iPhone App Reviews by iPhone App Reviewer | Games and App Store Reviews

Developer Interview: X2 Games

Posted on 09. Aug, 2009 by iPhone App Reviewer in Developer Interview

While my reviewing iPod is in repair – we’re going to have some interesting, alternate content, and see how it goes.  Anyways, being a software reviewer and running this website, you get lots of contacts, and meet lots of interesting people.  As a programmer myself, I like to know what goes behind the scenes with other developers.  Therefore I present to you today an interview we’ve done with Exient (better known in the iPhone world as X2 Games).

Exient is a software development company that’s been around since the time of the gameboy.  Although they publish iPhone games under the pseudonym X2 Games [iTunes Link].   The questions are being answered by Charles Chapman and David Hawkins.

iPhone App Reviewer: Given the success of the App Store it’s quite obvious why you’d get into iPhone development, but how easy was it to get started?

X2 Games: Getting going with our first project was pretty easy – we’re professional game developers and have spent the last decade getting to grips with the demands of handhelds across just about every portable format that exists, so we’re used to working with new hardware and adapting our workflow to it. The only difference with iPhone was that we were working with Macs a lot more!

iPhone App Reviewer: We all want to know, how much profit can you actually make out of app development?

X2 Games: How long actually is a piece of string? I’d say that entirely depends on your approach. There’s one angle, where you fire small, cheap games onto the store and hope one sticks or virally becomes a friend-shared phenomenon, delivering a good return in the process. This is pretty close to the current browser-based Flash gaming model and as a result, you’ll see one successful game design iterated into almost infinite variations. This isn’t the market we’re in – we see the iPhone as a platform worthy of investment on the same level as traditional gaming platforms. We aim for console-level production values and approach the iPhone platform as a console developer first and foremost. This means costs are higher for us, but they’re not as high compared to home consoles and we believe that if the quality is there, we’ll get the sales and the returns to make it worthwhile. We’re in this for the long-term, and will be developing our IPs to be definite brands for the platform – brands that we believe customers will trust and keep returning to. In that sense, we’re looking to create a sustainable flow from iPhone, rather than rapidly firing out hit and miss titles.

iPhone App Reviewer: How many work hours are involved in creating a successful app?

X2 Games: A lot, if you want to do it properly! X2 Football had several thousand hours from various people across the team, but then we set out to make the definitive football game on the platform. Realising a goal like that demands considerable skill and resources across the board – coding, in-game assets, animation, game design, music and sound and so on. It also depends on what you class as ‘successful’ – I’m sure someone could develop a simple, but incredibly addictive, low-asset title in quite a short time, but then any truly ‘good’ game needs considerable playtesting to be worth its salt, which will again bump up the hours involved. Either way, you need to put in the time!

iPhone App Reviewer: Is the App Store approval process really as painful as a lot of people make it seem?

X2 Games: We had no problems whatsoever, though we’re well used to tough approval processes with console platform holders. This meant we put a lot of effort into making sure our submission candidate was up to standard as a matter of course.

iPhone App Reviewer: How detailed and highly rendered graphics can the iPhone handle? A lot of people complain about lack of graphics capabilties in apps but who’s fault is it really? The iPhone’s or the developers?

X2 Games: Like all platforms, there are good and bad ways to do things on the iPhone. It can take time to work out the best way to get the most from the hardware, but once you do, it’s a pretty good piece of kit. Sure, the iPhone could be better but that’s true of any hardware – it’s down to the developers to find out how to make their ideas work, really. A good workman never blames his tools…

iPhone App Reviewer: Are you using the 3.0 development SDK?

X2 Games: Yes, we’ve started using 3.0.

iPhone App Reviewer: What do you like in the new SDK? Is the transition simple?

X2 Games: True local multiplayer is probably the most exciting feature for us and we plan to implement it in an update for X2 Football 2009. There are other features in 3.0 that are really interesting, so we’ll be looking into best uses for them in our future projects.

iPhone App Reviewer: What goes into making a truly successful and creative application?

X2 Games: The iPhone’s game library is pretty broad now, so unless you can nail an original concept and deliver it, we think you need to be producing games that are markedly better than what’s already available – and offer a really good reason for people to buy into your version. In our case, we felt that football games could be improved across the board – animation, AI and most importantly, control method. These were our main goals when we started the X2 Football project and our various chart positions suggest that we’re definitely on the right path!

iPhone App Reviewer: Do developers pay much attention to using the application with the iPod Touch or is it primarily iPhone focused?

X2 Games: We want to address the widest audience we can, so we needed to make sure the app worked across the range. With this in mind, we develop using the whole range of iPhones and iPods. Quality Assurance is no different – we test rigorously on every variant the game’s compatible with.

iPhone App Reviewer: How much resources are available to developers? Is Apple’s documentation sufficient?

X2 Games: Apple’s support documentation is great. We’ve had no significant problems with Apple’s level of support.

iPhone App Reviewer: How heavy is the competition in the app store? Do you have lots of marketing to do in order to compete?

X2 Games: Marketing always helps but ultimately, the quality of the app is the most important thing if you really want to compete. With the App Store’s reviews and ratings system, products generally get the reviews they deserve, so if your app is good, it’ll always review well and get positive attention as a result. There’s only so much that marketing can do with a bad product on the App Store, as faults will always come out in the wash.

iPhone App Reviewer: To wrap up, how do you like being an iPhone app developer?

X2 Games: It’s a great platform to be working with and developing games for it is fun – partly because of the fresh challenge of developing on iPhone and being able to implement new ideas. There’s also the aspect of directly addressing a really sizeable audience.

---

Many thanks to the whole team over at Exient and their excellent PR staff. Check out Exient’s latest hit, X2 Football 2009 [iTunes Link].

Related posts:

1. X2 Football 2009 iPhone Game App Review iPhone App Reviewer reviews the fully 3D soccer game "X2...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: charles chapman, david hawkins, exient, indy developer, interview, iphone app reviewer, iphoneappreviewer, mainstream developer, tony coles, x2 football 2009, x2 games

Like this post? Why not subscribe to our RSS Feed to keep up to date with our latest posts! To keep completely up to date with news on iPhone App Reviewer you can also follow us on twitter!

You could also view another post randomly!