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[Andrew Mills]

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!?!?!?!?!

Apple have just rejected my guide because they feel it's more of a book and should be in the ibook store!!!! What... the...???

God I HATE their strawberry floating approval process so strawberry floating much it's unreal....

Time to try out their - no doubt useless - appeals process now. strawberry floating useless... gah...

[Rog]

I'd take it as a compliment. Apple are trying to swell their bookstore and are eager to cover everything so they're the only shop people use. Obviously game guides aren't widely covered on there and they've chosen yours to contribute to that. It sucks but there is a compliment in their idiocy.

[Andrew Mills]

I don't need compliments I NEED it to go on sale the weekend the game launches! it's costing me lost sales because they can't categorise their apps properly. 4 DS2 guides have been accepted since start of Jan.

And my app CAN'T be a book. Books don't have YouTube videos, or interactivity, or internal e-mail functions.

[HailToTheKingBaby!]

I don't need compliments I NEED it to go on sale the weekend the game launches! it's costing me lost sales because they can't categorise their apps properly. 4 DS2 guides have been accepted since start of Jan.

And my app CAN'T be a book. Books don't have YouTube videos, or interactivity, or internal e-mail functions.

Not sure about email or interactivity but they can include videos, I bought an enhanced Russell brand book on iBooks and it has various embedded video clips throughout. Maybe that's something they want more of to differentiate from kindle etc..

[Andrew Mills]

I don't need compliments I NEED it to go on sale the weekend the game launches! it's costing me lost sales because they can't categorise their apps properly. 4 DS2 guides have been accepted since start of Jan.

And my app CAN'T be a book. Books don't have YouTube videos, or interactivity, or internal e-mail functions.

Not sure about email or interactivity but they can include videos, I bought an enhanced Russell brand book on iBooks and it has various embedded video clips throughout. Maybe that's something they want more of to differentiate from kindle etc..

So why accept the guide apps submitted in the last week or two that include similar functionality? There's NO consistency in their reviews process, and it's me that bears the brunt of the decisions.

Plus, getting an ISBN code for an actual 'book' costs £100 the last time I checked. Why should I have to pay that when other guide authors don't for a similar product?

[Frank]

Any news about the appeal yet?

[Andrew Mills]

Nothing other that they are now - finally - getting around to looking at it and to have 'patience'. Thank God I'm not losing potential sales every day they drag there heals on such a complex issue...

[Andrew Mills]

So I had a chat on the phone with an Apple rep about my app appeal. Bottom line: your app is a book, so it ain't getting on the app store, if the iBook team reject it as a book then that's tough gooseberry fool.

He didn't care other guides that have gone through since and refused to be drawn on it. So I stand at a junction. Clearly everything I could now submit will be deemed for the iBook store. Which requires an ISBN, which costs £100 a pop, with NO guarantee they'll be even accepted as a book.

Or I could say strawberry float You Apple and your inconsistent ways and get back to writing guides for the highest bidder. Guaranteed money with strawberry float all of the constant aggro. I'm writing guides for a new strategy guide site launching in March, so I'm tempted just to work on that and my magazine work.

I could always look at Android development, but it took long enough to learn what I have of objective c. What to do...

[Joer]

Seems like a shame. I downloaded your Angry Birds guide and Halo: Reach guides, and despite the fact I don't think i'll ever actually use either of them, they both seem nicely presented etc.

[Zombitedesade]

Andrew could you not release a sort of container gamer guides app which offers people the change to download the fulls guides within it? sorta like in game transactions if you like? Would any you offer then through such a service still have to meet apples criteria each time or could you bypass it by doing it this way?

[Frank]

I think that after you've spent ages learning how to code, it'd be wrong to just give it up, although at the moment Apple really aren't making it as easy as it really should be

I'm not very literate with all these apps and stuff, but if you do do any future guides for the iThings, could you submit them as both an iBook and an App at the same time, to prevent this kind of farce from happening again, or are the ways they're coded fundamentally different?

[JiggerJay]

Just throwing this out there, have no idea on the logistics of this but couldn't you possibly launch an app which is needed to open your guides? like a free launcher and have your guides run through a microtransaction contained within the launcher?

[Zombitedesade]

Just throwing this out there, have no idea on the logistics of this but couldn't you possibly launch an app which is needed to open your guides? like a free launcher and have your guides run through a microtransaction contained within the launcher?

i like your thinking, if only someone had suggested it sooner.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Just throwing this out there, have no idea on the logistics of this but couldn't you possibly launch an app which is needed to open your guides? like a free launcher and have your guides run through a microtransaction contained within the launcher?

i like your thinking, if only someone had suggested it sooner.

I would imagine that it's preferable to have individual apps for each game. A single app would have a lower profile than several game-specific apps which would draw in an audience for each indivual title. Wrap them all up in one app and you would potentially be limiting the number of people who would be aware of new guides, to those who install and check the app regularly. I think you would have to be a strong "brand" to be able to pull off the container idea (Prima etc).

I may be wrong about all that though. Just my two pennies worth.

[Andrew Mills]

My main concern with the whole multiple guides in an app is that I - genuinely - don't have any confidence left in Apple's - strawberry floating gooseberry fool - review process and I reckon they'd say it's too similar to their own iBooks store functionality, and as they don't allow 'imitations' on their store, I'd get outright rejected (after learning how to even make such an idea work).

I've had a long think and with the upcoming dedicated guide website I'm becoming more and more heavily involved with (along with a rosy year of magazine guides lined up ahead), I've decided that I'd rather get back to focusing on what I do best - which is writing the guides themselves - and not take the constant hassle and bullshit from - the many - incompetent reviewers at Apple. The only tihng they've been consistent with is their inconsistency.

As such, I am re-using the DS2 content for the guide site (no point wasting a perfectly good guide) and I'm no longer producing any further guide-apps (certainly for the forseeable future). I have a couple of 'book-like' projects in the pipeline that'll use the Amazon store instead, so people can use the Kindle apps/reader and I don't have to fanny around trying to jump through dozens of arbitury hoops only to get flipped the fingers at the end of it all.

If the guide site isn't as successful as is expected (and there's some REALLY cool things lined up post-launch that have never really been done before guide-wise), then I plan on re-using my code for small businesses and offering them a chance to get an app on the App store. It's always useful to have a back-up plan in this world

Once I'm in a position to detail this guide site some more I very happily will. In fact, I'm hoping those here would be interested in the Beta trial planned before the full launch (planned for March).

So thanks to every single person for their support on the App Guides, for the honest feedback, the buying and the kind words. It's now time to take a slightly different direction for GamerGuide Productions Limited, but who know, perhaps Apple have done me a favour after all?...

[tnman]

Let's hope so!

Thread de-stickied for now, until Millsy reveals his Big Website Project...

[Andrew Mills]

Let's hope so!

Thread de-stickied for now, until Millsy reveals his Big Website Project...

Hey all,

A bit of a better teaser for you all, for the last month or two I've been working with the owner of GamerGuides.com (not myself as some of you may already know), who wants to create a leading, super high-quality video game strategy guide website. One that'll be much more professional than the likes of GameFAQ's (who might be free but rely solely on authors to update their guides bit-by-bit), with a more tailored experience than say someones YouTube video who may show you the way through the game, but it's not played with proper strategy in mind (seeing deaths, inefficient strategies, missed collectibles etc).

It'll be packed with top-quality HD video and screenshots, in-depth strategies and - where humanly possible - available for the day of release (hooray for debug consoles! ). From what I've seen of the site so far, it looks reallllly slick, well laid out, will be ad-free, professionally presented and contains guides written by yours truly and one other GRcade member (who can step forward should he feel like it along with other experienced guide writers/producers.

The guides won't be free (although there may be incentives and offers in place) so that's where we're hoping that you fellow GRcader's will chip in with your views and thoughts on what WOULD you think is worth paying for? What extra benefits and features would you like to see that no other guide site can be bothered with? We've already got some post-launch ideas that have NEVER been tried in any guide site yet (to our knowledge at least), that allow you to really find what solution YOU need quickly (tailored for your specific format).

There's a possible invite-only BETA in the pipeline, so if any of you would like to take advantage of this potential GRcade exclusive opportunity, then simply let me know in here.

I'm genuinely pumped up for the sites release and I'm putting a ton of time into the launch guides right now, so those of you who know my work will appreciate just how much content will be in there (even more than any of my App guides ever had)! There's no concrete release date yet, but - pretty damn soon - would be a fair assessment just now

[Buffalo]

Fantastic news, Andy \o/ I'd much rather pay a little bit for a guide dripping in slick than wading through those God awful GameFAQ efforts.
I'd happily try out the beta for you

[JiggerJay]

It's a very thin line you will be crossing with this site, on the one hand you'll be providing a service not many others will be able to initially compete with, based on their current infrastructures but on the other hand, would a premium guide site test well with the public? Would they pay for something they can traditionally get for free, I understood how the gamerguides worked in the first place as people bought them on a whim once they bought the game and it was reasonably priced.

Perhaps you need to develop a strong community first then move on to a premium site? Or perhaps focus on more than just guides, I.e. guides being the premium side of the website, but the thing that brings people in from google and the like could be news updates on the front page or something?

Please just shoot me down if any of this is out of line/context/retarded... I am just the idea guy, that's all I do, look for ideas!

[Dante]

having downloaded all the apps and found them to be all very helpful so far, i'd be interestd in the idea.

Maybe to a degree, you can have a leve service, top HD full videos for paying and snippets and low standard mini-guides for cheap o bastards who are happy to trudge the net, get wrongly guided free guides or steal game guides off torrent sites (as does seem to be the craze for a few guys at work now)

I've personally stopped using gamefaqs after following some very awful guides with terrible grammar and bizarre structures and am starting to go off youtube due to some odd paths (like you mention, vids with plenty of deaths etc..)