iPad "not far at all" from AAA console quality gaming, says Remedy
Matias Myllyrinne sees Infinity Blade as the benchmark on iOS
iPad, and tablets in general, push technology forward at a rapid clip. The processing power grows significantly each year and, according to Remedy Entertainment CEO Matias Myllyrinne, it won't be long before full-fledged console experiences like Alan Wake can be had on tablets.
"[We're] not far at all," he told GamesIndustry International recently, adding that he'd still like to see a controller built for tablets that works. "Or at least I'd like to see games made for the medium. You still see ports of console titles being brought to iPad. While some of those are cool, I think the really powerful things would be when they're made for the medium. When you take the interface into serious consideration in your design. But I don't think we're far away from that at all. If you talk to any of the smart kids in the class, I think all of them are looking at how do we build good IP for theses devices, and I think Infinity Blade is now the benchmark and I think Epic and Chair have done a wonderful job there."
He continued, "I think we'll see loads of people come to that space and obviously, as the processing power goes ahead and increases, I don't think that's going to be the limiting factor. I think the nut to crack right now is to build the right kind of content for that medium."
"And the play sessions are different as well. So we're seeing in Death Rally, we've had over 50 million play sessions, but those play sessions usually are between 3 and 4 minutes. So I think you need to design a game that people can essentially play on a bus stop or in the toilet."
"I think we've gained a lot of credibility as an art form in the past few years and I think we'll continue to do that"
Matias Myllyrinne
So does that mean that a traditional console type experience wouldn't fit tablets? Do iPad players not crave the hour+ long sit down gaming sessions that consoles are used for?
"That's a good question. I don't know," confessed Myllyrinne. "I know that there are heavy users for our games and there are a lot of folks who play at home on an iPad for a long period of time. I don't know whether the hard core gamers would still rather boot up a console and play Uncharted or Halo or what have you. But I don't think they necessarily take away from each other. They're just different kinds of experiences. I think, most of us, these days, we have a touch phone, we have an iPad, and we have a laptop. They're all used for similar things, but still they serve a specific function."
So if Remedy is so psyched with iOS as a platform and the potential for larger games, will Alan Wake make its way to iPad? Not necessarily.
"We're obviously looking hard at what kind of gameplay works on those platforms as well and doing a lot of prototyping. I think it's important to do it right. There's no such thing as a 'small' game. You can put out something that doesn't deliver. I don't think there are any excuses for that. Even if it's 99 cents or $4.99 or whatever, it's still kind of an implicit promise from you to the audience that, by the way, this is good sh*t. And if it's not, nobody wants to feel cheated or shortchanged, even if it's 99 cents. So I think it's really important to get those things right," he said.
Regardless of whether Alan Wake ever comes to iPad, Remedy as a developer is encouraged by the ongoing maturation the games industry has seen. Developers can be more creative with an adult perspective in mind these days. That simply wasn't the case in the '80s and '90s.
"I think we've gained a lot of credibility as an art form in the past few years and I think we'll continue to do that. But I think, most importantly, games are so mainstream now that you have the opportunity to try to do something that's more refined and it doesn't need to appeal to your middle school audience," Myllyrinne added. "You can do games for 20- or 30-year-old folks who like HBO. And I think that's interesting and it's cool to see people approach it from their own angles... technically, we can just do much more and production wise we can just do much more than we ever could before, so I'm really looking forward to what happens in the upcoming years."
Well said. Someone grasps the revolution that is happening in gaming.
One of the resident game nuts in our office bought an iPad3 at the weekend instead of a Vita. It is very easy to understand why.
In screen resolution tablets have now convincingly overtaken console. For GPU and CPU power they will convincingly overtake console this year.
The problem (though it shouldn't be) is the user interface. Some people are stuck with console controllers as the only input device they know how to design for. Meanwhile more flexible thinkers are doing fantastic things with iOS. All the single button games and innovative "gesture" inputs like on Flick Golf. These are far more intuitive so have far greater customer acceptance.
Then there is the numbers game. By the end of this year there will probably be more tablets in the world than all current generation consoles put together. By the end of next year there will probably be more tablets in the world than all the consoles ever made. And all these customers can be reached just by putting your game on the App Stores. No plastic, no cardboard, no shipping, no local distributors. Global distribution with the press of a button.
And still there are plenty in the industry who don't get it.
Posted:A year ago