the 941

You only need $100 and a Mac to develop apps for the iPhone. If it’s Twitter, games, email, GPS navigation or Facebook, “there’s an app for that” on the iTunes App Store. The iPhone’s success is largely owed to the developers, ranging from big name studios to a few guys in a garage, ala Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who have made the device the swiss army knife of phones.

Since its launch in July of 2008, the iTunes App Store has reached over 2 billion downloads and now has more than 100,000 unique applications available. What has made the rapid growth and success of the App Store possible are the more than 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program.

What’s it like developing for the iPhone? Why are developers gravitating towards it? Where do developers see mobile gaming going? The 941 sat down with a few iPhone developers last week to answer these, and other, questions.

“When we first started out it was a gold rush to say the least. Everybody was jumping into the iPhone market,” says the CEO of Rock Ridge Games, Mike Mann. In fact, iPhone game development was a gold rush within the App Store race as at least 20 percent of all applications released for the iTunes App Store are games.

With those kinds of numbers, it’s difficult to get your game noticed. “You have to focus not so much in the games that your competition is doing, but in the quality that they’re doing. And when you’re putting out low-quality games to get stuff out quickly, you’re not going to make any money. You’re not going to go anywhere,” Mann explains. “So we have to raise up our quality level and raise the bar on what we expect out of ourselves in order to compete with these heavy hitters that have entered the market.”

Things weren’t so “sweet” at first. iPhone developers were restricted to web based apps until the release of the iPhone 3G and launch of the iTunes App Store.

“We’re putting a lot out there but when you have people like Gameloft and Electronic Arts, you know, these heavy hitters that are jumping into the iPhone with both feet, it’s really hard to compete when it’s just two guys spending a month on a game, putting it out and hoping it sticks and then trying to support it afterwards,” Mann says.

The diversity within the iPhone development community ranges anywhere from one-man operations to big teams at major game developers. In fact, the Austin, Texas-based Rock Ridge Games is composed of Mann and his partner, both video game industry veterans. “Being a small bootstrap company, we don’t have the resources.” Mann explained. “We are basically having to barter and beg and call in every favor we’ve ever been owed to get these games done.”

Anyone with $99 and a Mac can purchase the iPhone development kit and begin to develop Apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Because of this accessibility, iPhone development has in a way become the epitome of the “if you build it, they will come” mentality and has, by making the barrier to entry low, enticed a throng of developers to come forward.

“One of the wonderful things about the market is how open it is. It just opened itself up to creativity,” says the CEO of Super Happy Fun Fun (SHFF), Mark Pierce. “And I think we’ve all been the beneficiary of that, seeing all sorts of games that would have never made it past any sane publisher’s radar.” One such game may very well be Rock Ridge Games’ “Western Wind” which is loosely based of off an infamous scene in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles. “Western Wind” combines cowboy flatulence with “Simon” and includes a mode which allows users to create their own musical tune.

“I totally enjoy the fact that there’s that many developers. Now that makes it a problem as a businessman. How do you make money if you have a 99-cent app and there’s about 50,000 game developers and I imagine 20,000 to 30,000 of the apps are games and 70 percent of the apps are free?” Pierce wonders. “I think ‘Buck Hunter‘ is an exact expression that our strategy is the correct one. You bring a a high quality title out there and it gets noticed.”

“Buck Hunter,” based on the popular arcade game of the same name, is a hunting game released by SHFF which combines pretty impressive 3D graphics for the iPhone with simple controls. Adding to the polish that makes it stand out from other titles are its networking features that allow for score boards and its GPS functionality which allows users to find the nearest physical “Buck Hunter” arcade game.

When games like “Buck Hunter” or “Western Wind” strike a cord with Apple or iPhone gamers, Apple posts them on the home page of the App Store under “What’s Hot” for some added exposure. The “good” titles are further given weight over the more mediocre ones thanks to the top-20 sales charts.

Mobile phone games had often been looked down upon and were seen as little to no competition to dedicated handheld gaming machines such as the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. Even Nintendo of Japan President Satoru Iwata is beginning to recognize that the App Store is becoming a force to be reckoned with. “If we can’t make clear why customers pay a lot of money to play games on Nintendo hardware and Nintendo software and differentiate ourselves from games on the mobile phone or iPhone, then our future is dark,” Iwata recently stated at a company event.

Apple’s Phil Schiller frames the iPhone as a gaming platform at a recent Apple press conference.

Still have some doubts that the iPhone can compete? Revenue from iPhone and iPod Touch games is expected to rise from $46 million in 2008 to more than $2.8 billion in 2014. That’s a lot of downloads.

“I personally love the Nintendo DS and its kind of interesting because I very seldom play it anymore. The iPhone has replaced it for me,” Pierce says. “It’s just the platform to be on.”

“Never underestimate Nintendo,” SHFF producer Bill Lacoste says. “If you’re not Nintendo, you’re not really a player. With iPhone, as we’re seeing, even two small guys in a basement can come out and have a huge hit.”

“It’s almost going to be like a web experience where anybody can make a website,” Pierce says. Everything about iPhone development has “come together in this perfect storm where things are now and where they’re going to be for the next five to 10 years.”

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