He’s not the only one. Video game console titans Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are facing growing competition from the increasing popularity of games played on mobile telephones or Internet-enabled gizmos.

“A game’s creativity used to depend on the hardware,” said Ide, a 19-year-old computer programming student who is developing an iPhone game as part of his studies.

“A successful game now is one that’s simple and reaches a wide network of people,” he told AFP at last weekend’s Tokyo Game Show.

Major industry players have also begun to recognise the potential of smartphones as a springboard to reach casual gamers, due to the runaway popularity of the iPhone and iPod Touch, both of which debuted two years ago.

Of the 758 software titles on display at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, 168 were designed for mobile telephones — twice as many as last year.

“Cellphones are a very promising platform,” said Kazumi Kitaue, chief executive of Konami Digital Entertainment, publisher of video games including the Metal Gear and Silent Hill series.

“The appeal is that everyone owns one. A family with three children may have one PlayStation 3, but three cellphones with which they can download and play games,” he said.

Making games for mobile phones also enables developers to reduce costs in the face of the worst global economic downturn in decades.

“They won’t have to spend a great deal of money and effort developing new software,” said Hirokazu Hamamura, president of Enterbrain Inc., a video game magazine publisher.

“They’ll be able to capture a client base through the iTunes store,” he added, referring to Apple’s portal for downloading music and games.

With their high-resolution images, role-playing games for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 consoles often demand budgets comparable to those of Hollywood blockbusters, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.

In contrast, a cellphone game can cost just a few thousand dollars to develop.

Media Magic, a company that develops games for Japanese cellphones, is among those firms that seek a bright future for games for the iPhone.

“We saw the iPhone as a threat in the beginning. But since the same device is used all over the world there is greater opportunity for a bigger market,” said Mitsuru Oshibo, a content developer with the firm.

About 80 percent of game developers in Japan have dabbled in creating games for the iPhone, according to an analysis of 100 companies by CRI Middleware Co., which creates software components for video games.

But bigger game developers are feeling the pressure as smartphones threaten to sap the industry’s traditional source of revenue from sales of games for consoles such as the PS3, the Xbox 360 or Nintendo’s Wii.

Apple boasts hundreds of thousands of applications in its App Store, some of which are priced at less than one dollar.

Analysts say the company attracts at least 80,000 downloads each day, but with prices so low, some developers are wary about jumping on the bandwagon.

“When we look at that business model, we ask ourselves, ‘when can we really make the shift’?” asked Shin Unozawa, head of Namco Bandai, the Japanese company behind such games as Pac-Man and Tekken.

“It’s quite frightening to think of changing to a different model,” he said.

Even so, Bandai Namco said it is stepping up game development for Apple gadgets, showing at the Tokyo Game Show its “Ace Combat Xi” arcade-style action game formatted specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Rival Square Enix is doing the same, with a handful of titles in the works to be unleashed ahead of the crucial year-end holiday season.

Competition among hardware makers is also hotting up. Apple this month introduced a revamped version of the iPod Touch, with founder Steve Jobs calling it a “great game machine.”

That came after Sony released in June a PlayStation Portable Go handheld game, movie and music gadget, seeking to challenge the success of Nintendo’s DS handheld machine.

There is even speculation that Sony is working on a PSP phone, although the company has remained tight-lipped.

However, despite the buzz surrounding the iPhone, some experts doubt that the gadget can lure away hardcore gamers.

“Users do have an amazing variety of choice” with the iPhone, said KBC Securities analyst Hiroshi Kamide.

“But it’s probably a quality versus quantity argument whereby a lot of the applications on iPhone and iTouch aren’t very good,” he added.

Kenji Miura, a 23-year-old who describes himself as an avid console enthusiast, was unconvinced by a role-playing game he tried out on an iPhone.

“It’s difficult to handle and the images are hard to see,” he said at the game show. “When it comes to playing games, I want to buy a proper console.”

Undoubtedly the iPhone has plenty of muscle. Games such as Super Monkey Ball and Crash Kart Racing have proven that the device is capable of decent 3D gaming. The device is also presumably quite capable of online gaming since it has rather robust connectivity options. This begs the question, where are all the awesome iPhone games? I don’t want to be overly critical of the games available for the iPhone since there are several quality games available. That said, outside of a small handful of games, the iPhone library does not begin to deliver the quality of games available on either the Dreamcast or DS to which the iPhone has been compared. Why is this?

The iPhone has a great screen. It is capable of being very bright, has excellent resolution and is quite responsive as an interface. In addition, it can recognize more than one touch at once. Outside of the screen as user interface the iPhone and has tilt control and the as of yet unused (as far as I am aware) camera and GPS. This all sounds good on paper and works wonderfully as an interface for the iPhone as a media device however there are some problems with the iPhone as gaming device. Games for iPhone wisely, as a rule, seem to have abandoned attempting to recreate the console controller on the iPhone. Without the tactile responsiveness of real buttons, virtual buttons or joysticks on the iPhone screen don’t give enough feedback for a traditional console type experience. Additionally any buttons take up screen space that ideally will be used for graphics. Successful iPhone games that have a console feel, such as Crash Kart and Super Monkey Ball, use the accelerometer for a primary user interface. Crash Kart has a general area that the player can touch to activate a power slide and steering is done by tilting the iPhone. In Bomberman Touch, the player touches the side of the screen to move, replacing the traditional joystick control. Using touch zones rather then buttons frees up space for graphics when some elements of the user interface are not being used.

Most designers appear to have entirely focused on more casual games with a mouse inspired user interface. Many of them work quite well. Most of the card, mahjong, and board type games translate quite decently. A key problem with casual games on the iPhone is that since the screen is so small it may be difficult to accurately touch a specific piece in a game of mahjong or solitaire. This is a minor gripe for games that are rather straight ports of classic board or card games whose rules dictate a specific piece layout. Additionally many of these games do not offer much more than any number of free to play online flash games or time wasters.

When the mouse control scheme is used for more action oriented type games things can become problematic since the act of moving your finger or tapping obscures a considerable portion of the screen. I have not yet found this particularly problematic with any of the games I’ve played on the iPhone. However, I did find it to be quite difficult with a painting program, Brushes. So difficult, in fact, that I ordered a stylus. Ultimately user interface design for the iPhone games is in its infancy. There has been rumor of peripherals being developed for the iPhone such as the Belkin Joypod and iControlpad which, if released, will turn your iPhone into something akin to a PSP. This may bring a greater variety of games to the iPhone, but it could balkanize the iPhone gaming library as different games receive different levels of support for peripherals. I personally would prefer to see designers rise to the challenge of designing for the iPhone. The system offers new and interesting opportunities and challenges for game design. Truthfully there are many more challenges for game makers on the iPhone. However with creativity and persistence interesting and exciting new games can be made.

The second reason for the lack of quality games seems due to the fact that as a true multimedia device any game must be more engaging than any movie, piece of music, Youtube video, and the internet (pornography included). Not only does a developer have to compete for an end users time but they must compete for the end users space on their iPhone. This means that even a big concept game needs to be relatively small in size. These concerns create quite a bit of risk for an iPhone developer. Even if there are solid numbers on the install base for the iPhone I don’t think there is a clear idea of what sort of attach rate games will ultimately have on the iPhone. This fact, along with size concerns, may relegate the iPhone to the position of a strictly casual gaming machine. This is unfortunate since the possibilities for a device with such an interesting set of technical assets is very wide. Beyond simply what is possible graphics and processing wise, the iPhone could be used for some very innovative stuff. Imagine a game that tracks players in the real world thru GPS to allow players to gain points for finding or occupying specific locations or an “enhanced reality game” that would allow a virtual avatar to interact with the real world thru a combination of motion control and the camera. These are by no means new ideas however the iPhone actually is a popular and capable enough device to make such gaming pipe dreams a reality.

The final challenge and perhaps most significant reason that great games have not found their way to the app store is largely a financial one. The iPhone apps store in many ways resembles the Wild West where anything goes. Apple, it seems, does not in any way filter the content that makes its way onto the iPhone nor, it appears do they enforce any type of pricing structure. This may initially seem beneficial to the consumer however in reality it is not. As an example, if a user searches for “Cowbell” in the apps they will come up with several results with a price point ranging from a few dollars to free. This level of granularity seems intuitively like a good thing. If a potential consumer wants a simple cowbell they can opt for the free app. If, in the unlikely event that they want a fully featured musical instrument, that option is available to them. The reality of the situation is a bit different. The task of adding value over a similar free app is very difficult. This makes developing for the iPhone quite risky. Development costs even for a small app can be quite high and since Apple does not appear to have any pricing structure there is no guarantee that a competitor may not offer a similar app at a much lower cost. In order for great games to make their way to the iPhone consumers must speak with their money. This means being willing to pay a premium price for high quality offerings. The flip side of the coin is that Apple needs to enforce a pricing structure for content and figure out a way to act as gatekeepers in a way that is both fair and maintains a minimum standard of quality. This does raise the bar for the aspiring bedroom developer and will block a segment of would-be iPhone programmers from having their apps see the light of day, but I think it would ultimately increase the quality of software available. I have no problem with Apple allowing free apps, but the large number of similar low quality, cheaply made games in the app store seem to have created a gaming ghetto where only low quality free or cheap games can survive. A more proactive model is needed, such as the Xbox Live Store which Microsoft heavily monitors and will go so far as to enforce prices for content offered. This would inevitably increase prices in the apps store but would also hopefully inspire game makers to take chances and develop some bigger concept games. This may be a moot point if the game development community has written the iPhone off as a casual only device.

I’m going to forgo any sort of scoring for the iPhone and instead take a wait and see approach. Hopefully games such as Line Rider, Vay, and Spore Origins will prove that a wide range of game types can successfully sell on the iPhone. Hopefully consumers will demand more than the tired casual games and sloppy racers. Hopefully good iPhone games such as Super Monkey Ball and (the admittedly casual) Bubble Bash are getting supported. Until then I’ll be patiently waiting for all the good iPhone games.

in my last post I mentioned that the best time for programming (in my case) is in the morning. Try it and you’ll be surprised how efficient you are! While morning works best for programming, the evening is great time for studying. As a retired person a have a lot of free time so aside from my daily duties and other hobbies, I study materials related to the game development every evening just before I go to bed. My dream to make my own iPhone game is so strong I can resist! I even don’t know how long I have been dreaming about it, but it has been quite long time since I started my everyday “granny coder routine” – programming in the morning and studying in the evening.

Game Development 101

Are you new to the game development and would you like to know how it works? Well I was in the same shoes as you are in now – my understanding to it was equalling to zero. I had no idea how to make games and how the entire industry works. I am not saying that I know it now, but I have much better insight and I am familiar with the basic principles and mechanisms. In this spot I would like to share some of my knowledge with you.

Game development – who do we need?

In the game development process there’s a lot of people involved. At least you need one person with the role of:

Programmer
A person who is in charge of code of the game. He / She puts all the game mechanisms to the code that computer can understand.

Artist
A person who is in charge of visual aspect of the game. If your game is 2D, you need 2D artist (and 3D artist for 3D game).

Game Designer
One of the most important member of your team – this person is in charge of the main idea and all game mechanisms and principles. The more experienced game designer the better game will be.

Level Designer
Level Designer is often the right hand of Game Designer. He / She is in charge of the creating of levels or maps in the game.

Sound Engineer
The person who is in charge of sound effects, music and other stuff. We don’t want our game to be silent, do we?

Tester
This person has very boring (some people say exciting) duty – he / she has to go thoroughly through the whole game and look for the bug and other errors in the game.

…and a lot of more people (producers, project managers and so on).

iPhone game development specifics

Developing games for iPhone is very specific in comparison with developing “big” videogames (they call them AAA titles). That’s why iPhone games are often very small and the number of people involved is very small. In my case it is just me who is involved in the whole development process of my game – I have no co-workers so I have to undertake all design, graphic, programming, sound and testing stuff. And of course, I am my own manager :-). It may sounds crazy for someone, but I have always wanted to do something I could be proud of and I strongly feel THIS is the opportunity!

I will continue this spot next time, because I have to feed my animals now (Yes, the can’t wait).

Love,

Granny

“Just about every person of our generation has gone through at least one phase of obsession with video games, and can relate to the way a player gets wrapped up in that interactive experience. And how many kids dream of making these games, only to “grow out of it”? Well, in a time when video games are more popular than ever, among kids, college students and even elderly people (Nintendo Wii has hit retirement homes, believe it or not), there’s more opportunity than ever to pursue a career in video game development—which is exactly what two Chicago-area students are doing.

Justin C. Moore and Joshua Hernandez are recent graduates of the Flashpoint Academy in Chicago, IL, where they met and collaborated on designing a game that can now be found on Xbox Live Marketplace and soon on the iPhone. Moore, who studied game design, says he heard of Flashpoint Academy at just the right time. “I got a flier in the mail; it was really fortuitous, as I was unemployed for the summer of 2007 and didn’t know what I was gonna be doing in the fall,” says Moore. After completing his undergraduate degree at MIT a few years ago, Moore knew he wanted to pursue his hobby of programming, and Flashpoint was the perfect place to learn his trade.”

Read More About Game Development Graduates from Flashpoint Academy!