Independent gaming could flourish on the iPhone

Chris Tompkins — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:05:44 -0700

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone 2.0 along with the app store, he surprised everyone by demonstrating a few small games along with it. Now, with WWDC and the launch of the App Store just next week, it will be interesting to see exactly how seriously developers will take the iPhone as a gaming platform.

It’s a capable machine, that’s for sure. Early prototypes of games made by independent developers rival the graphical complexity of a PSP or Nintendo DS. This is mostly thanks to the iPhone and iPod Touch’s use of Core Animation adapted for ARM processors, allowing for the advanced effects of OS X and now OpenGL accelerated 3D games.

Some are predicting this to be a boon for the mobile gaming industry, maybe even rivaling Nintendo’s DS. I predict a tamer response. Apple might finally put the lackluster java-based cell phone gaming market to death. While cell phones benefit from mobile stores for games and ubiquity, they suffer because they lack the graphical ability to run truly engaging games. Often they are designed poorly and only provide a minimal distraction at best. The PSP and Nintendo DS however, excel at developing and creating rich 3D games, but they lack an on demand store or constant internet connection. They do however, command a combined install base of nearly 84 million worldwide.

The iPhone hopes to sell 10 million units and it benefits from the best of both the cell phones and PSP’s strengths, without any of their weaknesses. It also happens to be an outstanding device already, which will be bought regardless of its gaming success. Developers can create games with the confidence that there will be a user base in existence for years to come. (Continued)

The one sore spot is the lack of physical controls, which will necessitate developers work creatively to build games around multi-touch and the accelerometer. Typical button mashing games (favorites of portable gaming) will never work without physical controls, and neither will most any other ports from other gaming systems. There are some genres that lend themselves to multi-touch though. For example, real-time strategy games like StarCraft, something developers never got right on portable platforms, could work perfectly with your fingers. Most of the staple puzzle games, which drive cell-phone gaming, will probably work flawlessly as well. When it comes to rich, in-depth gaming though, developers will be challenged to build an entirely new way to play with a multi-touch system. And as the Wii has proven, reinventing the controller can click with casual gamers, looking to kill between 15 minutes and an hour.

My recommendation to Apple, if they want to get serious about revolutionizing portable games through the iPhone; hire a small team of indie-game designers, like the famed Kenta Cho. Leave big developers to the major platforms and instead foster these independent designers like rock stars. (Cho’s retro rRootage has already been ported to the iPhone flawlessly.) Once they’ve created a few Apple branded games which show off the truly impressive abilities of gaming on a multi-touch platform, open up a set of tools for the thousands of other independent game designers and see what happens. We don’t want Grand Theft Auto IV, just something a little more engaging and colorful than Peggle, with a creative flair, to play while we rock out to our tunes on the subway ride home.

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