Doom game creator suggests Apple embarrassed about iPhone gaming
By Brian Garner
John Carmack, creator of the classic PC game Doom, described working with Apple as a “rollercoaster ride,” and suggested that company executives are not happy about the popularity of gaming on the iPhone and iPod touch.
In an interview with gaming website Kotaku, John Carmack revealed that top executives at Apple do not look fondly on the growing popularity of games on the iPod Touch and iPhone.
“At the highest level of Apple, in their heart of hearts,” Carmack reportedly said, “they’re not proud of the iPhone being a game machine, they wish it was something else.”
Despite this sentiment, the iPod Touch has seen an increased push as a gaming machine by Apple advertising, calling the Touch “the funnest iPod ever.” Apple has gone so far as to directly compare the iPhone/Touch platform to the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP hand held gaming systems, touting that the App store contained 21,179 gaming and entertainment titles versus 3,680 for the DS and 607 for the PSP.
Carmack believes the executives at Apple have had to embrace the iPhone/Touch as a gaming platform as a result of the overwhelming popularity that games have enjoyed at the App store. Apple executive John Geleynse was quoted earlier this year as saying “it’s not a phone, it’s a console experience.”
AppleInsider recently reported that Japanese game maker Nintendo had seen profits nearly cut in half compared to last year, which many attribute to increased competition from the iPhone and iPod touch.
The iPhone/Touch has a distinct distribution advantage over the DS, which relies almost entirely on physical copies of games versus the App Store’s entirely digital method of distribution. Furthermore, the average App Store game is in the $5 to $10 dollar range while the average DS game hovers closer to $30.
With more and more established console game companies such as Electronic Arts, id Software, and Konami making serous forays into App store gaming, it seems like the iPhone/Touch will continue to be major players in the world of handheld gaming, whether Apple likes it or not.
The company’s 30+ year history has been market by tragedy and often accidental fortune. While the company has been much more methodical and customer focused over the past decade than in the past, the company has been the recipient of unanticipated success throughout its years. It’s some of what makes following the company so much fun.
The company’s 30+ year history has been market by tragedy and often accidental fortune. While the company has been much more methodical and customer focused over the past decade than in the past, the company has been the recipient of unanticipated success throughout its years. It’s some of what makes following the company so much fun.
I don’t think this is one of those times though. They’ve had gaming exhibitions from the beginning and had hired gamers internally midway through the iPod evolution. I do understand what Carmack is saying. Gamers will never get the respect that they would like to have from Steve imho. He’s just not a game guy.
It’s not that Apple is unhappy that the iPhone and Touch are good for games—because they are happy—it’s just that working with Apple on any level is a hassle.
It’s not that Apple is unhappy that the iPhone and Touch are good for games—because they are happy—it’s just that working with Apple on any level is a hassle.
I don’t think this is one of those times though. They’ve had gaming exhibitions from the beginning and had hired gamers internally midway through the iPod evolution. I do understand what Carmack is saying. Gamers will never get the respect that they would like to have from Steve imho. He’s just not a game guy.
Two big Apple missteps in the late 90’s:
1. Ignoring the explosive growth in computer gaming and not bringing products to market to address the interest in computer gaming.
2. Came late to the party with CD burners on the iMac.
I do agree from Mr. Carmack’s view games get less respect. I also agree with your point Apple has being exploiting the iPod touch (and to a lesser extent the iPhone) as a superb handheld gaming device. Just ask the people at Sony and Nintendo. I expect the next generation devices to have games in mind during development and component selection.
Apple will follow and lead the flow of developer dollars to the platform.
I don’t think this is one of those times though. They’ve had gaming exhibitions from the beginning and had hired gamers internally midway through the iPod evolution. I do understand what Carmack is saying. Gamers will never get the respect that they would like to have from Steve imho. He’s just not a game guy.
Two big Apple missteps in the late 90’s:
1. Ignoring the explosive growth in computer gaming and not bringing products to market to address the interest in computer gaming.
2. Came late to the party with CD burners on the iMac.
I do agree from Mr. Carmack’s view games get less respect. I also agree with your point Apple has being exploiting the iPod touch (and to a lesser extent the iPhone) as a superb handheld gaming device. Just ask the people at Sony and Nintendo. I expect the next generation devices to have games in mind during development and component selection.
Apple will follow and lead the flow of developer dollars to the platform.
I remember having Marathon parties on weekends with tweeked out Power Mac 9500s in in the 90s.
We took it to a new level when we started gaming with Silicon Graphics workstations!
Myth (I) was the high-water mark in Mac multiplayer gaming for me personally.
Back on topic, Apple would NOT bring in Open GL ES 1.0 and then 2.0 support, or put in fairly cutting-edge mobile graphics for the class, if it wasn’t thinking about 3D gaming. I respect Carmack, but I think he might be basing his opinions on certain way-higher-ups at Apple of the older generation who, well, just don’t get gaming as much as the younger people, say of Scott Forstall’s generation. As the article said, Apple is aggressively pushing the iPod touch as a gaming device, and that’s gotta have Nintendo and Sony running scared (technically speaking, it’s safe to say that the Cortex-A8-based iPod touch CPU+GPU combo already far exceeds the capabilities of the PSP and especially the DS).
Apple probably having the largest library of games in the mobile space is _ironic_ for sure, but even Apple’s non-gamer top-level management can get behind the idea of the “means to an end”—it’s a powerful draw that helps keep OS X touch in the lead.
While the growth of games for the iPhone/Touch platform is impressive, what really excites me is the level of creativity that the devices have stimulated. Sure there are fart apps and a lot of copy cat knock-offs, but there are also thousands of apps that never appeared on desktop computers—small niche fulfilling, such as the astronomy apps, fitness, location services, radio streaming, first aid, photography tools, etc. Each day I become aware of some unique app that I’m compelled to download and try, if only to see how well the programmer has implemented the idea. Games have been more successfully monetized, and many of them are clever and fresh, but for me, a non-gamer, the real genius of the platform is its flexibility for new approaches to traditional computer use.
The customers are moving to online faster than the publishers are. Lots of publishers have misread just how quickly the market would change. Apple’s (AAPL) App Store getting one and a half billion downloads in a year and Evony getting 10 million registered users in just a few months whilst boxed cardboard and plastic retail games gather dust on the shelves is the new reality.
Unwillingness to experiment with a new IP. This is just pathetic. So many publishers now are just sitting there flogging their old IPs to death because they think it is safe. It isn’t safe at all, those IPs will not deliver forever. Publishers need to build value in their business and the only way is with a new IP. Sure it is risky, but publishing is about risk. And these days you can experiment on the cheap to develop platform and then if it works move the IP to the expensive to develop platforms. And the Apple App Store has loads of brilliant new ideas for the IP.
The customers are moving to online faster than the publishers are. Lots of publishers have misread just how quickly the market would change. Apple’s (AAPL) App Store getting one and a half billion downloads in a year and Evony getting 10 million registered users in just a few months whilst boxed cardboard and plastic retail games gather dust on the shelves is the new reality.
Unwillingness to experiment with a new IP. This is just pathetic. So many publishers now are just sitting there flogging their old IPs to death because they think it is safe. It isn’t safe at all, those IPs will not deliver forever. Publishers need to build value in their business and the only way is with a new IP. Sure it is risky, but publishing is about risk. And these days you can experiment on the cheap to develop platform and then if it works move the IP to the expensive to develop platforms. And the Apple App Store has loads of brilliant new ideas for the IP.
I agree. I think the industry is changing rapidly and Apple recognized that and took advantage of it. I think Apple saw the iTouch and iPhone as mobile devices and understood the App Store concept early on.
I think what surprised them was the speed by which developers were developing Apps and the fact that most Apps that were popular were games. Last year when the 3G was released, Apple made a big deal about that company that planned on investing $100 million in Apps development.
We are now almost 16 months later and world is changing rapidly.
From my own personal experience, my family is playing games on their iPhones everyday. My son loves Evony and plays it often. This weekend I downloaded Eliminator Pro and I was amazed about the graphics and level of detail in this game.
A year from now Apple will announce that the iPod Touch was their most popular iPod ever. Kids at my son’s school are slowly showing up with them. This Christmas I think many kids will get the iPod touch.
A year from now Apple will announce that the iPod Touch was their most popular iPod ever. Kids at my son’s school are slowly showing up with them. This Christmas I think many kids will get the iPod touch.
For parents unwilling to finance smartphones for their kids (or move to AT&T for the iPhone), the iPod touch has become a very nice consolation prize and gift. While iPod unit sales are dropping, sales of the iPod touch are in part mitigating the corresponding fall in revenue.
Sometimes I think we overhype Jobs influence on Apple’s successes and failures, but in the case of games, I believe Jobs role cannot be overstated.
From day one of Apple, Jobs had no interest in games. For him, computers were always about changing the way people live their ordinary lives. iLife is really the quintessential Jobs software product, that incorporates his worldview on the use of computers. For him, games are a WASTE of life, a nerdy mutation of living.
I’m the same age as Jobs, and I have had a lifelong fascination with computers and absolutely no interest in computer games. Even though I’ve played a few games on my iPhone, I still don’t care about games, and I’ll bet anything that Jobs still doesn’t either.
But Jobs does care about competition, and somewhere shortly after the launch of the iPhone/iPod Touch his competitive juices started to flow regarding the opportunity to take on Nintendo and Sony (and of course, MS) in the gaming world. Jobs doesn’t care one bit about creating a better game (which will be entirely left to third party developers) but he cares about creating a better business model for gaming, which he has done brilliantly.
I’m just speculating here, but I believe that a substantial portion of Apple executives had been chomping at the bit for YEARS to get some piece of the huge gaming profits, but couldn’t even make a proposal in the face of Job’s singleminded and complete disdain for the genre. But once Jobs got excited about the BUSINESS of gaming, then the floodgates opened, and now its safe for these execs not only to promote games, but to make it a central part of the Apple mission (as evidenced by the recent keynotes).
Watch out Nintendo! You don’t want to be in an industry that Steve obsessively focuses on transforming.
Sometimes I think we overhype Jobs influence on Apple’s successes and failures, but in the case of games, I believe Jobs role cannot be overstated.
From day one of Apple, Jobs had no interest in games. For him, computers were always about changing the way people live their ordinary lives. iLife is really the quintessential Jobs software product, that incorporates his worldview on the use of computers. For him, games are a WASTE of life, a nerdy mutation of living.
I’m the same age as Jobs, and I have had a lifelong fascination with computers and absolutely no interest in computer games. Even though I’ve played a few games on my iPhone, I still don’t care about games, and I’ll bet anything that Jobs still doesn’t either.
But Jobs does care about competition, and somewhere shortly after the launch of the iPhone/iPod Touch his competitive juices started to flow regarding the opportunity to take on Nintendo and Sony (and of course, MS) in the gaming world. Jobs doesn’t care one bit about creating a better game (which will be entirely left to third party developers) but he cares about creating a better business model for gaming, which he has done brilliantly.
I’m just speculating here, but I believe that a substantial portion of Apple executives had been chomping at the bit for YEARS to get some piece of the huge gaming profits, but couldn’t even make a proposal in the face of Job’s singleminded and complete disdain for the genre. But once Jobs got excited about the BUSINESS of gaming, then the floodgates opened, and now its safe for these execs not only to promote games, but to make it a central part of the Apple mission (as evidenced by the recent keynotes).
Watch out Nintendo! You don’t want to be in an industry that Steve obsessively focuses on transforming.
I agree with most of what you’re saying here. Like yourself and Steve, I just wasn’t born with the gaming gene. What I don’t agree with is that anybody has had a difficult time convincing Steve of the relevance of the genre. The absolute highlight of one of the early iMac keynotes was the demo of Halo by a then independent Bungie. Had Microsoft not swooped in and acquired them I believe Apple would have made their move at that juncture. I’ve always wondered if Steve (Jobs not Balmer) had his own chair throwing episode the day of that announcement.
I don’t think it can have been accidental. Earlier iPods had a few games. Apple themselves released a game for the App store launch. There was awareness of games. Apple was correct that touchscreen+accelerometer+graphics+appStore was all that was required for gaming success. Poor old Carmack had just hoped for more personal support from Apple.
The vibes Carmack is picking up now simply show Apple is afraid of the market redefining its product as a gaming device. That loss of control is what they don’t want, so they are “embarrassed” at the extent to which iPod touch is defining itself as a handheld gaming device.
[ Edited: 11 November 2009 10:19 AM by sleepygeek ]
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