App Store Idea

[Matty77]

See attached image.

Idea I have for a community styled 'app store'.

Localised developers (per city) produce apps restricted by geographic location of developer.  Multiple app sites ie Melbourne might be one. 

Users restricted by local region or at least can filter by zone.  Eg find all apps developed near your locality.

By tightening and reducing the size of regions can promote interactivity between communities of users and developers in same city/suburb across the globe.

Allow for greater communication between local developer groups and possibility of users meeting home town developers.

Like Google play etc but split by geographical location of developers and users.
 

[b10b]

When I read this I wondered "is this one of those ideas that is so bad it is good?".  I checked it wasn't April 1st ... it's worthy of a response at least

I see public education on buy-local is increasing and there seems to be some appetite for it when it comes to farm produce.  For a finite set of perishable consumables requiring transportation it makes a lot of sense, and when it's combined with keeping money in the community invested into resources that have long term requirements and benefits (like feeding the population) it's a logical ideology.  But even with all that, "most people" still prefer to have their produce shipped from the other side of the planet - so long as it's cheapest and looks symmetrical. 

So when dealing with a digital entertainment product like games I struggle to find any comparable case for buy-local.  They aren't finite, nor essential, they aren't perishable, they don't require physical transportation - possibly the only remaining benefit to buy-local would be to keep the money in the community from a philanthropic perspective?  But given that games are so abundant and they have become so niche over the last 30 years the chances of a local community being properly served today using only market forces with a local developer pool is unlikely.  I expect it would require significant regulatory control to prevent "blackmarket" games entering the market from outside the community?  The result would negatively impact choice and opportunity for buyers and sellers alike.

So is there any evidence local markets for games works?  Yes - I keep thinking back to the early days of shareware, before the web.  Games were distributed on cassette tapes, floppy disks - and friends and local markets were a good source.  Mail distribution caught on soon after, but there was something very satisfying about the immediacy of collecting a game from a local source and playing it an hour later.  Of course an hour is an eternity to wait today when we have downloadable content as standard.  But my conclusion would be that there needs to be a "physical" barrier to entry to encourage geographic supply.  Identify that and leverage it to the benefit of both buyer and seller and you may have something good.

[Wolfsbane]

Oh I don't know. Maybe the marketing team of local business could login and check who's nearby, and what games they've made? So they can easily contact someone and get something customized for their business. I think most small businesses try hard to market via social media/marketing, and I think games would be a great way to boost the image.. and (small) web games are honestly relatively cheap, and HTML5 games can go just about anywhere thesedays (App, facebook, web, etc). I think most non-techy's are cautious about using off-shore resources, and a bit ignorant of the potential, but a local dev who can roll in, see the business, explain where it can go,  and adapt an old design for $1-$3k within a week could be pretty tempting.