Ideaworks3D on the joys of going native
If you find yourself at a mobile games industry event having a conversation about the merits of native development, there's a good chance the person you're standing opposite is from Ideaworks3D.
Over the last ten years the company has carved itself a niche as a creator of flagship high-end games for a host of partners, stretching from Nokia (I3D played an integral part in the original N-Gage launch) to Metal Gear Solid for Konami.
In a chat with ME, Ideaworks3D biz dev manager Julian Jones lamets Java and espouses the joys of going native...
What’s kept IdeaWorks3D strong in such a tough maket?
We have two divisions: the games studio and the Airplay native development platform – and they form a virtuous circle that’s the backbone of what we do.
Airplay protects us from the fragmentation that’s killing other developers, and futureproofs us at the same time. It's helped us to build major releases like The Sims without major issues. The dev teams don't need to worry about device limitations, they can focus on making a great game.
But doesn't Airplay itself command a lot of resource?
We have ten people working on it. But we’re licensing the platform now, so it's paying for itself.
More and more publishers want to shift the balance away from porting. One company we work with had 100 people in development and 400 in porting. That's ridiculous.
Why do you focus on native games formats?
It's so difficult to solve Java fragmentation because it's embedded in the handset. Native is easier.
So, even though you could argue that there are new native formats like iPhone, BlackBerry and Linux coming, it's still more manageable. The variations are in form factor, screen size and so on, not in simply making the games work.
Why build Airplay when there are porting solutions in the market?
Airplay delivers a single binary for each game whereas these other solutions work on source code. The quality just isn't as good.
Are you optimistic about the prospects for mobile gaming?
I think we can weather the recession, because gaming is low cost entertainment. And I really see mobile as the new handheld. The OpenGL graphics API is a level up from iPhone, and beyond even PSP.
Click here to read Part 4 of our Game Developer special focus.
To read Part 2 of our Game Development special, click here.
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