Interview

WWDC 2010: Fishlabs' Schade on why Game Center, iAd and iPhone 4 will shake up the industry

Raising the quality bar

WWDC 2010: Fishlabs' Schade on why Game Center, iAd and iPhone 4 will shake up the industry
Perhaps there weren't many surprises during Steve Jobs' WWDC 2010 keynote, but there's certainly a lot to think about, and some features will have significant implications.

So as developers are starting to digest the news about iPhone, as well as the forthcoming release of iOS 4, we've been catching up with key studios to get their views.

Michael Schade from German developer Fishlabs has strong views on most subjects, and this is no exception.

Pocket Gamer: What do you think will be the impact of iPhone 4?

Michael Schade: Again, Apple has raised the bar with the iPhone 4 and there's no doubt it's going to be a huge success.

From a gamers' perspective, and the kind of games we make, it's just perfect that iPhone 4 brings video console computing power to your pocket. But it's not only about pure specs but all the other little things that Apple does right too.

As Steve said, 100 million devices today and a couple 10 million more this year are metrics you can't ignore. Copy that!

Are you worried about fragmentation?

Driving the innovation of a platform always comes with fragmentation. I can already hear users complaining about games don't show the quality on older devices compared to the screenshots of the iPhone 4 version on the App Store. But that's not new to us coming from the Java business where 2D games were distributed but 3D screenshots from a better device used to market the game.

On the App Store, it will become a learning process for the gaming community. For us as a developer, it will become a balance how much effort is justified to innovate by utilising the new features while having a version with lower specs in place to address the whole market.

How will you be dealing with iPhone 4 in terms of new games and will you be doing any retrospective work to already released games?

We won't have any new titles designed purely for iPhone 4 but we will dig into the new possibilities and see how we can integrate the gyroscope for better controls in Galaxy on Fire 2, for instance.

Also, with a second high resolution iDevice, it makes even more sense now to come up with an update for Rally Master Pro for iPad and iPhone 4.

What do you think will be the impact of iOS 4?

At a first glance, iOS 4 doesn't take us a huge step further but Game Center will become a big game changer for the whole iGames industry. Multiplayer will become a must have for every game to be successful. That I will bet all my money on.

Were you surprised there was no mention of Game Center in the keynote?

Although Game Center is going to be extremely important to all game developers, and even given that games are by far the most popular type of apps on iPhone, I understand that this wasn't part of the keynote.

And the end of the day, the iPhone is primarily a phone with a lot of great media features and that's why it's so incredibly successful. Games are just one great application but in a positive way we can absolutely live with that.

Do you think FaceTime will have any impact in terms of gaming?

Video chatting while you try to beat the crap out of your buddy in a fighting game or race head to head and yell at each other? Hell yeah.

That will be awesome if the iPhone has enough steam to do it, and if you can have the video chat running in thumbnail size.

Are you planning to use iAd?

We are extremely excited about this. Only Apple is able to bring mobile advertisements to the premium level where they deserves to be. IAds are engaging, offer premium visual and audio quality, interaction and unparalleled possibilities for targeting consumers that only Apple can offer with all the knowledge of its consumer base.

Ad-funded premium content worked on TV and with iAd it will on mobile too.

Thanks to Michael for his time.

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.