Interview

BlackBerry's already an avid platform for games, says Magmic's Troy Johnson

And BlackBerry 10 will make it better

BlackBerry's already an avid platform for games, says Magmic's Troy Johnson
Most commentators in North America and Europe already treat RIM like a dead man walking.

There's plenty of passion for the upcoming fight when it launches BlackBerry 10 within the company, however.

And some of RIM's development partners are surprising upbeat, so following the BlackBerry World 2012 conference, we've been polling the views of game studios already supporting the platform.

Canadian studio Magmic is a longtime supporter of BlackBerry. We got the opinion of its director, OEM and new platforms, Troy Johnson.

Pocket Gamer: What's your current view about PlayBook as a gaming platform?

Troy Johnson: The PlayBook is proving to be quite competent as a gaming platform. It's delivering performance, a user experience, and stability that's rivaling competing platforms.

Considering the multitude of development frameworks and platforms, it just makes sense for us as a developer of casual games to target the platform. Speaking also as a consumer of content on the platform, I'm more than impressed with its capabilities.

How are you finding the early version of BlackBerry 10 in terms of development?

Development on the platform is really easy. The IDE integrates seamlessly for debugging. Deploying to the devices over wifi is not just a cool feature, but also a really useful time saver if I have to go somewhere with a build.

There's a lot of support from RIM if we ever run into trouble, as well. Developer relations have stepped up its game and it's clear it understands our success is essential for its success.

What are your hopes for the autumn OS and device launch?

Based on what I've seen at BlackBerry World 2012 and DevJam 10, I'm optimistic. That's based on intuition, certainly not fact.

What do you think is RIM's biggest challenge?

Its biggest challenge is communicating clearly the value proposition and backing it up with a compelling user experience and device performance. All that while not sacrificing characteristics that are core to the brand such as security, battery life and its keyboard - virtual or physical.

If RIM can do that (and I think it can) it will win over the media and eventually the consumer. When the consumers arrive so will the content developer masses. Sounds simple doesn't it?

Do you think RIM can find a place in the mobile gaming market?

Magmic has developed over a hundred games for BlackBerry over the last 10 years.

Texas Hold'em King LIVE has surpassed 2 million registered users, Texas Hold'em King 2 has been played by more than 20 million people and Ka-Glom has about 10 million downloads with an avid user base.

Do I think RIM can find a place in the mobile gaming market? I think it's played (and playing) a critical role in creating the mobile gaming market. We're just going to build on that with BB 10.

Can you say anything about your plans for BB 10's launch?

We demoed Texas Hold'em King LIVE for PlayBook during BlackBerry DevJam 10's Super Session.

While it wasn't quite beta, we're close to it and we'll continue with an aggressive roadmap leading up to the device launch. Expect New York Times Crosswords and Phase 10 to be among the early arrivals.

Thanks to Troy for his time.

You can check out Magmic games here.

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.