My Video game price guide for iPhone

I'm developing an app for iPhone/iPod Touch.

It's a video game price guide with the idea of assisting those of us out shopping who spot a game and want to know its approximate value. Also doubles up as a complete games list.

Not very advanced and feature full at the moment but I'll add to it as the months roll by. I'm planning to release it to the app store at the end of next week. At first it will only support a few systems and then I will update with a new system every week from that point onwards. It would make sense to release it complete but the workload is already huge and a few downloads and reviews will give me the encouragement to keep going.

At current the database contains complete game listings for the following systems:

3DO, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari Jaguar, Atari Lynx, Atari Jaguar CD, NES, SNES, N64, GB, GBC, GBA, GameCube, Master System, Game Gear, Megadrive, Saturn, Dreamcast, Colecovision, Intellivision, Neo Geo, Neo Geo Pocket, Playstation, Playstation 2, TurboGrafx 16, TurboGrafx 16, Vectrex. Xbox.

And some others I can't think of of the top of my head.

In the pictures below you can only see 3DO because I have disabled the other systems until they are finished.

Other features I intend to add include a total value calculator (mark a game you have and it will add the value to your total collection value) other systems and current gen. Indexed pages and search (should be in the release next week).

I decided to come up with this database to provide a source of info without the need of an internet connection. It's also quick and easy to use and isn't full of IGN's crap (the only competing app.)

I was going to post this in the site news section but seeing as it's not finished yet I think it works best here.

Upon release I will be giving away promo codes to the first 50 members to PM me (please don't PM me now).

I plan on charging £0.59 for the app, seems a little steep for something so basic but the amount of work I have put into this is extreme. I've written over 20,000 lines of XML code and the app will require constant attention to be updated.

Also please be aware that I have learnt iPhone programming from the ground up, I'm still learning and I don't understand how half of my code even works, a lot of pissing around has made it what it is today. I could really use some help from any experienced iPhone programmers out there, PM me if you think you can assist.

Anyway here are some screens. Let me know what you think. Even if the general feedback is it's pointless and a waste of time well my response is:

a) I've spent so much time and effort on this I'm not stopping now.

b) I personally would find it useful for car boot sales and shopping in crazy korean stores.

 

Oh wow... now THATS a niffty app you have made there.

Too bad I don't have a iphone/itouch, but very cool none the less!

 

Not pointless at all really, rather useful, and I did pay just about the same amount for the SFIV moves app for my Touch which is way more basic :110: Where are the databases from?

 

Well, using countless sources I have built the database myself. Still not complete but there's only a few games and variants missing from the list. It has taken me two and half months on and off to type up the damn thing.

No Japanese titles yet. Not sure if I'm going to head down that avenue but as you can see there are prices listed in Yen for the Japanese counter parts. This is easy to do on variants such as Virtua Fighter for example.

 

Nice, I did something similar a few years back for the Palm based machines, which would have the average prices of titles I was searching for and when I went to shops I could enter the shop and the price it had it for (plus other info like condition, etc) and then use it to work out which shop had the game the cheapest for the condition. It also had a function to remember the date so it could tell me if the price is up or down since I was last in the shop or as an average.

 

Mine is not that clever. I'm not skilled enough to program that in. I'm gonna have to state somewhere that my prices are based on complete in box.

I have been discussing the app with a friend of mine however and I'm thinking of adding a button to each game page which when clicked will take you to ebay/kelkoo or another price comparison site in safari with the name of the game as the search term.

Linked with the affiliate program this could generate some nice revenue if set up as pay per click and pay per commission.

By no means would it be in your face click here crap. Just a simple button.

 

Mine was written in BASIC using CSV files, worked quite well just as long as the database didn't get too big. I did keep adding things to it, like working out averages (in many different ways), I also used it to tell me what games I already had... it also allowed a search of the catalogue number or a number of seaches via the name or publisher (and gave the game name in English and Japanese). I mainly used it on Gameboy, Saturn, Megadrive, Playstation and Super Famicom games.

The only bad thing about these guides is the sources of which the prices are based upon. For example I used a mixture of Yahoo auctions and shop prices, as well as an average Ebay price (if I could find one) which gave me an idea of how much the game value differed in the UK and US, and a few times the prices in the UK / US where much cheaper...

I could imagine that maintaining it would be a challenge, still if you can make some money for the time you are putting in then good on you.

 

That sounds like a really nice app.

If I get enough downloads then it's the least I can do to keep it maintained and updated seeing as people will have paid for it.

Getting the initial pages in is the difficult part, editing data after that while time consuming isn't tricky.

 

That's an awesome app! I could see it being very useful if I actually had gaming stores in my area (besides SequelStop that is...).

 

Speaking of Iphone apps, I'm interested in John Carmack's Wolfenstein adaptation. 3D accelerated, and will use pretty much all of the features the iphone/iTouch has.

 

Been out for quite some time now. You can buy it or get it free on a Jailbroken iPhone (he released the source code to the Jailbreak community for free to piss off apple). It's actually very good.

I've just downloaded and installed Myst. Translates to the iPhone perfectly.

 

I'll be buying this when you release it!

 

Whats jailbroken mean anyway? I think if I got a cellphone again I might actually want an iPhone....or a G1. Or hell, my old fucking Razr.

 

Essentially custom firmware. Great to use, no drawbacks to doing it at all. It doesn't allow for the use of pirate software but instead provides and alternative portal for people to upload and offer their apps if they get rejected by apple or they simply don't want to follows Apple's T&C. It also allows devs greater access to the hardware so they can code emulators which require the iPhone file system which is off limits to the official SDK.

 

Be sure and add a feature that lets you know if you already own the game. I can't tell you how many times I've picked up some random NES game only to find out it's already in my cabinet at home.

 

Actually Piracy is a pretty large issue on the iPhone

 

Yeah... jail breaking your iPhone does allow you to run cracked versions of app store programs.

 

Yes but if you try to do it it's a real pain. Takes at least an hour to get an app installed and working.

Not saying it's not there, I just don't think it's convenient enough yet to threaten the cheap and easy app store.

 

Not really, a friend of mine has a jailbroken iPhone with a modified mobile installation file which allows you to drag and drop illegally downloaded .ipa files in iTunes and simply synchonize.

 

There's an program that you can get on jailbroken iPhones that can download and install cracked apps in a few minutes.

The whole process is extremely easy... Apple's only real defense against that form of piracy is that iPhone firmware updates completely remove all jailbroken programs.