Total War Battles dev: mobile space is 'land of the clones', calls for quality standards

Total War: Battles senior artist Nick Farley, has discussed why innovation is the key to rising above the glut of clones currently flooding the mobile gaming space. He also feels that higher standards need to be set.

Speaking with GI.biz, Farley said of the mobile and social space, "We live in the land of the clones at the moment. There are so many clone games out there, and we really want to avoid that. A company like Sega, we need to be better than a lot of the companies out there: you need to set the bar high, to set the standards; a code of conduct almost."

It follows Total War: Battles lead Renaud Charpentier stating that he felt 70% of games on the mobile market weren't good enough.

Renaud stated, “When you look at the market, probably 20 to 30% of the games are confident, and maybe 60 to 70% are not good enough,” he said. “Usually, they run. Most of them don’t crash – most are competent technically. Most of them look okay or even good, but they play like s**t."

Meanwhile, Farley went on to suggest that the commonly low price-point of games on mobile platforms such as iTunes is partly responsible for the glut of rushed out clones and titles of a poorer quality.

"I don't think it can even support games selling for 79p," Farley replies. "When I was first buying games for my Atari 800 XL 8-bit computer the cheapest game you could get was £1.99, and that was 1984 or something.

"This is personal, and I don't represent Sega by saying this," Farley stressed, "but I think we're devaluing our product by selling it so cheaply. We're devaluing the experience, and we're dumbing down the experience."

"I've got nothing against Tiny Wings, I've got nothing against Angry Birds. I mean, Cut The Rope is a fantastic game, but that should sell for £4, not 79p... When you sell a game for so little you have to sell millions of them to make the economics work."

Total War: Battles is currently on sale at £2.99/$4.99 and it's a price-point Farley felt is proportionate to the quality of the game.

What do you think on the low cost of apps reflecting on their quality? Should better games inherently cost more to underline said quality, or would that turn people of the market? Let us know below.