Founded in 2002, Canadian mobile outfit Magmic has pretty much seen it all. What's really sets it apart, however, is its long term support for BlackBerry devices; not a platform known for its gaming prowess.
So with BlackBerry DevCon due in October, and RIM looking to reboot itself - hopefully taking games more seriously - we caught up with director of engineering Ryan Henry and co-founder/CTO Joshua Ostrowalker to get their take on the situation.
Pocket Gamer: How do you find BlackBerry as a gaming platform?
Magmic: With the newest generation of BlackBerry smartphones being released to the market, RIM has an even stronger gaming platform.
The new devices are fast (running high quality OpenGL 2.0 games) and have gorgeous high resolution touch screens. This means gamers can expect to find everything from casual card games, to immersive 3D action games and everything in between.
What do you think are the biggest opportunities on the platform?
The biggest opportunities come directly from innovations at RIM. BBM is a tremendously popular social service and is a great way to grow your customer base.
BlackBerry Payment Service offers easy in-app purchases. And with App World 3.0 just around the corner, finding and buying apps will get a whole lot easier.
What are the biggest issues?
There are two issues with BlackBerry development. The first is the development tools. These tools have been around for years with very few changes.
Second is the fragmentation of the existing BlackBerry devices. Low resolution devices from a few years ago are still wildly popular and developing for BlackBerry means choosing to support these devices, or abandoning a large audience to support the newer features.
What's your experience of PlayBook been like and what do you think of QNX as the new OS for future devices?
QNX is awesome and RIM has made a great choice. The new OS will bring RIM back into competition with iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
And because of its power, developers have plenty of options when it comes to making games for QNX. Magmic is about to release our first PlayBook title, so look forward to it soon.
You're talking about freemium games at BlackBerry DevCon, so are there any differences bringing these games to BlackBerry compared to other mobile platforms?
The demographics of each platform are slightly different, and with that comes some minor differences in functionality.
With the BlackBerry Payment Service, developers can easily offer in-app purchases like the other platforms. But consumers also have the option of carrier billing or PayPal.
Thanks to Magmic for its time.
You can check out what it gets up to in future via its website.
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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