Interview

That was the year that was: Brian Greenstone, Pangea Software

There are too many developers diluting the market

That was the year that was: Brian Greenstone, Pangea Software
As the year draws to an end, it's time to look back at what happened in the world of mobile gaming during 2009.

Equally, the lessons of history are useless without a future to demonstration what we've learnt, so as well as asking various notables about their view on the past 12 months, we're also getting them to look ahead to 2010.

You can see the full list of our end of year interviews here.

With a track record in Mac development Pangea Software was one of the first game developers for iPhone releasing popular titles such as Cro-Mag Rally and Enigmo.

In 2009, it released Enigmo 2, Nanosaur 2 and Otto Matic: Alien Invasion! among others. It was founded by Brian Greenstone.

Pocket Gamer: What was the most significant event of 2009?

Brian Greenstone: Hmm... I don't know if anything truly spectacular happened in 2009, at least compared with 2008.

I suppose from a simply philosophical stand, Apple's App Store hitting 100,000 apps was probably it, since it represented a much larger picture. It represented Apple's dominance in the app market, and the over-flooding of the App Store marketplace.

What was the most significant event for Pangea?

I think really the most significant event was the serious decline in our sales compared with 2008. This was, of course, a result of the aforementioned flooding and over-saturation of the App Store.

What was your favourite mobile game of 2009?

I think I'm like most app buyers in that I get an app and play it for 10 minutes and then that's the end of it. The apps that I continuously use are never game apps, so I can't really think of one that stood out. The apps in general that stood out for me were some of the astronomy apps like Star Walk.

What do you predict will be the most important trends in 2010?

I think there may be a trend toward non-iPhone platforms such as Android. I think a lot of developers are going to try and port their iPhone apps over to other platforms to try and milk their investment a little more.

A lot of developers spent more than they should have to develop expensive iPhone games, but they missed the 2008 App Store Gold Rush and never made their money back, so they will certainly try to take their properties to new markets.

If you could enforce one New Year's resolution, what would it be?

Heh. I would make 99 percent of all app developers go away. There are just too many of them, and too many apps diluting the market.

Thanks to Brian for his time

You can follow Pangea via its website.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.