Apple Continues to Become More Important in the Gaming Industry
It’s been a great few weeks for iOS gamers. Along with the recent release of PUBG, the arrival of Fortnite has been making waves as gamers can play the full title and even compete against users of the console version.
And in a new TechCrunch story, Apple’s Greg Joswiak and other popular game developers discuss the mobile gaming groundswell.
The Apple vice president of product marketing said the iPhone and iOS offers a unique combination for gamers:
“They’re bringing the current generation of console games to iOS,” Joswiak says, of launches like Fortnite and PUBG, and notes that he believes we’re at a tipping point when it comes to mobile gaming, because mobile platforms like the iPhone and iOS offer completely unique combinations of hardware and software features that are iterated on quickly.
“Every year we are able to amp up the tech that we bring to developers,” he says, comparing it to the 4-5 year cycle in console gaming hardware. “Before the industry knew it, we were blowing people away [with the tech]. The full gameplay of these titles has woken a lot of people up.”
Joswiak also noted that App Store redesign that went live on iOS 11 has lead to increased traffic and app sales.
Ryan Cash, founder and CEO of Snowman, the developer behind the recently released Alto’s Odyssey, said mobile gaming is continuing to mature:
“There’s a real and continually growing sense that mobile is a platform to launch compelling, artful experiences,” says Snowman’s Ryan Cash. “This has always been the sentiment among the really amazing community of developers we’ve been lucky enough to meet. What’s most exciting to me, now, though, is hearing this acknowledged by representatives of major console platforms. Having conversations with people about their favorite games from the past year, and seeing that many of them are titles tailor-made for mobile platforms, is really gratifying. I definitely don’t want to paint the picture that mobile gaming has ever been some sort of pariah, but there’s a definite sense that more people are realizing how unique an experience it is to play games on these deeply personal devices.”
