This week, let’s talk about two of the five positives in iPhone development:

Touchscreen/Accelerometer

The iPhone's novel control configurations lend themselves to new types of gameplay and new genres of games that you couldn’t otherwise imagine. While it’s common to see standard games ported to new control configurations, the really good games will take advantage of the new configurations and do new things with them. The iPhone touchscreen is really fun and easy to use, and completely changes the way games are traditionally controlled. Already, we see new genres of games emerging: fingerflick games (Flick Sportsfishing, Stick Wars), tapping games (Tap Tap Revenge, Letter Bug, Touchgrind), and line-drawing games (Flight Control, Karuki, Parachute Panic). While developing our first game, Letter Bug, we found that the touchscreen was a natural way to add a terrific element of fun and frenzy to the word game genre.

Similarly the accelerometer adds a completely new twist (sorry about the pun) to game creation. You can spin the iPhone or move it left and right, up and down, and forward and back. We see new genres emerging here, too. Shaker and dice games (Motion-X poker, Lock n’Roll), rotation games (Bed Bugs, Quick Turn), and back and forth games (Papi Jump, Lilt Line) all take gaming in a new direction using the accelerometer - and they’re all unique to the iPhone.

We are just beginning to see how touchscreen and the accelerometer can change game design and player actions. Instead of porting old game mechanics to the iPhone, continue to expect an explosion of creativity in the months to come around these innovative iPhone controls.

Indies can Flourish

Here’s a little story: we launched Letter Bug sometime in February 2009 with zero marketing dollars (I don’t recommend this strategy!) The game did fine, and started to slowly build an audience over the next 6 weeks or so. One morning we woke up to find downloads had increased tenfold - I almost choked on my bagel. It turned out Apple had discovered the game and loved it, so they put it on the front page (the “landing page”.) Within a few days we went all the way to #2 in the Word Game charts, just behind EA and Scrabble. So, here are 5 independent guys working in a little conference room in Santa Clara chasing the mighty EA and Scrabble up the charts!! Unbelievable…

This occurrence would have been unimaginable only a year or so ago. For the past 25 years, the retail channels have been owned by the big game publishers. There was virtually no room for independents who couldn’t land a deal with a major. The retail channels were locked up. Now, with the advent of digital distribution, all this is changing - fast! In the Apple iTunes app store alone, the number of independent game developers finding success AND the relative absence of big publisher titles in the top ten is astounding. Glancing at the top fifteen paid apps this morning, I only see one major publisher listed (Konami.) The rest of the list is comprised of independent game developers, most of whom were unknown just a month or two ago. These are independent game developers like Smule, Freeverse, Blue, etc. In all the years I have been doing this, I have never seen such a watershed year for independent game developers, especially those who can work fast, are agile in their development approach and can operate cost-efficiently.

It's a new world for independents like us, and the playing field seems to be wide open.