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I currently have an iPhone, and I feel like it's a solid mobile gaming platform. Besides the indie time-waster games (solitaire, doodle jump), there are polished, major-development-house games like Monopoly, retro ports like Final Fantasy 1 and 2, and serious high-end games like Chaos Rings, Sim City.

I like the idea of open platforms like Android, but I'm curious how the gaming compares.

Specifically:

  • How does the quality of the top tier games compare? The average, indie games?
  • How does the variety of games and genres compare?
  • Are games priced similarly, overall?
  • Are there any exclusive Android games that showcase graphics/gameplay/some other exceptional quality that isn't matched on iPhone?
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closed as not constructive by Shadur, kotekzot, deutschZuid, hotline california, Michel Mar 29 '13 at 15:53

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1  
I can say that you'll very likely get better variety on the iOS just because of how long it's been around and how well developers have acclimated to the environment. Other than that, i can't say because of lack of experience with android phones. –  RCIX Jul 21 '10 at 4:25
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@RCIX on the other hand, you'll probably get much better from indy games on Android given that there is no fee for developers to post apps and Android is Java based, making it much easier for developers to pick up. That's my opinion, though. It just could be that you'll get a much greater variance in quality :-p. –  mechko Jul 21 '10 at 4:41
    
@Kempeth: I think you should post that as an answer ;). –  Lucas Jones Jul 21 '10 at 11:17
    
Google have also been busy woo-ing the developers of the top iPhone and Flash games by giving them free handsets and resources, meaning that a lot of the top iPhone games are appearing on the Android, along with some of the top web Flash games. –  GAThrawn Jul 21 '10 at 17:23

3 Answers 3

up vote 7 down vote accepted

There proportion of free to paid games is much greater in Android than in iOS, and most paid games are pretty cheap.

There are definitely many more high-quality games on iOS right now, but with the announcement of big developers coming to Android (Unreal Engine is planned to be ported to the platform) and Google's promotion of Android game development, gaming looks very good in the near future. Couple that with the quickly-expanding market (160,000 handsets sold per day), and there is a strong incentive for game developers.

Basically, iOS has better and more expensive games right now, but Android has some serious momentum.

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up vote 5 down vote

As per request I'm promoting my comment to a post...

I cannot compare the two worlds since I only know the Android side. Due to the fact that authors don't have to pay a fee to put their apps into the shop (and you do not have to use the shop) there are an insane amount of free apps around.

Most of it looks like it's just meant to produce ad-revenue. You see countless apps promising erotic pictures in the game section, all requiring internet access. But once you wade through all that stuff you can find a number of decent games that don't require extensive permissions. For example there is an open source game "Replica Island" that's pretty polished and I found a number of tower defense games with very favorable reviews. So the good games are out there but you're probably better off searching for them on review sites than in the market itself.

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Interesting. I hadn't thought of it, but ease of discovery is probably also an important comparison. –  sjohnston Jul 21 '10 at 12:13
    
or by searching for game companies, I recommend Kairosoft. –  Bailey Rowland Mar 6 '13 at 21:25
up vote 2 down vote

Don't forget, because Google has fewer restrictions on what goes in its store, and you can side-load anyway, you'll see things available for Android that will never come to iOS ... like emulators. Also, there are more and cheaper accesories available (gamepads, keyboards, etc).

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