iPhone Dominates 2009 Mobile Game Developers Conference

[MacRumors]

Last week, game developers descended on San Francisco to take part in the 2009 Game Developers Conference (GDC). GDC was broken up into different segments with the first two days dedicated to Mobile gaming. The mobile keynote speech was given by Ngmoco's CEO Neil Young and was appropriately titled Why the iPhone just changed everything. Young's keynote described the dramatic change the iPhone brought to the mobile gaming industry which was previously focused on carrier negotiations and porting to all the different handheld variants.

Perhaps most telling was the fact that the iPhone dominated the Independent Games Festival awards in Mobile at GDC winning 6 out of 7 categories, including Best Mobile Game. iPhone winners included (app names link directly to app store):

- Mobile Audio Achievement Award: Zen Bound (Secret Exit)
- Technical Achievement: Real Racing (Firemint) - Preview
- Art: Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios)
- Design: Galcon (Hassey Enterprises)
- Best iPhone Game: Zen Bound (Secret Exit)
- IGF Mobile Best Game: Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios)

All finalists have also been listed by Apple on a special page in the iTunes App Store.

GDC also served to be the launching/demo ground for a number of notable future iPhone gaming titles including 14 new titles from EA, Paramount's Top Gun, Showtime's Dexter, and Ngmoco's Star Defense, Touch Pet Dogs, and LiveFire.

Most notable is the fact that the App Store is less than a year old, so the iPhone had no presence at GDC last year.

Article Link: iPhone Dominates 2009 Mobile Game Developers Conference

 

[DanielJvdBerg]

That's some good news the iPhone has more and more presence.

 

[Airforcekid]

Wow there lucky! Thats a lot of people to compete with.

 

[sammich]

What are the sales of the iPhone verse the iPod Touch? Whenever they refer to App Store gaming, they always refer to the iPhone. Just curious.

Go Fieldrunners!

 

[arn]

What are the sales of the iPhone verse the iPod Touch? Whenever they refer to App Store gaming, they always refer to the iPhone. Just curious.

Go Fieldrunners!

Apple released numbers at the 3.0 event.

17 million iPhones
13 million iPod Touches

arn

 

[sammich]

Apple released numbers at the 3.0 event.

17 million iPhones
13 million iPod Touches

arn

That's a lot more Touch's than I thought. Jackpot for Apple.

[app]Galcon[/app] is on sale for $1 this week! I was holding off, but it's a no-brainer now

 

[talkingfuture]

It looks like the iPhone as a gaming platform is growing very quickly. I don't think Sony and Nintendo were prepared for it to grow so fast and be so good at gaming either.

Interestingly on "The Gadget Show", a UK tech show they did a handheld gaming test last week in which the iPod Touch beat the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP to be named best portable gaming platform.

 

[WhySoSerious]

i guess i'm probably the only one who thinks this is stupid.

i wanted the iphone to be a smartphone first.....gaming, not so much. if i wanted to have a device focus so much on gaming, i would have bought a PSP or DS.

 

[iCantwait]

wow, bitches be crazy or wha?

 

[ztigerpaw]

Nice. I've been thinking of my 1st Gen iPod Touch more and more as a gaming device then anything else lately. Can't wait to see the rest of the year's games.

 

[koobcamuk]

i guess i'm probably the only one who thinks this is stupid.

I don't game on mine either - I have dedicated machines. That's not to say this is stupid. I would like to be a dev pulling in $£$£$£ everyday from app sales.

 

[speakerwizard]

What are the sales of the iPhone verse the iPod Touch? Whenever they refer to App Store gaming, they always refer to the iPhone. Just curious.

Go Fieldrunners!

well i think its because the touch is a 'secondary device' that benefits from the iphone dev (hard / software) its like a cut down version almost, but also a way to teach people how to use an iphone without them knowing it, making their next phone purchase an obvious one, who would buy a blackberry / HTC etc without the phone part? shows how good the iphone is, even without a phone.

 

[arn]

i guess i'm probably the only one who thinks this is stupid.

i wanted the iphone to be a smartphone first.....gaming, not so much. if i wanted to have a device focus so much on gaming, i would have bought a PSP or DS.

And shockingly enough, the iPhone's ability to be a gaming machine actually doesn't detract from your ability to use it as a smartphone.

arn

 

[RedTomato]

Who would buy a blackberry / HTC etc without the phone part? shows how good the iphone is, even without a phone.

Interesting point. Very true.

 

[john7jr]

What are the sales of the iPhone verse the iPod Touch? Whenever they refer to App Store gaming, they always refer to the iPhone. Just curious.

The iPhone OS is a platform. Whenever they say iPhone they are referring to the family of products including iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod touch, and 2nd gen iPod touch.

i guess i'm probably the only one who thinks this is stupid.

i wanted the iphone to be a smartphone first.....gaming, not so much. if i wanted to have a device focus so much on gaming, i would have bought a PSP or DS.

Apple is really pushing the iPhone in Corporate, while trying to push the iPod touch as a gaming device. The fact that neither is exclusive to each area only makes it better for people who want to do both of those things. I use my iPhone as a corporate device, yet it's got a few games on it to say the least.

=)

 

[lamadude]

I still think the iphone is too limited as a gaming device because of it's lack of buttons. All those racing games where you need to tilt the device to steer etc, it's just way too inaccurate. On the other hand certain puzzle games where you don't need such precise input could work.
I'm sticking with my DS for the time being but maybe I'm just not enough of a "casual gamer" that iphone developers are looking for.

 

[diamond.g]

It looks like the iPhone as a gaming platform is growing very quickly. I don't think Sony and Nintendo were prepared for it to grow so fast and be so good at gaming either.

Interestingly on "The Gadget Show", a UK tech show they did a handheld gaming test last week in which the iPod Touch beat the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP to be named best portable gaming platform.

Sony is probably more worried than Nintendo.

 

[Oh-es-Ten]

Apple is really pushing the iPhone in Corporate, while trying to push the iPod touch as a gaming device. The fact that neither is exclusive to each area only makes it better for people who want to do both of those things. I use my iPhone as a corporate device, yet it's got a few games on it to say the least.
=)

I agree. I think that development breeds development. The iPhone/iPod Touch platform is flexible enough now that it does not suffer if you don't use it as a gaming device, or purely as a corporate tool.

I think the SDK is truly the envy of all the other manufacturers as the same device can be your work and home tool, and easily switch from one to the other.

The SDK itself also introduces more developers to the Mac as well. For us, it is win-win!

 

[Bubba Satori]

Maybe some of this will dribble off into game development for Apple Computer. Oh, wait, it's Apple inc. now.

 

[lamadude]

Interestingly on "The Gadget Show", a UK tech show they did a handheld gaming test last week in which the iPod Touch beat the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP to be named best portable gaming platform.

I think this says more about "the gadget show" than about the iPhone. If look at the DS with games like Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, New super mario bros, advance wars games, fire emblem, mario kart DS, mario & luigi partners in time, metroid prime, final fantasy tactics A2, Trauma center, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow etc etc etc

I consider any of these games better than what's available on iPhone, and most of these games wouldn't even be possible on iPhone because it doesn't have any buttons.

I'm not blaming apple here, it's totally normal that a phone isn't as good for games as a dedicated gaming device such as the nintendo DS, but when people clame that the iPhone is actually better for games they are really exaggerating.

 

[lftrghtparadigm]

Some of the larger game developers had better get their heads on straight if they want the iPad gaming to continue. There actually IS more to it than just having a slam-dunk distribution model.

They have to stop releasing games under official titles that are jokes by co parison. dS and PSP do not have this problem as they continue to wow users with the amount on real content packed into a game.
But to sell someone The Force Unleashed or Metal Gear Solid, and have neither top-priced game resemble anything the customer may have wanted... Well fool me once, maybe twice, but that's it. Other users are the same way. They won't be falling for the crap much more

 

[Cleverboy]

I've been playing Wolfenstein for the last few days and I'm addicted to finishing this ALL OVER AGAIN. I mean, same frustrations, same anxiety, same goofy sound affects and tongue-in-cheek action. It's all good.

~ CB

 

[NightFox]

6 out of 7?

Good result for the iPhone, but I would have been somewhat surprised to see another platform win the "Best iPhone Game" category...

 

[str1f3]

I still think the iphone is too limited as a gaming device because of it's lack of buttons. All those racing games where you need to tilt the device to steer etc, it's just way too inaccurate. On the other hand certain puzzle games where you don't need such precise input could work.
I'm sticking with my DS for the time being but maybe I'm just not enough of a "casual gamer" that iphone developers are looking for.

If that's a problem for you, then it has been answered. Since 3.0 gives you the ability to use the dock connector, you're going to see 3rd party controllers and keyboards all over the place.

 

[DELLsFan]

i guess i'm probably the only one who thinks this is stupid.

i wanted the iphone to be a smartphone first.....gaming, not so much. if i wanted to have a device focus so much on gaming, i would have bought a PSP or DS.

+1

I like that the iPhone is getting more exposure, but it's not a PSP or DS. Spending a premium amount of cash for an iPhone implies you need a smart phone.

I've seen how kids use the PSP and DS. I'd rather not subject my iPhone to this kind of "attention". For that matter, given how many iPhone apps tend to be commandeered for pr0n purposes, I don't think it's appropriate for minor children to own an iPhone or iPod touch.

Just my two cents.