iPhone developer consolidation stirs fears among fans
iPhone publisher and developer ngmoco has acquired long-time Mac software developer Freeverse, according to Freeverse’s website and Twitter feed. While terms of the deal are unknown, it appears that Freeverse will continue doing business as an independent entity with its current management.
Freeverse has been a mainstay in the Mac software world since before the days of Mac OS X and has published numerous games, utilities, and productivity software for the platform ever since. The company has also published for Windows, as well as XBox 360 Live Arcade. In recent years Freeverse has also published for the iPhone OS where it has seen moderate success with its 25+ applications, the most popular of which are the Flick series of games and Skee-Ball.
While ngmoco has been around for considerably less time, the company has approximately 15 titles for the iPhone OS, including popular games like Rolando and Topple, and has most recently created a “premium social play network” called plus+. ngmoco was formed by former Electronic Arts executives in 2008 and offers both free and paid applications that almost universally make use of in-app purchases, a feature Apple made available to developers when it introduced version 3.0 of the iPhone OS SDK.
While claims have been made that the deal won’t effect Freeverse, it seems likely that there will be at least some changes. The company will no doubt be hard at work incorporating plus+ into its existing catalog of iPhone games and also including more in-app transactions in its offerings. Fans of the longtime Mac company might end up disappointed if more of ngmoco’s focus shifts to the iPhone and the company’s Mac, Windows, and console software is left for dead.
Regardless, the acquisition means that two medium-sized developers for the iPhone are now one larger fish in the App Store sea that is becoming more inundated each day by 40-foot sharks. We can only hope that a group of investors doesn’t turn Freeverse into just another iPhone company.
Plus+ Social Gaming Service for iPhone Launches
Among console gaming fans, there is little doubt that Xbox Live is the current pinnacle of social online gaming. Sharing stats, matchmaking, ranked play, and messaging are all combined in a symphony of interactivity unmatched by the PS3, and certainly not by the Wii. Ngmoco wants to bring some of that social connectivity to iPhone gaming, and has thus launched Plus+.
Plus+ is initially launching only on Star Defense, an update to which is now live in the App Store with the added features. You can sign up for an account from within Star Defense, and registration is relatively painless. Plus+ is also one way to test out push notifications, if you’re looking for more apps that can handle the new iPhone OS 3.0 feature.
Services offered via Plus+ are game awards (like achievements or trophies on Xbox or PS3), leaderboards, a friends list and direct challenges. You can have two types of contacts in Plus+, followers and friends. The names might be familiar if you’re a Twitter user, and for good reason: They represent exactly the same types of relationships. Followers are people who’ve added you, but who you’ve not added, and Friends are people you’ve added yourself.
Push notifications come in when you complete a challenge map. Once you’ve lost your base, you have to option to Direct Challenge any of your Plus+ friends, which will send them a push notification making them aware of the fact. You can also issue an open challenge via Twitter.
I’m excited for what Plus+ will do for asynchronous multiplayer gaming on the iPhone platform. Hopefully Gameloft, EA and other major iPhone publishers will follow suit with gaming networks of their own. I have no friends yet, so I can’t tell if push notifications are working well. Add me and let’s tango, if you’re a Star Defense owner. My Plus+ name is in the screenshot.
Plus+ Social Gaming Service for iPhone Launches
Among console gaming fans, there is little doubt that Xbox Live is the current pinnacle of social online gaming. Sharing stats, matchmaking, ranked play, and messaging are all combined in a symphony of interactivity unmatched by the PS3, and certainly not by the Wii. Ngmoco wants to bring some of that social connectivity to iPhone gaming, and has thus launched Plus+.
Plus+ is initially launching only on Star Defense, an update to which is now live in the App Store with the added features. You can sign up for an account from within Star Defense, and registration is relatively painless. Plus+ is also one way to test out push notifications, if you’re looking for more apps that can handle the new iPhone OS 3.0 feature.
Services offered via Plus+ are game awards (like achievements or trophies on Xbox or PS3), leaderboards, a friends list and direct challenges. You can have two types of contacts in Plus+, followers and friends. The names might be familiar if you’re a Twitter user, and for good reason: They represent exactly the same types of relationships. Followers are people who’ve added you, but who you’ve not added, and Friends are people you’ve added yourself.
Push notifications come in when you complete a challenge map. Once you’ve lost your base, you have to option to Direct Challenge any of your Plus+ friends, which will send them a push notification making them aware of the fact. You can also issue an open challenge via Twitter.
I’m excited for what Plus+ will do for asynchronous multiplayer gaming on the iPhone platform. Hopefully Gameloft, EA and other major iPhone publishers will follow suit with gaming networks of their own. I have no friends yet, so I can’t tell if push notifications are working well. Add me and let’s tango, if you’re a Star Defense owner. My Plus+ name is in the screenshot.
Apple Design Award 2009 Winners
Apple announced the winners of the 2009 Apple Design Awards last night at a special ceremony hosted by John Geleynse, director of Software Technology Evangelism, and Shann Pruden, senior director for Developer Relations. These awards are an annual affair to recognize “technical excellence, innovation, and outstanding achievement in iPhone and Mac software development.”
The depth and breadth of submissions has been accelerating, as interest in the Mac and iPhone has picked up over the last few years. As a point of comparison, the iPhone awards last year were handed out to early pre-release apps because the App Store had not even launched yet. There were about 1,700 web apps in Apple’s online directory, and this year there are over 4,000 web apps and more than 50,000 native apps available in the iTunes App Store.
Rather than being split out into categories for best game, best user experience, best application, and so on as has been the practice in past years, this year’s awards were simply organized into Mac and iPhone showcases. Here are the 2009 winners.
iPhone Developer Showcase
MLB.com At Bat 2009 from MLB.com
Postage from Rogue Sheep
Mac OS X Leopard Developer Showcase
Billings from Marketcircle Inc.
BoinxTV from Boinx Software
Things from Cultured Code
Student Awards
Wooden Labyrinth 3D from Elias Pietil
Fontcase from Pieter Omvlee
iPhone OS 3.0
AccuTerra Beta from AccuTerra
This last entry is pretty interesting. We saw lots of exciting and innovative apps in the WWDC Keynote on Monday that take advantage of the new features of iPhone OS 3.0, but AccuTerra was not presented there. The technologies utilized in this new hike tracking app are pretty extensive, though. I’m definitely looking forward to checking this out when it becomes available.
For more information about this year’s winners, here are some articles from TheAppleBlog that mention a few of them…
Weekly App Store Picks: March 14, 2009 (Topple 2)
Tweetie for Mac Update: Now With Video Tweeting
Billings 3 Brings Welcome Updates, Fresh Design
BoinxTV: Broadcasting for the rest of us
Keep Your Fonts Together With Fontcase
Fonts 201: Font Management Apps for the Mac
Apple Design Award 2009 Winners
Apple announced the winners of the 2009 Apple Design Awards last night at a special ceremony hosted by John Geleynse, director of Software Technology Evangelism, and Shann Pruden, senior director for Developer Relations. These awards are an annual affair to recognize “technical excellence, innovation, and outstanding achievement in iPhone and Mac software development.”
The depth and breadth of submissions has been accelerating, as interest in the Mac and iPhone has picked up over the last few years. As a point of comparison, the iPhone awards last year were handed out to early pre-release apps because the App Store had not even launched yet. There were about 1,700 web apps in Apple’s online directory, and this year there are over 4,000 web apps and more than 50,000 native apps available in the iTunes App Store.
Rather than being split out into categories for best game, best user experience, best application, and so on as has been the practice in past years, this year’s awards were simply organized into Mac and iPhone showcases. Here are the 2009 winners.
iPhone Developer Showcase
MLB.com At Bat 2009 from MLB.com
Postage from Rogue Sheep
Mac OS X Leopard Developer Showcase
Billings from Marketcircle Inc.
BoinxTV from Boinx Software
Things from Cultured Code
Student Awards
Wooden Labyrinth 3D from Elias Pietil
Fontcase from Pieter Omvlee
iPhone OS 3.0
AccuTerra Beta from AccuTerra
This last entry is pretty interesting. We saw lots of exciting and innovative apps in the WWDC Keynote on Monday that take advantage of the new features of iPhone OS 3.0, but AccuTerra was not presented there. The technologies utilized in this new hike tracking app are pretty extensive, though. I’m definitely looking forward to checking this out when it becomes available.
For more information about this year’s winners, here are some articles from TheAppleBlog that mention a few of them…
Weekly App Store Picks: March 14, 2009 (Topple 2)
Tweetie for Mac Update: Now With Video Tweeting
Billings 3 Brings Welcome Updates, Fresh Design
BoinxTV: Broadcasting for the rest of us
Keep Your Fonts Together With Fontcase
Fonts 201: Font Management Apps for the Mac
GDC09: iPhone gaming roundup
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
The Game Developers Conference is on in San Francisco, and game companies are starting to pull out the major announcements on what’s coming to the iPhone in the next year. Here’s a roundup of all the titles we’ve heard mentioned already.
- EA announced a huge lineup of ports from their already popular games: everything from Command and Conquer: Red Alert to SSX to FIFA, Madden, and NBA are all coming in some form to the iPhone. They’re also working on bringing over the Wolfenstein RPG and Spore Creatures (which was the DS port of Spore), as well as a big list of casual board games (Scrabble is only the beginning), and versions of Need for Speed: Undercover, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. And most amazing? All of these are due out before the end of the year. Someone’s lighting a fire under iPhone developers at EA.
- id software announced that they’re bringing Wolfenstein 3D Classic to the iPhone in an official form — that one’s already been submitted to the store and should be out soon.
Click the link below to read on.
Continue reading GDC09: iPhone gaming roundup
TUAWGDC09: iPhone gaming roundup originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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ngmoco’s Neil Young speaks at GDC keynote
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Neil Young (not that Neil Young, the other one), former EA exec and head of ngmoco, fresh from his appearance at the Apple iPhone 3.0 event the other day, showed up on a keynote stage at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco to talk about the big, wrapped present that the iPhone and the App Store are to game developers. The platform is “better than the DS, better than the PSP,” he said, referring to Nintendo and Sony’s handheld gaming devices, because not only is tops in terms of usability (it’s “always on, always with you”), and not only is it easier than any other platform to develop for, but the market is gigantic and growing — unlike Sony and Nintendo’s markets, there are no first party titles to compete with.
Which makes a lot of sense (and Young should know — his company is poised to become one of the platform’s early big developers). Other game developers agree, too — according to a survey at Games Beat 2009, the iPhone has beaten out social networks, web-based content and even consoles as the area that has the most potential for gaming. There’s no question at all: the future is extremely bright for gamers on the iPhone.
TUAWngmoco’s Neil Young speaks at GDC keynote originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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LiveFire from ngmoco: the Quake 3 engine lives on the iPhone
“The two most important things in a FPS title are framerate and control—if you don’t have those, you’re going to be fu**ed,” Neil Young tells me. He’s playing LiveFire in front of me, the first-person title that gave the company so much buzz at Apple’s SDK event. It’s just as impressive in person, with a great framerate and controls that look solid… although no one will let me actually play. “We’ll get this running faster,” Young says, unsatisfied with even this impressive demonstration.
Young, the CEO of ngmoco, is an intense, gray-haired man who is very, very passionate about mobile gaming. A reader sent in a question for him: will there be support for user-made maps? “It’s not anything we’ve talked about seriously,” he replies, although the possibility is there. “Here’s a question for your readers: would people be interested in being part of a beta test?”
Click here to read the rest of this article
LiveFire from ngmoco: the Quake 3 engine lives on the iPhone
“The two most important things in a FPS title are framerate and control—if you don’t have those, you’re going to be fu**ed,” Neil Young tells me. He’s playing LiveFire in front of me, the first-person title that gave the company so much buzz at Apple’s SDK event. It’s just as impressive in person, with a great framerate and controls that look solid… although no one will let me actually play. “We’ll get this running faster,” Young says, unsatisfied with even this impressive demonstration.
Young, the CEO of ngmoco, is an intense, gray-haired man who is very, very passionate about mobile gaming. A reader sent in a question for him: will there be support for user-made maps? “It’s not anything we’ve talked about seriously,” he replies, although the possibility is there. “Here’s a question for your readers: would people be interested in being part of a beta test?”
Click here to read the rest of this article
Rolando’s Simon Oliver in the Daily Mail
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
The Daily Mail has reported the story of our friend Simon Oliver, creator of Rolando (whom we interviewed quite a while ago when the game originally came out). Apparently things have worked out very well for him — the game has sold 700,000 copies so far, Oliver’s set to be a millionaire, and he’s now, as he says, the head of a game studio that already has a hit under its belt. Very impressive (too bad they still call him a geek).
It’s stories like this that are pushing the little App Store bubble we’ve got going nowadays — every investor with money to spare (not as many as usual, given the current economy) is happy to sink it into releases for the iPhone, and while there is plenty of money being made, not every developer ends up like Oliver (let’s not forget he had a quality product in the first place).
But there is some good news here: without the App Store and the iPhone platform, this never would have happened. Say what you want about Apple’s release policies or their initial “no SDK” choice, but with the iPhone, they’ve brought development and distribution down to anyone who can dream it.
TUAWRolando’s Simon Oliver in the Daily Mail originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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