iPhone Dominates 2009 Mobile Game Developers Conference
Last week, game developers descended on San Francisco to take part in the 2009 Game Developers Conference (GDC). GDC was broken up into different segments with the first two days dedicated to Mobile gaming. The mobile keynote speech was given by Ngmoco's CEO Neil Young and was appropriately titled Why the iPhone just changed everything. Young's keynote described the dramatic change the iPhone brought to the mobile gaming industry which was previously focused on carrier negotiations and porting to all the different handheld variants.
Perhaps most telling was the fact that the iPhone dominated the Independent Games Festival awards in Mobile at GDC winning 6 out of 7 categories, including Best Mobile Game. iPhone winners included (app names link directly to app store):
- Mobile Audio Achievement Award: Zen Bound (Secret Exit)
- Technical Achievement: Real Racing (Firemint) - Preview
- Art: Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios)
- Design: Galcon (Hassey Enterprises)
- Best iPhone Game: Zen Bound (Secret Exit)
- IGF Mobile Best Game: Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios)
All iPhone finalists have also been listed by Apple on a special page in the iTunes App Store.
GDC also served to be the launching/demo ground for a number of notable future iPhone gaming titles including 14 new titles from EA, Paramount's Top Gun, Showtime's Dexter, and Ngmoco's Star Defense, Touch Pet Dogs, and LiveFire. Id software even recently released their classic Wolfenstein 3D to the App Store, with plans to port Doom in the near future.
Most notable is the fact that the App Store is less than a year old, so the iPhone had no presence at GDC last year.
Perhaps most telling was the fact that the iPhone dominated the Independent Games Festival awards in Mobile at GDC winning 6 out of 7 categories, including Best Mobile Game. iPhone winners included (app names link directly to app store):
- Mobile Audio Achievement Award: Zen Bound (Secret Exit)
- Technical Achievement: Real Racing (Firemint) - Preview
- Art: Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios)
- Design: Galcon (Hassey Enterprises)
- Best iPhone Game: Zen Bound (Secret Exit)
- IGF Mobile Best Game: Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios)
All iPhone finalists have also been listed by Apple on a special page in the iTunes App Store.
GDC also served to be the launching/demo ground for a number of notable future iPhone gaming titles including 14 new titles from EA, Paramount's Top Gun, Showtime's Dexter, and Ngmoco's Star Defense, Touch Pet Dogs, and LiveFire. Id software even recently released their classic Wolfenstein 3D to the App Store, with plans to port Doom in the near future.
Most notable is the fact that the App Store is less than a year old, so the iPhone had no presence at GDC last year.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)38 months ago
What are the sales of the iPhone verse the iPod Touch? Whenever they refer to App Store gaming, they always refer to the iPhone. Just curious.
Go Fieldrunners!
Go Fieldrunners!
38 months ago
What are the sales of the iPhone verse the iPod Touch? Whenever they refer to App Store gaming, they always refer to the iPhone. Just curious.
Go Fieldrunners!
Apple released numbers at the 3.0 event.
17 million iPhones
13 million iPod Touches
arn
38 months ago
It looks like the iPhone as a gaming platform is growing very quickly. I don't think Sony and Nintendo were prepared for it to grow so fast and be so good at gaming either.
Interestingly on "The Gadget Show", a UK tech show they did a handheld gaming test last week in which the iPod Touch beat the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP to be named best portable gaming platform.
Interestingly on "The Gadget Show", a UK tech show they did a handheld gaming test last week in which the iPod Touch beat the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP to be named best portable gaming platform.
38 months ago
i guess i'm probably the only one who thinks this is stupid.
i wanted the iphone to be a smartphone first.....gaming, not so much. if i wanted to have a device focus so much on gaming, i would have bought a PSP or DS.
i wanted the iphone to be a smartphone first.....gaming, not so much. if i wanted to have a device focus so much on gaming, i would have bought a PSP or DS.
38 months ago
Nice. I've been thinking of my 1st Gen iPod Touch more and more as a gaming device then anything else lately. Can't wait to see the rest of the year's games.
38 months ago
i guess i'm probably the only one who thinks this is stupid.
I don't game on mine either - I have dedicated machines. That's not to say this is stupid. I would like to be a dev pulling in $£$£$£ everyday from app sales.
[ Read All Comments ]

Analytics firm Chitika today released a report showing that by its metrics iOS has now surpassed OS X in overall web traffic share in the United States. Chitika's methodology involves an analysis...
One of the most frequent reasons for an iPhone to go on a trip to the Apple Store's Genius Bar is because of water damage. Typically, a water damaged iPhone can be replaced for a flat $199...
TheVerge's Joshua Topolsky summarizes the iPad 3 casing findings reported earlier today, but also adds his own sources regarding some details of the iPad 3.
Image from RepairLabs
As...
Last July, Apple discontinued the white MacBook from its consumer lineup, pushing consumers toward the company's popular MacBook Air line or the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company didn't kill...
Popular iPhone Twitter client Tweetbot has finally arrived on the iPad, with a user interface instantly familiar to any current Tweetbot user. Designed for the Twitter power-user, Tweetbot packs a...