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.
2009 has been something of a transition year for US mobile publisher Glu. It started with a company reorganisation to help it switch focus from the carrier market to emerging platforms such as iPhone, BlackBerry and Facebook.
It experienced App Store success with the like of Glyder, Beat It! and Super KO Boxing 2, as well as licences such as Family Guy Uncensored and World Series of Poker.
However it also lost two of its top executives as CEO Greg Ballard and vice president Jill Braff left. It also expects to make a financial loss for the year. 2010 will be crucial in terms of securing the company's long term future.
We caught up with Alex Galvagni, CTO and senior vice president of global product development, to get his take on the situation.
Pocket Gamer: What was the most significant event of 2009?
Alex Galvagni: The most significant impact on Glu Mobile's industry continues to be the iPhone and therefore the most important events in 2009 have been the OS 3.0 update and the 3GS hardware. Also, the updates to iTunes, as well as the Android 2.0 OS deserve special mention.
We'll see what happens with the Google phone but in retrospect, we may find that to be the most significant event of 2009.
What was the most significant event for Glu Mobile?
The most significant moment was when we decided early in 2009 we were going to invest heavily in the smartphone market and accelerate our efforts to build original creative games.
We are very excited with the innovative original titles we deployed and our decision has proved to be effective.
What was your favourite mobile game of 2009?
My favourite mobile game for 2009 was Glyder. We are very proud at how creative and inventive it was, as well as how beautiful it looked on the handset. My favourite thing was how calming it was to play. In all honesty, it was our first major hit on the iPhone.
What do you predict will be the most important trends in 2010?
We feel it will be the continuous rise of smartphones and application storefronts and more importantly to us, the ability to sell content through them.
If you could enforce one New Year's resolution, what would it be?
To have our industry pay more attention to the consumer experience for finding and purchasing content. We've learnt when consumers realise how much great content is available to them, they get very excited about consuming and interacting with it.
Thanks to Alex for his time.
You can follow Glu Mobile by web, Facebook and Twitter.
Interview
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.
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