’s why I compared and talk about games. You just don’t have the size problems with an app.

#13

@iQD

This is the initial size problem. You should ask @energyy whether is game or app.

#14

Sure, to make it certain.

But the more interesting thing would be the amount of increase in percent.
If it’s a game, the binary to asset ratio would also be interesting and the resolution of the assets.

To all others: sorry for keeping it OT. It was such nice discussion, and I don’t have the rights to move the OT parts to a new thread @slackmoehrle :smile:

#15

Anyway, it is easy for someone to cancel downloading after they try to download something like crossword puzzles/runner/etc and realize that they took more than 5 minutes to download.

1 Like
#16

This is about localisation!

Does the article even mention APK size? :wink:

And it’s also easy for someone to keep it running, if he really wants to play that game.

The 5 minutes is also just a relative number! It depends on his download speed. E.g. plenty of colleagues are able to download a 50GB+ game in 5 minutes.

Please explain to me one thing:
Candy Crush Saga is one of the most popular games with the highest revenue. It has 45MB in size. How can this go together, if everybody seems to abort the download after 5 minutes?

Clash Of Clans: another high revenue, popular game: 47MB
Angry Birds: >70MB
Crossy Road: 33MB
Geometry Dash: 48MB

Regarding engaging markets:
Puzzle and Dragons: 40MB
Monster Strike: 46MB

It seems, that the most successful games WILL be downloaded, regardless of it’s size.

So where does that “size is critical” argument fits in regarding those games? We are talking about the MOST successful games out there! All those games ARE downloaded/played in the metro. They ARE downloaded/played in the engaging markets. The latter ones were even designed for those markets.