It's all about the App Store

Feb 3rd 2009 at 17:00 by Niall Fraser

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Also, the store is open to pretty much anyone with no pitching and haggling to be done to get your game on. The AppStore gives the developer immediate sales data as well as the reviewers feedback so it's much easier than on mobile to see how a game is being received. You can also notify purchasers of new versions which is really handy. It's a big change from mobile.

Of course the biggest change from mobile is that there's just one platform. Hurrah! On mobile you have to design and adjust the game to work with a range of screen sizes, memory limits, button layouts and processor speeds. On iPhone you can focus on making the game a good as possible to play on that one device.

I think there will be a lot more unusual and creative games on iPhone that possibly wouldn't have got the prominence on mobile. The big screen and touch input also gives the potential for a very different style of game.

The pricing is also very different. It's not settled yet but seems to be moving down from the prices of mobile games and a lot more people are willing to just 'give something a try' at the lower price.