Astraware releases TouchPad-sized Mahjong, wants to sell enough to justify more 45
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 9:21 pm EST 
Just a week ago Astraware teased their first game for the TouchPad, a proper full-sized version of their excellent Mahjong game. And now, just like that, it's available in the App Catalog for $2.99, bringing all the joy of stacked tile matching to the biggest webOS screen. Mahjong for TouchPad, as the call it, is a scaled-up high-texture version of the game already available for webOS smartphones, bringing the trademark perspective 3D, auto-zoomi, hints, and more to the table. If you even remotely enjoy Mahjong, it's worth the buy.
Astraware's a big firm as far as mobile gaming is concerned, but you can think of Mahjong as a sort of feeler for the viability of the games market for the TouchPad. Astraware, like any developer, would love to think that their time and money would be well spent developing for the TouchPad, and as such they've actually decided on some incentives for the webOS community to purchase the game. Namely, that the more TouchPad games Astraware sells, the more inclined they'll be to work up other Astraware games for the TouchPad. They've even gone so far as to put together a "TouchPad Totalizer" sales counter (see source link below), marking the sales goals for the next Astraware TouchPad release.
As of this writing, the total is sitting at 246 after one day's sales for Mahjong. The next app on the list is Astraware Sudoku, sitting at about 1,000 sales, followed by Solitaire at around 2,000 sales. Want Sudoku real bad? Then you might want to consider doubling down and buying Mahjong to further that goal. Granted, none of the sales are going to be enough to save webOS, but we'll be damned if we aren't going to get a nice solitaire app for the TouchPad!
Source: App Catalog, Astraware
45 Comments
There are two solitaire apps and both are bloody good at what they do.
We need a reader like pulse, netflix, games like fruit ninja and others and other useful apps
You can't ask Astraware to develop what they don't have rights to develop...
i was referring to this statement in the post
"but we'll be damned if we aren't going to get a nice solitaire app for the TouchPad!"
Still, no need to go offtopic with unrelated apps...
Agreed that there are fully functioning solitaire apps on the TouchPad since launch.
The other stuff, Astraware can't help with.
At least Astraware is honest about how they decide to port over games to webOS. Pure numbers. And using the webos competitive spirit to fuel the sales goal is smart.
although their mah jong is the best, and probably my favorite game of theirs, i wonder how many other people feel that way. like, if they had done sudoku first, would that reach 1000 buys faster, etc.
Seriously, on average, how much does it cost a company to port a game? I'm asking, not being rhetorical or snarky :)
Hi Jeanjean
I asked our CEO, Howard Tomlinson to respond to your question. Hope you find the explanation useful and interesting. Here's his reply:
"Porting or migration costs can vary. If you have all of the graphics in the right resolution already, the code for the game is in a portable language (i.e. C++) and you've already supported the platform for another title, then you could have the work done in just a few days. If you have to create a lot of new artwork or wholly rewrite game code into another language then the times go up to being close to developing a new title from scratch.
"For Astraware Mahjong for TouchPad, we already had the graphics for the UI elements in a close resolution (and with the game graphics being in 3D that part scales automagically), the game logic code was already in C++, and our game technology layer already supported WebOS. We had a bit extra to do because we hadn't supported TouchPad specifically before, and we went through number of iterations of build and test and get everything running nicely. All told, the work took a total of about 2 working weeks. I reckon we'll break even on this specific work when it gets to about 1500 copies sold.
"Our other titles we listed will mostly take a similar kind of amount of time. Some will require more additional resources to be created than others, but that's offset by the benefit of having already done most of the platform work to support the device.
"We decided to make the first game to gauge how much demand there was - it's hard to judge by the number of requests alone just how well that translates to sales. We write our games to make them as easy as possible to move to extra platforms, so luckily a relatively small number makes it viable to consider bringing each additional game to the TouchPad. Thanks for getting behind us on this one, and I hope you enjoy watching the numbers ;)
Howard."
I love that Astraware is developing games, but I can't help but think that mahjong was a terrible "feeler" app to produce.
Unfortunately, my grandma doesn't have a touchpad yet! :-/
I wonder if selling 3,000 apps at 99c is easier then trying to sell 1,000 at $2.99
The folks saying this to try and talk them down to a lower price are on the verge of pathetic.
How about buying the game instead of complaining? It's less than a bag of crisps/chips.
I will buy mahjong for the wife (even though she already has a mahjong app for TP and phone). That gets the job done, glad to see this one has more options than the other one I already paid for.
My complaint is about solitaire being on the list, love astraware and have been supporting them since PalmOS... sadly I (and I am sure many others) have no need for another solitaire app. We already own solitaire universe and paid for the full unlocked version, I highly doubt another solitaire app would have a feature that would make it worth buying.
I will buy casino if we get there and possibly others, but no solitaire for me.
Too bad, I cannot buy any paid app for webOS in my country. It sucks **** Would it be so difficult to sell apps world-wide? There are thousands of devices outside the selected countries. I think it would not harm HP, help app developers get more money, and satisfy users. Do you know whether there are any plans regarding open sourcing webOS?
Got it! Thanks Astraware.
I haven't played Mahjong in probably 15 years. I just bought the game, and realize I don't know how to play! I do remember it being fun.
The Astraware game I would like for the TP is Casino. I have it for the Pre. There's a bug on how it handles some of the craps bets. I e-mailed them about it years ago. They said they would fix it, but never did. I have it on my Droid and it handles the bets correctly. But playing craps and roulette on small phone screens is really difficult.
Although, looking at the iPad version, it's disappointing that they still have the same lame slot machine.
If they would do their "boardgames" I'd pick that up for $2.99. Mahjong? I've not played it and I can't imagine that being a very popular game. (Not saying it is or isn't fun)
Thanks for the feedback. Astraware Boardgames would be another possibility for the future if we reach the target of doing Astraware Casino.
Looks more like they need 1500 for Sudoku, not 1000. Currently shows 2 bars filled @298. Maybe I'm missing something.
No. There are 10 bars to fill and 2 of them are complete on 298 sales. The third bar gets filled when it passes 300.
Worth adding that it's 1000 units of Astraware Mahjong for us to do Astraware Sudoku, then 1000 additional units of Astraware Mahjong and Astraware Sudoku added together to get to Astraware Solitaire etc. so it will get easier to reach the targets as more games are released (hopefully!)
Thanks for the clarification!
Gonna buy it to thank the developer for the continued support of webOS. Hopefully HP will give out some promos to boost sales. I really expected the numbers be above 500 sales by now. Hope the community invest and shows that we are willing to pay for quality apps.
Maybe astraware can clarify, but I am betting the numbers aren't auto updating... okay well I know they aren't instant. I just bought the game and still showing at 298.
No, the sales require us to go in each morning and update them manually, so I'll be updating again tomorrow (UK time).
Cool, that's what I figured.
Thanks again for all the info!
I can't help but think Mahjong was a bad choice for a market test, it's not exactly the most accessible game in Astraware's catalog.
What I'd like to see is a "real" Mahjong app. Most people outside of east Asia associate Mahjong with the game represented here - it's like thinking a deck of cards is only used to play Klondike or Freecell. The "real" Mahjong is a 4-player game similar to Gin/Rummy.
There are a boatload of match-the-tile type Mahjong games out there, but very few "real" Mahjong apps/programs. Of these, the only one I know of in English is "Hong Kong Mahjong" by Nine Dragons Software. And HKMJ is a very good Mahjong simulator with decent AI opponents. Although much better than the AI, my mom spent most hours playing HKMJ when not playing MJ with her friends.
I would *love* to see something similar to HJMK as a tablet/phone app, but I'm not sure there's a large enough market for it (in English). I'll still probably buy this just to support Astraware - done so since my Pilot/Visor/Prism days.
I got it, no interest in the app really I just consider it a donation for the devs that are hopefully going to prove to themselves, and others via this counter that it's worth while for devs to think about webOS whist we await the hopeful success of the open sourcing.
Solid app. Well done. Would have liked it better at $2 but whatevs.
The chart on their site has said "298" all day, even after I bought my copy. I hope that number changes dramatically. With supposedly 750k TouchPads out there surely one thousand of those owners like Mahjong!
Good morning from the UK! Big jump on the Touchpad Totalizer since yesterday. Fantastic progress, thank you to everyone who's bought the game so far. This means we're half way to Astraware Sudoku. Please please keep spreading the word, and we could hit the first target before Christmas!
Astraware, (Howard) just read your response to JeanJean and the first thought I had was "doesn't the iPad have the same resolution as the Touchpad?" If so this should surely help out EVERYONE that wants to code for the Touchpad? As the rotten fruit has (generally) everything available this should help us too - or am I reading too much into it and oversimplifying?
And Yes, I have bought Mahjong and many other games in the past for my Palm(s) :-)
Keep up the great work.
Indeed it does, so that's why this was relatively easy. There are still programming changes required, and the game has to be thoroughly tested. If we didn't have graphics for the iPad resolution, developing for the Touchpad would have taken quite a bit of extra time, depending on what resources were available.
come on!best wishes for webos!!
I'm a big fan, nice layout and options.
You guys really rock! New total this morning 745! Getting so close to the first target - Astraware Sudoku. Can you guys push that up to the target before the weekend is over?
Massive thank you to anyone who has bought the game!
Not bad really, 200 or so sales a day. Wonder how much of that has to do with the article here. Might be helpful if webOSnation post more news when it gets to the 1000 mark (which by now it surely will).
Best of luck guys, glad it's working out.
Good morning! 882 today. So close!!! Thank you to everyone who's helping to get us to the next target. We really hope you'll enjoy Astraware Sudoku once we have it for you.
I'll be picking up Sudoku when released.
992 today! So when does Sudoku come out?
1074 today!!!!
Sudoku coming soon?
Well I hope the devs for Sudoku have cancelled all their Xmas and New Years plans in order to post this asap now.
;)
You may joke, but our devs have started to look at Astraware Sudoku already. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long to get it finished and submitted to Palm. I'll keep updating the Totalizer in the meantime. The quicker it grows, the quicker we can start on Astraware Solitaire too!
Astraware, Now that you have achieved your target, any plans to reduce the price of the game for Christmas ?
Spoiled mind here with all .99 cents sale lately :)
Apologies for the late response on this, but no. We're not planning any price reductions. The Touchpad Totalizer is based on sales targets based on the $2.99 price. Plus, we don't think it would be very fair on the people who have only just paid $2.99, if we drop the price after only a couple of weeks.
We hope you'll agree that our games have a lot of replay value over a long time, so are worth a couple of dollars a piece.