To all those on twitter that continue to ask ...

[gilesgoat]

"Why not this, why not that" about Tempest 4000 ...

.. ask ATARI FIRST, NOT us, we CAN NOT DO ANYTHING without Atari approval about it.

Could be done xyz ? Yes maybe ..

Can it be done without Atari consent first ? NO !

So simple

[Misfit]

I’d rather have TxK on the Switch...

Does that make me a bad person?

[gilesgoat]

I’d rather have TxK on the Switch...

Does that make me a bad person?

... yes ... because you ask for things you know ( or should know ) that we can't do

[Foozwah]

I’d rather have TxK on the Switch...

Does that make me a bad person?

... yes ... because you ask for things you know ( or should know ) that we can't do

[badperson]Popping in out of self-imposed semi-exile to say I'd be more than happy with ANY Llamasoft goodness on the Switch... Fast and dirty ports of all the Minotaur Proj stuff would be fine, especially since all versions I've bought before (iOS and Mac) no longer work.[/badperson]

But I get that for various reasons this is likely not a huge priority. Or indeed even a likely possibility.

[gilesgoat]

I’d rather have TxK on the Switch...

Does that make me a bad person?

... yes ... because you ask for things you know ( or should know ) that we can't do

[badperson]Popping in out of self-imposed semi-exile to say I'd be more than happy with ANY Llamasoft goodness on the Switch... Fast and dirty ports of all the Minotaur Proj stuff would be fine, especially since all versions I've bought before (iOS and Mac) no longer work.[/badperson]

But I get that for various reasons this is likely not a huge priority. Or indeed even a likely possibility.

The main reason we did not yet go into Switch is because "everyone says the shop is mega shit and you get totally lost in there", so much in fact that "withtout proper active marketing" is very difficult to get noticed.

So everyone is saying.

About iOS I have to repeat it once more again "is simply we can NOT afford it", essentially for our kind of stuff that DOES NOT sell "millions" it's a LOSS of money not an earning, you end up in spending lot more to just have the stuff there than what you earn from it.

In the end we simply could not afford to keep maintaining ( and spend the money to just have the stuff on the store ) "a bunch of games that overall did not make much money at all",I mean literally the costs of keeping them up were surpassing any earnings.

Plus every iOS update seemed to screw up something you had to constantly re-work something to keep the game up to date and when a game costs 69p or such and does not give you "a constant stream of revenue via IAP/ads or subscriptions" you can see that becomes a near impossible task

[Foozwah]

[badperson]Popping in out of self-imposed semi-exile to say I'd be more than happy with ANY Llamasoft goodness on the Switch... Fast and dirty ports of all the Minotaur Proj stuff would be fine, especially since all versions I've bought before (iOS and Mac) no longer work.[/badperson]

But I get that for various reasons this is likely not a huge priority. Or indeed even a likely possibility.

The main reason we did not yet go into Switch is because "everyone says the shop is mega shit and you get totally lost in there", so much in fact that "withtout proper active marketing" is very difficult to get noticed.

So everyone is saying.

About iOS I have to repeat it once more again "is simply we can NOT afford it", essentially for our kind of stuff that DOES NOT sell "millions" it's a LOSS of money not an earning, you end up in spending lot more to just have the stuff there than what you earn from it.

In the end we simply could not afford to keep maintaining ( and spend the money to just have the stuff on the store ) "a bunch of games that overall did not make much money at all",I mean literally the costs of keeping them up were surpassing any earnings.

Plus every iOS update seemed to screw up something you had to constantly re-work something to keep the game up to date and when a game costs 69p or such and does not give you "a constant stream of revenue via IAP/ads or subscriptions" you can see that becomes a near impossible task

Heya Giles, thanks for responding, and genuinely sorry if I've stressed/annoyed you - not my intention at all, so much as to indicate that I really loved and appreciated the iOS and Mac versions of the Minotaur games, and literally played them right up til the very last moment possible.

So much so that I deliberately kept my iPhone 5 on an old compatible OS version, so that it literally became a specialist machine just for playing Minotaur Project games. I'd be still using it now if it it weren't for a battery swelling disaster while charging one night - woke to a semi-detached screen and machine borked, so that was the end of that...

Mac versions soldiered on for a while, before failing one by one, seemingly at random, til finally the last one (Five A Day, I think...) gave up the ghost and that was pretty much the end of my LS gaming, bar the occasional blast at something (usually Llamatron) on emu.

To just clarify though, I TOTALLY get the issues with iOS and it not being worth updating them anymore; I absolutely support your decision and certainly wasn't asking for you to do anything like that - I happily bought all MP games on iOS twice (mine and wife's phones in the days before "Family Sharing") because honestly, at those prices why wouldn't you. And some a third time, for the Mac ports, and yeah, I played the hell out of them and definitely got my money's worth a thousand times over.

(Of course, I'm a bit bummed at their absence from life going forward, more than anything, but that's fine. Nothing last forever, entropy, etc.)

So my (selfish!) comment was more that, with Switch absolutely my console of choice (with hectic life, kids etc. it's much easier to grab ten minutes on the go here and there, with occasional longer sessions docked late at night when family asleep) and not posting here much these days, I just wanted to add my tiny and far off voice to support any that might have previously suggested a quick and dirty port of those games in their original IOS forms to Switch, no enhancement, etc. if there was even the shred of possibility.

I'd have been first in line because I think the combination of portable form factor and proper console controls would be a winner, but if the eshop is as bad as you say then I can see why you wouldn't want to risk getting burned again, so fair enough if that's the case. You'd think Nintendo would want to improve that situation, and perhaps they will, but yeah... I understand you guys not wanting to leap in there if it's not great. You've got to do what's best for you, of course!

Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and just get a PS4 at some stage...

[gilesgoat]

I was once "a few steps away" to use my own money and get a Switch SDK .. but all those talks about "how bad the Switch shop is" literally put me off.

We'll see I think AT SOME POINT we'll be there .. but we need a bit more "excitement" in knowing that "the time we are going to spend on is well spent".

Also don't take us wrong we said many times as hardware we LOVED iOS/Tablets/etc. .. it's nice stuff .. "it's the commercial side of things that is really crap"

[Deckard]

I think much like the Vita the Switch is a perfect fit for LL - grab and go games that dont require you to find a few hours to make any progress. Any spare few mins can be used to brush up or clear a few levels. I appreciate the concern with their App store but things there really can sell - again my favourite game - Dead Cells - hard as fuck twitch kill em up and they said their Switch Cells have been beyond belief....

Following the release on the Switch in August 2019, total sales exceed 2.4 million units, with Motion Twin stating that Switch sales were "insane

Even a small LL pack including just say MR, GR and Goat I could see selling at a decent price point let alone the bigger stuff - What I would pay for a portable version of Space Giraffe........

I SO miss my GR on my iPad with that perfection control system - you so nailed that

[Foozwah]

I was once "a few steps away" to use my own money and get a Switch SDK .. but all those talks about "how bad the Switch shop is" literally put me off.

We'll see I think AT SOME POINT we'll be there .. but we need a bit more "excitement" in knowing that "the time we are going to spend on is well spent".

Also don't take us wrong we said many times as hardware we LOVED iOS/Tablets/etc. .. it's nice stuff .. "it's the commercial side of things that is really crap"

Thanks Giles; understand completely, so I'll continue to live in hope of Switch action from you guys at some future time, but won't be hassling you.

As Deckard noted, some stuff seems to do really well there for smaller/indy houses - different genre of game of course but I remember when the retro-style adventure game Thimbleweed Park was ported to Switch, Ron Gilbert was amazed just how well it sold on that platform - at end of last year it was actually the highest selling platform for their game (32.4% of all income was via Nintendo eshop), outselling even Steam (30.4%), which is pretty extraordinary for what would traditionally be considered a very PC-centric title.

(For comparison, the rest of the sales percentages by online store were - in descending order - Apple (13.6% - assume iOS and Mac combined), Microsoft (10.2%), GOG (6.1%), Google (3.7%), Sony (3.5%). I don't think they had huge marketing, but what they did have was extraordinary word-of-mouth.

And yeah, I think iOS is good too and the way you guys made the swipe controls so intuitive for the MP games was extraordinary - I wasn't sure at all, right up to the moment I started playing each of them, but they were amazing. Such a shame that didn't translate into sales, but yeah the App store is pretty bloody horrible...

[Jamesac]

I was once "a few steps away" to use my own money and get a Switch SDK .. but all those talks about "how bad the Switch shop is" literally put me off.

We'll see I think AT SOME POINT we'll be there .. but we need a bit more "excitement" in knowing that "the time we are going to spend on is well spent".

Also don't take us wrong we said many times as hardware we LOVED iOS/Tablets/etc. .. it's nice stuff .. "it's the commercial side of things that is really crap"

Maybe if the Limited Run Games release of Polybius goes well then the possibility of extra physical sales on Switch might make Switch development worth it? That's all reliant on any agreement you've got with LRG, of course.

[RiK]

Surely if you want to respond to the people on Twitter, the place to do that is twitter....?

[Foozwah]

Surely if you want to respond to the people on Twitter, the place to do that is twitter....?

Heheh, ironically not, at least in my case - since I don't do Twitter/social media, posting here has worked out well as a means of contact/being part of a convo I would have been unaware of.

[RiK]

Surely if you want to respond to the people on Twitter, the place to do that is twitter....?

Heheh, ironically not, at least in my case - since I don't do Twitter/social media, posting here has worked out well as a means of contact/...

Well yes, but that’s not the point, it’s an added bonus

Only a tiny number of those on Twitter frequent YY, hence my point that the place to reply to ‘all those asking on Twitter’ is obviously Twitter.

Anyway *whoosh* as I was only having a chuckle with Giles, which is now rather negated by the need to explain that so I’ll go back to my Sunday morning snooze instead..

[Foozwah]

Anyway *whoosh* as I was only having a chuckle with Giles, which is now rather negated by the need to explain that so I’ll go back to my Sunday morning snooze instead..

Haha, no worries mate - always glad to needlessly complicate a seemingly straightforward conversational situation.

[gilesgoat]

Surely if you want to respond to the people on Twitter, the place to do that is twitter....?

Heheh, ironically not, at least in my case - since I don't do Twitter/social media, posting here has worked out well as a means of contact/...

Well yes, but that’s not the point, it’s an added bonus

Only a tiny number of those on Twitter frequent YY, hence my point that the place to reply to ‘all those asking on Twitter’ is obviously Twitter.

Anyway *whoosh* as I was only having a chuckle with Giles, which is now rather negated by the need to explain that so I’ll go back to my Sunday morning snooze instead..

"I have no interest to declare"

/me takes coat