| ![]() |
|
|
|
a forum for the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment
ABOUT About This Site - RSS Feed Ian Bogost (editor) Gonzalo Frasca (editor emeritus) SPONSORS
COMMUNITY
|
iPhone SDK - No Good for Games Yet March 11, 2008 - by Ian Bogost Weren't you all excited about last week's announcement of the iPhone SDK? Didn't you think it would finally shut up grouchy people like me who are always complaining about the lack of open platforms? Yeah, me too. Until I downloaded it and tried to build some sample OpenGL code. Turns out the iPhone "Aspen" simulator can't run OpenGL. Which means you need to own an actual iPhone and tether it to your Mac to do development. Great way to sell more iPhones huh? Except you can't even do that, because then you'll also need the $99 iPhone Developer Membership to actually be allowed to deploy and test on your iPhone. Meh.
This may be a bit of an overstatement, but the conclusion I come to is that the iPhone SDK isn't yet really a game development platform. Since many, perhaps most, viable iPhone games will render with OpenGL, this means ordinary folks will be stuck writing hypothetical code -- or blindly porting old OpenGL-bound C -- until Apple lets us do something more. Surprising, I know. After all, Apple would never screw third party developers... :P Comment from Patrick Dugan on March 11, 2008
Comment from andrewstern on March 11, 2008
I agree that's a pain, but a $99 (kit) + $399 (phone) investment isn't too horrible -- assuming you already have a Mac; the SDK isn't available for Windows. I think this is very exciting news — the most performance-capable mass-market gaming platform to date! (Besides PC's themselves, I suppose.) Comment from Ian Bogost on March 12, 2008
Andrew, also note that you can't even spend the $99 and get the ability to do OpenGL dev right now, unless you are one of the select few chosen by Apple. That will change in time. It is possible to do 2D graphics with Core Graphics, however. Comment from Dakota Reese on March 12, 2008
I'm going to have to side with Andrew (even though I'm feeling the same headache as Ian). On one hand yes the Apple rigamaroll is tedious, but on the other hand how can you not be excited about the potential distribution system. To me, that's the big win and is worth jumping through hoops. How many people know how to buy something off Handango and get the .jar onto their phone? vs. How many people know how to buy something off of the iTunes Store and let OSX handle the install? POST A COMMENT
|
SELF PROMOTION
New Journal: The Computer Game Education Review
RIT professor Stephen Jacobs is the editor-in-chief of a new journal, The Computer Game Education Review. Here's the blurb he ... You Drive Like an Old Man Insurance company Liberty Mutual has created Driver Seat, which they bill as "the world's first senior driving simulator." The game ... Games for Change: Documentary Games A bit late, I suppose, but I wanted to post my notes from the Documentary Games panel at last month's ... Humana's Games for Health Contest Humana's games for health division has announced a new contest, Insert Coin for game concepts that meet the broad goal ... Distraction, Comfort, Sedation I've known for some time that hospitals have used videogames for some time as experimental tools to help children relax ... Games for Change 2009: Nicholas Kristof Keynote Toilet Training for iPhone Bailout! the Board Game 1066 Guru Meditation for Atari and iPhone FAVORITES Does expression come in HD too?
Food Force
A Force More Complicated
PSP and Performance Intelligence
A Review of the Leapster
ALSO VISIT
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © Ian Bogost & Gonzalo Frasca, unless otherwise noted. Re-printing for commercial purposes by permission only (contact us: ). Re-printing for educational purposes is allowed with proper attribution. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||