iPhone Pwns at iGames Summit and Game Developers Conference
There's so much going on in iPhone gaming right now, it's almost as hard to keep up with that as with iPhone 3.0. Two large industry shows bookend much of the current news, iGames Summit and Game Developers Conference (GDC). With multiple awards, great discussions on the future, and a slew of upcoming product announcements, we figured we'd take a moment and round things up...
Apple Insider took a look at iGames, focusing on:
"Lessons Learned: Why iPhone Games Work,” [a panel] with Neil Young of ngmoco, Andrew Lacy of Tapulous, Steve Demeter of Demiforce LLC (the developer of Trism featured in the iPhone 3.0 presentation held by Apple two days ago), and Keith Lee of Booyah
"Where Do We Go From Here?" [panel with] Rebecca Lynn of Morgenthaler Ventures moderated a discussion about the future of iPhone gaming, involving Brett Seyler of Garage Games, Michael Chang of Greystripe, David Helgason of Unity Technologies, and Greg Yardley of Pinch Media.
["Building Gesture-Driven Games for the iPhone" where] Shervin Pishevar of the Social Gaming Network demonstrated the use of the iPhone or iPod touch as "virtual Wii Remotes" for interacting with PC games.
Macworld, meanwhile, tells us the iPhone dominated the Independent Game Festival (IGF) awards at GDC, taking back all but one of the trophies:
- Audio achievement: Zen Bound
- Technical achievement: Firemint Real Racing
- Art: Fieldrunners
- Innovation in mobile game design: Galcon
- Best iPhone game: Zen Bound
- Best mobile game: Fieldrunners
TUAW caught up with ngmoco's Neil Young for his keynote where he declared the iPhone platform:
"better than the DS, better than the PSP," he said, referring to Nintendo and Sony's handheld gaming devices, because not only is tops in terms of usability (it's "always on, always with you"), and not only is it easier than any other platform to develop for, but the market is gigantic and growing
We mentioned Facebook Connect with iPhone Scrabble, and id Software's Wolfenstein (already out!) and Doom talk, but EA also made with the upcoming release announcements. According to Edible Apple, these included:
- SIMS 3
- Spore Creatures
- Command & Conquer
- Connect Four
- Clue
- RISK
- Mystery Mania
- Wolfenstein RPG
- American Idol
- Battleship
- Need for Speed
- Monopoly
Maybe Jeremy was right and there's a future in all this iPhone gaming? What are you looking forward to most?
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They work because ease of attainability. Everyone carries their phones around but who wants to carry a 50 pound PS3 or X-box 360 around?
They need to make a controler to live on though...
Maybe they should change the name from iPhone to iGame. So many games coming, lots look really sweet. PSP and DS watch out!
This is so amazing. It's changing everything! I think apple should make a D-pad that connects to the port on the bottom.
Get on that Rene
Clue. Mobile Clue, with actual AI that is intelligent and cunning, would be amazing.
Yes iPhone gaming may be an emerging market, but it will never challenge the DS or PSP in their market because its primary function is to be a mobile phone, that costs from £65 p/m contract to £400+ PayG. While the DS Lite(Currently £90 and about to be replaced) and PSP (Around £120) are for one, much cheaper, and two, more specialised. The games for these consoles are much better too.
Ah well, iPhone games are great, but only 5 minute timewasters after all. Hence the price tag.
"but only 5 minute timewasters after a"
your knowledge about iphone games seems very sparse
There is a controller that will be out soon, I can't wait....http://www.icontrolpad.com/
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