App for that ?

[flatdice]

Just wondering but who thinks that GW should release its own official army planners apps for android and apple ?

It would be nice to go to a friends house and make up a list in 5 mins without having to go pen and paper and ask for a calculator ( i not one of those ultra smart types who has memorized the points cost of every thing :p)

It just came to me as i know there are 'unofficial' army builders out there. It just seems silly for GW not to have a greater presence in the E-realm. I mean think about it, if GW has their own army builder app ( not the codex rules just FOC and points set up), they can strive to support their market and consumer base rather than be afraid of copyright.

( I know parallels can be drawn with the CHS case but that has its own thread).

So can any one else think of any other reasons why GW should or should not have its own set of apps in the market place ?

[wittdooley]

For all of the aforementioned reasons.

Seriously. Someone has already done it. It works very well. They follow the GW requirements. Why would GW hire/pay someone to build an in-house one if they don't need to? It's a completely unnecessary cost to produce unless they charge for it--and let's not kid ourselves, whatever price they'd price it at beyond free would cause tons of internet hate.

I imagine this is much the same reason Privateer doesn't have their own. iBodger/ForwardKommander have it covered.

[eldargal]

Bottom line is it would cost GW money for little gain. I've no idea how much it would cost to hire a programmer person and get them to compile all the information required and then turn it into a program, but I'd warrant it would be a fairly lengthy process. Not to mntion it would have to be updated several times a year when new books come out. So you would be looking at a significant freelance fee or hiring someone to do it which would cost GW tens of thousands of pounds a year for what? As has been pointed out they are already available for free.

[Tamwulf]

GW had an army builder program for 40K that quickly fell behind, and was eventually dropped.

It was no Army Builder, that's for sure.

I'm not sure how feasible it would be to create an app. The amount of choices available to each squad type... and then what would the final product look like? You wouldn't be able to see the entire army list at once (maybe if you had an iPad...). You could probably e-mail it to yourself, or if you had a wireless/bluetooth capable printer, you could print it out. Otherwise, it wouldn't be very practical for the amount of information you would need to display.

I'd think GW would have to hire a dedicated programmer for the app, then retain them for updates. That's pretty expensive, and I really doubt GW would/could make the money back, even if they charged $9.99. Most likely, GW would pay for the app to be made, then once a year, they would attempt to update/patch it.

[wittdooley]

GW had an army builder program for 40K that quickly fell behind, and was eventually dropped.

It was no Army Builder, that's for sure.

I'm not sure how feasible it would be to create an app. The amount of choices available to each squad type... and then what would the final product look like? You wouldn't be able to see the entire army list at once (maybe if you had an iPad...). You could probably e-mail it to yourself, or if you had a wireless/bluetooth capable printer, you could print it out. Otherwise, it wouldn't be very practical for the amount of information you would need to display.

I'd think GW would have to hire a dedicated programmer for the app, then retain them for updates. That's pretty expensive, and I really doubt GW would/could make the money back, even if they charged $9.99. Most likely, GW would pay for the app to be made, then once a year, they would attempt to update/patch it.

Agreed. Based on just looking into this with some stuff I do at work, you're looking at around $35k for a FTE programmer to create it, and that's if you only have one person developing. Then you have testing. This has to be outside the FTE. Sure, you could try and do an open beta and rely on users to do your testing for free....but you can't rely on that. So there's some more money you have to sink into it.

I think you're right, too, Tamwulf. I think it would be VERY hard to do this on an iPhone, etc. A tablet would be much more feasible, but still, GW does not need to do it themselves.

[Lexington]

I think you're right, too, Tamwulf. I think it would be VERY hard to do this on an iPhone, etc. A tablet would be much more feasible, but still, GW does not need to do it themselves.
It's easier than you'd think - I port Army Builder lists to HTML files and read them on my phone all the time. Haven't actually brought a physical army list to a game for a few years now. Just make sure that only the most relevant information (stats, equipment, number of troops) is available on a default view, then make individual things expandable. For all the reasons explained in this thread, it's not financially useful for GW to create this right now. I can't imagine we'll be saying the same thing in five or so years, though.

[MaltonNecromancer]

I always had the impression that GW are wilfully backwards when it coms to embracing new technologies that are unrelated to minaiture construction. Plus, they don't make an iphones themselves, so it doesn't fit into their business style. They don't really do things that aren't miniatures related. Nothing wrong with it, just means an iphone app is pretty much not going to happen officially.

[DarkLink]

It's probably something you could hire a single programmer to do, build a base program then add units for each codex, but that's one more guy's salary that you have to pay for. I doubt that you could get people to buy enough to make a profit, especially when there's already Army Builder out there to compete with.

[Psychosplodge]

I read somewhere that an android app costs between 15-30K to do properly for a commercial release and an iphone version can cost same again on top because of stringent apple testing. Obviously anybody can throw some code together relatively cheaply, but when you have your company's name on it not just some freeware soundboard, you want it done properly...

[Defenestratus]

Here is where I said a bunch of stuff....

OK so Colen told me I was a bad boy and said that they haven't made a decision regarding android vs apple yet. He ordered me to censor myself. I'm feeling very scolded. :P

He's working on something right now with army builder - I can't remember if its been announced yet so I wont give out any details...

In the meantime there are a couple of Android Apps out there that do what you need already.

[Lexington]

Beware the Scotsman - he's got ears. ;)

[Defenestratus]

And eyes. Unfortunately I just found out that he could actually read.

Speaking of illiterates -- is your IRC client broken? :P