Apple Event from Last Wednesday.
SOURCE:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=21187
Summary:
Quote: Apple's senior director of marketing for iPhone, Bob Borchers, recently discussed the iPhone
games scene with Gamasutra's Christian Nutt while flanked by representatives from three major
publishing partners: EA Mobile, Gameloft, and ngmoco. Borchers didn't have much of substance to say
about the iPhone itself, but Nutt managed to score some exciting details on upcoming games.
Highlights from Gama's interview:
The hotly anticipated Need For Speed Undercover is due out next month, as first reported on STP,
not this month as some have speculated. Nutt says the game's graphics are "roughly on par with a
PSP title."
Gameloft showed off Ferrari GT Revolution, a racing game that's built on an upgraded version of the
Asphalt 4 engine. Ferrari's due out around the second week of December; we were able to go hands-on
with the game earlier today, and will release our impressions shortly.
Gameloft's Carmen Pearson also mentioned that "Apple is our company's top customer right now,"
which is pretty remarkable when you consider that the publisher's been working with huge mobile
carriers like Verizon for years.
ngmoco currently has 14 titles in development, with plans to bring five of them out before
Christmas. HandCircus's Simon Oliver divulged more details about his creation Rolando, which was
apparently inspired in part by Lemmings. Yeah, we see it. Full Story:
Quote: With the success of the iPhone (and the iPod Touch, which can also access the App Store),
there has been a huge influx of games to the platform, which is currently the best-selling U.S.
consumer mobile phone.
At a recent San Francisco briefing, Apple's senior director of marketing for iPhone, Bob Borchers,
showcased a range of upcoming iPhone game titles, and laid out his company's vision of why the
uptake has been so swift.
Though most people think of the iPhone as the single target platform, the iPod Touch also works
with the vast majority of applications. Borcher noted: "If you're a hardware developer you've got
two great platforms to develop for." On top of that, Apple has "worked very hard to develop [the
SDK] in a very comprehensive way."
While Sega's Super Monkey Ball, one of the launch games for the App Store and a 500,000 unit
seller, was an early indicator of what the platform is capable of -- Borcher described it as "a
posterchild of what's possible" -- he believes that "things have gone so much further than
that."
Of course, this is true in terms of choice as well, perhaps making it more difficult to sell that
many in today's iPhone game market. There are over 8,000 applications available on the store in 20
different categories; according to Borcher, over 200 million applications were downloaded in the
first 100 days of availability, from July 10, 2008.
Big Players, Big Games
To reinforce the strength of the platform, Borcher invited a handful of Apple-selected app
developers to present their games and software, starting with Electronic Arts.
Patrick Gunn, director of marketing for EA Mobile, showcased Need for Speed Undercover, which will
be available next month. Gunn says that EA has "taken full advantage of all of the unique
elements... like touch, flick, accelerometer, and motion sensitivity" -- and graphically, the game
appears to be roughly on par with a PSP title.
More revealingly, Gunn says, "The partnership that we are building with Apple in delivering these
great apps and helping sell more hardware is equally as exciting" as selling games on iPhone to
consumers.
He added: "From our perspective of being in the mobile industry for a long time, the UI that Apple
has delivered is so easy and so compelling that it makes shopping for apps so compelling, that it
has us excited."
Gameloft also showed a 3D driving game, Ferrari GT Evolution, which will also be available in
December. PR manager Carmen Pearson gave out some interesting stats -- the publisher, part of
Ubisoft, has over 18 titles on the app store currently, and notes that "Apple is actually
Gameloft's top customer right now."
Neil Young, who recently founded iPhone-oriented startup ngmoco, commented, "We specifically
created our company to focus on the iPhone and iPod Touch. We have 14 games in development right
now."
Five ngmoco titles will be released between now and the Holiday season, though the company chose
specifically to showcase Rolando, its platform/puzzle hybrid that calls to mind Sony's
LocoRoco.
Time was also given to demonstrations from marketing firm AKQA, which is handling retail apps for
Target and Gap, social networking tool Loopt, and Handmark, which is launching a version of the
Zagat restaurant guide for iPhone. Handmark's Cassidy Lackey also commented that while its GTS
World Racing game is available for a variety of smartphones, "our iPhone version generates 98% of
our revenue."
In-Depth: Talking Rolando
After the presentation concluded, Gamasutra had a chance to speak to the presenters about their
game titles and get some time to try out the applications.
Simon Oliver, founder of Hand Circus, the London-based developer of Rolando, explained that though
he had never developed a game before, he has worked in new media and Flash development and had been
toying with the idea of making games for some time.
He had also considered the XNA Community Games service as an outlet for his aspirations before
settling on the "uncharted territory" of the iPhone.
When Super Monkey Ball and Spore Origins were first revealed, Oliver concluded that "it was very
much an indication that [the platform] was viable" for games, and at that point he began to move
forward with prototyping Rolando.
According to him, the title drew its initial inspiration from early-'80s British kids show
Terrahawks, which features a group of rolling robots, as well as PC and console classic Lemmings.
Oliver believes that games which are "heavily evolved" to make use of the iPhone's unique control
properties "will fit that platform best."
His initial challenge was getting the Lemmings-esque gameplay to work, combined with the rolling
characters he'd envisioned when inspired by Terrahawks.
Though Rolando started with a puzzle-oriented point and click design, like Lemmings, "it evolved
into something more platformery. We had to throw away a lot of stuff," while prototyping, Oliver
admits, "but it's led to a lot of fun things. It's been very iterative."
Development on the game began in June this year, and became a collaboration with Finnish
illustrator Mikko Walamies, whose pop-art design (he's a T-shirt designer by trade) has lent the
game its colorful LocoRoco-like look.
While Oliver originally intended to release the game independently, he hooked up with ngmoco after
he released his first trailer. He notes that ngmoco's staff "has been a great creative sounding
board" thanks to their experience in the industry, and has also facilitated music licensing -- the
game features tunes by DJ and musician Mr. Scruff.
The Established Names of Gaming
EA Mobile's Patrick Gunn notes that the company's overall console expertise "certainly helps" in
developing games for the iPhone, noting that the company intends to "bring as much advanced gaming
to this platform as it can handle."
While noting that dealing with carriers on other mobile platforms is difficult, the ability to
directly market to consumers on the iPhone is extremely attractive to EA. Despite the large
selection, Gunn says, "We've had no trouble staying in the top 100 apps."
Sanette Chao, director of PR for Gameloft, feels that the iPhone opens up more opportunity for the
carrier, noting, as her colleague Carmen Pearson did during their presentation ,that the company
has been very aggressive in releasing games for the platform.
Though the company has not done much research into the audience spread yet, "we see it very
competitive to DS and PSP", according to Chao. She also notes that while typical DS games clock in
at 20 or 30MB (but can go as high as 256MB), iPhone apps top out at 100MB, allowing much more room
than Nintendo's platform for the average game.
What makes the system a competitor -- its graphics abilities or its unique controls? "A little bit
of both," Chao suggests, noting that she believes currently released games from Gameloft only tap
into "10% of the capabilities" of the platform, and explaining that the company's second generation
of titles will begin to launch in January.
Casual titles have been "really successful on iPod" for Gameloft, but Chao sees the iPhone as
attracting more than just a casual audience -- the company seeks a "good balance" of titles while
"targeting also the hardcore gamers." MORE ABOUT FERRARI GT EVOLUTION:
http://www.slidetoplay.com/story/fer...ution-hands-on
Recommandations
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and reject those that you are not interested in
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