Interview

Punch Entertainment: 'iPhone changes everything for mobile games'

But the developer is backing away from J2ME and BREW

Punch Entertainment: 'iPhone changes everything for mobile games'
Punch Entertainment's Reign of Swords is one of the more impressive mobile strategy games from the last 12 months – both in its original mobile incarnation (pictured), and its just-released iPhone version.

We fired some questions at Tobin Lent, the developer's CEO, to get his perspective on the opportunities offered by iPhone and other native mobile platforms, and what it means for the company's existing Java and BREW activities.

PocketGamer.biz: What's the appeal for iPhone for Punch as a developer?

Tobin Lent: The device itself is a great platform for games. It is superior to any other mobile device out there. The accelerometer offers an interesting tool for gameplay. Audio and graphics are amazing and plenty of space to create deep gameplay!

Also, the App Store is a terrific platform to merchandise content with the ability to add ample text and graphics to describe your game. Apple has included helpful features to cross-sell content by suggesting to players other games they might like based on past purchases.

We also really like the customer review mechanism, and the ability for developers to seamlessly update their games based on feedback from users. This creates a really strong connection between the developers and the users and we really like that feature.

We also like that we can distribute a link directly to the App Store on your PC which creates some opportunities to more effectively market a title off the device. It's a two-click buy process. One click for the link in the ad, the next to buy the game because you'll be on that game's page on the App Store.

We are really excited about this platform. Technically the platform has been good for us. No real issues developing games.

Can you talk more about the improvements you've put in to Reign of Swords compared to the mobile version?

We added completely new audio and sound effects, added enhanced graphics and totally new special effects. We also improved AI, revised the unit reward/penalty system for winning and losing multiplayer battles and added numerous usability improvements.

We put a lot into the iPhone version and wanted to make Reign the best turn-based strategy game out there.

What sort of feedback have you been getting from players since the game was released?

The feedback has been very good overall, we have received a 4.5/5-star rating. People had complained that graphics could be better, and they thought the menu system could be improved. Another person wanted to listen to their iPod music library while playing!

The extremely cool thing is that we can respond to this feedback and update the game with improvements in real-time (this would be impossible on other mobile platforms by the way). And of course we are working on these improvements.

We really like this direct connection with our customers and the ability to quickly respond without any hassle.

Will iPhone be a big platform for Punch going forward? How about Android – are you looking at that too?

iPhone will be a big focus for Punch. We are really impressed with the iPhone platform as a whole, both technically and commercially. They did everything right. We've seen good results there and will continue to support it. EGO will be our next game on the iPhone.

We are looking forward to Android too and hope that it offers the same benefits, flexibility and commercial opportunities as the iPhone. We really need more platforms like this!

What does this mean for your existing mobile business? Are more open platforms like the iPhone the way to go for independent developers now?

We are definitely backing away from those mobile channels that are difficult to support (think high porting, QA and certification costs, as well as device fragmentation) and don't yield great results because of poor merchandising.

Most J2ME channels are this way. BREW is still good if you can get on the carrier, but that is pretty tough. The iPhone changes everything and we will focus most of our mobile effort there.

The mobile games industry really needed a platform like this, and I'm talking about both the big players and the smaller ones like ourselves.

Contributing Editor

Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)