I run mogade.com. Most of the games that use the service are on Windows Phone. The sense that I get is that Microsoft treats its indie developers pretty poorly.<p>They essentially get no help in terms of promotion, services, and support. Plus there's growing confusion over the future of the platform (fragmentation caused by WP8, the future of Silverlight...)<p>Some people use mogade just for the very basic real time stats it provides, which blows my mind. I mean, how can't Microsoft provide this kind of basic service. It pretty much boils down to: hincrby app yyyymmdd 1<p>Until this is fixed, I wouldn't hold my breath. If it was me, I'd be innovating on the developer service/support side at a painful pace. First class facebook library. Great stats. XBox Live Lite/Indie (which would kill the need for mogade, and would make me happy). Discovery and promotion tools. Better store.
Most of the arguments seem sane, if a bit superficial. The core point is basically FUD though: Apple and Microsoft are more invested ("all in") in their platforms than Google, so developers should think "if I develop for Android today, what kind of guarantees do I have that the OS will still be supported tomorrow." Yawn.<p>Most tellingly, the open source and zero-license-cost angle isn't treated at all. It's as if the AOSP and the Kindle didn't exist, which seems strange.<p>Edit: for clarity, the point isn't that Android is free and therefore "best" -- it's that an analysis of its expected lifespan like this one that <i>ignores</i> the fact that the code is free for anyone is either wrong or incomplete.
<i>During this week’s proceedings surrounding Oracle’s lawsuit against Google over use of Java code in Android, Larry Page made a very curious remark: he said he wasn’t sure that Android was a critical asset to Google and saw it as mainly a vehicle to get Google products to run on mobile devices. This was an odd bit of signaling as it seemed to imply that support for Android as a platform is far from guaranteed.</i><p>no it wasn't. it's context is from a few years ago. hint: "<i>was</i>"<p><i>if I develop for Android today, what kind of guarantees do I have that the OS will still be supported tomorrow.</i><p>this kind <a href="http://cdn1.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/3736479/Slide_57_gallery_post.png" rel="nofollow">http://cdn1.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/3736479/Slide_57...</a>