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The Daily GameDev.net

Posted by: Oli Wilkinson at October 7, 2009 6:39:01 PM

Here we are, sitting on a spinning rock that's hurtling through space at some insane speed and wishing that it was Wednesday and we had pie. I can't help with the pie, but I can help with Wednesday's GameDev.Net daily. So here we go.

The 2bn+ app downloads reported last week show that the iPhone market has taken off in a huge way, opening the doors for many smaller studios to thrive. But what if you're a Flash developer? Perhaps you're feeling a little left out of the loop - perhaps you feel as if you'd love to sell your cool little games on the iPhone and make some money... well come in out of the cold, as Adobe used Max 2009 to announce that Flash CS5 will compile Flash directly to native iPhone format. That's native, not interpreted - and according to the Adobe Flash CS5 FAQ, you can use both Windows and Mac to do this, although you'll still need an iPhone developer licence. Edge Magazine have an article covering the story and speak to several iPhone and Flash developers for thier opinions.

Interested in getting into the Game Industry? You might find some use for Edge magazine's ezine on the subject. It covers all areas and interviews some key people in those fields to give you some advice on what they're looking for. As the preamble says, there's recurring theme about using platforms like the iPhone for people to break into the industry - so it's worth a read if you're thinking about getting on board.

Digital Distribution is a Good Thing - three leading memebers of Bungie think so having jumped ship to form Moonshot Games and aim to keep devlivering high quality downloadable games.

Don McCabe, the Managing Director of UK independent games chain "Chips" thinks that the PSPgo will "fail miserably" - although he doesn't detail why. He believes that when it crashes, it'll "put back other potential people coming into that digital space". The PSPgo has has a slow start in the UK and several retailers have already dropped the price to £199.99. The PSPgo does seem to have caused a little contention in the retail establishments.

The upcoming London Games Conference will approach the subject of digital distribution with several key players talking about the subject. The full lineup of talks is available here, if you're interested in the subject it definitely looks worthwhile dropping along if you can.

Also Worth checking out is MCV's interview with Valve's Jason Holtman on the rise of Steam as a platform. In the article, Holtman talks about how publisher ownership of sales figures makes it difficult for Steam to publish sales charts. C'mon guys, play nice.

Mobile gaming isn't just a fad in developed countries - India is getting more involved in the act as the recent Gamasutra article shows. The market still sounds immature, but the main thing of interest in India is the social network space, so it could be that area that games see having the biggest growth.

Who remember's Revolution's Beneath a Steel Sky? It was an Amiga classic and it's back in remastered form on the iPhone/iPod Touch. With Lucas Arts releasing Monkey Island a few months back, the point and click adventure fan inside me is very happy. Now if only Simon The Sorcerer would come...!

UK indie studio FourDoorLemon have had great crital success with their recent quiz game, QuizQuizQuiz. They've now slashed the price to a trivial $0.99/£0.59. Ok bad joke, I know.

Remember the iPhone game EDGE? You know, the one that caused all sorts of toys to be thrown out of all sorts of prams... well it's back on the App Store. Let's see what infamy does to their sales figures!