Mobile Games Industry Anticipating IPhone Access

It’s not news that Apple is “secretly plotting” to eventually have games on the iPhone, but they’re not here yet (without hacks). Currently games have to be offered via the Safari browser, notes Reuters, which creates some challenges for games developers because “some ways of using the touch controls, such as dragging items across the screen, don’t work within the browser. Playing through the browser also means you’ll be out of luck if you’re outside of a coverage area”. Popcap has already converted Bejewelled to be playable via the iPhone, and the ability to drag items would have worked very well with that game. It’s had hits from 100,000 people, which is a pretty significant number considering the amount of iPhones that have been sold.

The games industry people quoted by Reuters are all delighted with the iPhone: “It has an amazing interface for games and there are lots of beautiful things you can do with that touch interface” reckons Travis Boatman, vice president of worldwide studios for the mobile division of Electronic Arts Inc. While that’s probably true, I doubt that the touch-screen is going to solve all the interface trouble many companies have designing games for mobile. Michael Chang, founder of Greystripe (which passed 14 million free downloads in 12 months, according to TechCrunch) opined: “We look at the iPhone as a really big deal. It basically makes the channel of distribution owned by Apple as opposed to owned by the carrier…Apple understands content, as opposed to carriers that are acting a lot like media companies”.

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