Between Android and Chrome OS, gaming has been a small but growing part of Google’s business. With Noah Falstein’s recent appointment as chief game designer, it looks like Google’s gaming ambitions are growing. However, there’s a lot of speculation as to what exactly those plans are and which products they’ll cover. Many have surmised that the company will up its Android gaming efforts, while others believe that Google Glass will be getting games.
For some background info on Falstein, here’s a clip from TechCrunch:
According to his bio Falstein’s been in the computer games industry since 1980, spanning companies such as LucasArts, 3DO, and Dreamworks Interactive, and is the designer behind a number of hit titles. He most recently ran his own consultancy, The Inspiracy, which offered companies help on game design, development and business, as well as being a regular on the lecture and speaking circuit.
A major interest of Falstein is the field of “Serious Games,” which he defines as “Using Games, Game Technology, or Game Industry Techniques for a purpose other than pure entertainment.” The list of Serious Games projects Falstein has been involved in spans anything from using game techniques to improve health and education, to financial projections.
The Google I/O developer conference is a few weeks away, so the company’s plans for gaming and Falstein’s role should be clarified then. For now, let’s play the speculation game! What do you think Google’s gaming plans are for the near future?
I honestly don’t know. Gaming on iOS is big in part to the known limited hardware options available. With these SoC devices and Android devices in particular end users do not have an easy way to know what the internals are what games can be run where. The SoC market is evolving very fast and this doesn’t help create an ecosystem for strong game development on a platform as bastardized as Android.
With Android there are too many uncertainties with games that may be more than a bubble pop exercise that lasts 20 seconds. Does this phone have enough RAM? Enough video RAM? Speed of the memory? Is this the tegra 2 or the tegra 3 that it says is required? Or am I running an OMAP? Qualcomm chip? Does this skin take up too much of the memory to run this game? Will it display correctly on this 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5 inch screen? All with varying resolution and pixel density. Granted that might be the least of your concerns but would a small development have that many screen sizes in mind when coding?
The problem is that with this new paradigm of consumer computing we are hiding what the internals are for the devices and solely focusing on ecosystems and content. That mode of thinking works well for a company that is vertically integrated like Apple. This is certainly going to hurt Apple eventually. I currently still have the 1st generation iPad. It has been locked out of many enhancements, notably iOS 6, and has been made obsolete by Apple. I do feel that it is too long in the tooth as far as video memory is concerned but if I were to buy a 3rd generation iPad used what would it be locked out of this year when new 5th gen models are debuted? I think this software as a service and necessary upgrades every 1.5 years or so is horrible for the consumer. If you are an informed consumer and do know the internals and keep up with what is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th generation it helps but then it also reminds you how stupid all of this has become.
Sorry off on a tangent. Short version: Google needs to reign in the 3rd party UIs and have tighter control over what kinds of hardware are produced.
While hardware can be an issue with Android, I don’t think that’s the biggest problem with Android gaming. Development tools have improved to the point where making a game that works well on the majority of modern Android founds isn’t difficult. The iOS App Store is just a better environment for getting people to pay for apps. For various reasons, iOS users spend more on apps than Android users. Jessie J was wrong when she said, “It’s not about the money, money, money.”
The iOS app store is better at getting you to spend money due to the fact there are better pieces of software developed since the hardware is more stable. Those two things are intertwined.
Although since the app store changed UI with iOS 4 or 5 I haven’t purchased an App. So what’s that nearly 2 years? The discovery I enjoyed from a list view has been taken from me and I refuse to swipe through a screen that shows me 2 or 3 apps at a time as a tile. Conversely I enjoyed the Play store more when I had a nexus prior to the iPhone 5 launch.
The lack of choices for viewing data on mobile and ARM devices period is infuriating. Now everything is turning into a bestbuy or office depot to sell me crap and I already don’t like those places.
I’ll get a Linux phone.
There’s good software on both sides and lots of overlap. Android has more “free” apps and more apps in general, which includes lots of garbage. Part of it is also conditioning. Longtime Apple customers are used to buying through iTunes, while Google’s history with online purchases is comparatively brief.
Meh i’m getting old. I don’t need any app besides what comes stock, banking, and twitter for news. rest of the stuff is pure fluff and unnecessary.
Are you yelling at the apps to get off of your lawn? :)
Especially that scummy Newsstand App……