I helped create Crash Bandicoot at Naughty Dog back in the late 90s. I've been out of the game industry since 1998, but find the industry changes catalyzed by iOS and the app store fascinating. It must be very unsettling for those working in the industry.
The survey results were indeed silly, but you have to forgive people a bit for being enthralled by the rapidity with which Apple has changed the game (pun intended). It's not just mobile vs console/PC -- Apple (and, to be fair, Zynga, though I personally despise their work) have also ushered in a new era of casual gaming that really appeals to the mass audience. And, let's not forget, to little kids.
With Crash we tried to channel Miyamoto's emphasis on simple game mechanics and fun for all ages. Nobody did more than Miyamoto to make games (industry-wide) fun. (As an aside, though, there are many largely unknown industry figures who have worked very hard in the same way, and have accomplished similar results; Mark Cerny, whom we worked with at Naughty Dog, and who designed or co-designed the gameplay for the Sonic, Crash, Jak & Daxter, and Ratchtet & Clank series certainly deserves a lot of credit as well.)
As a now-industry-outsider, it seems to me that Apple's resurgence has had the following effects on games:
1) casual gaming is again dominant;
2) it's no longer clear we need dedicated consoles in our living rooms;
3) one or two people can make a viable, salable game again
Naughty Dog has seen their budgets increase from around $1M for Crash 1 to many tens of millions of dollars these days. There will still be a big market for AAA titles with huge budgets. But what interests me most is that two coders in Laos (say) can now make a game that lots of people will buy. Sort of like in the Apple II era, when one or two people could create salable games (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_Gebelli for a great example); this is a welcome change for aspiring game developers.
And I confess I'm happy about the return to casual gaming and greater emphasis on pure gameplay.
But if I were Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft, I would be very concerned about #2.
The survey results were indeed silly, but you have to forgive people a bit for being enthralled by the rapidity with which Apple has changed the game (pun intended). It's not just mobile vs console/PC -- Apple (and, to be fair, Zynga, though I personally despise their work) have also ushered in a new era of casual gaming that really appeals to the mass audience. And, let's not forget, to little kids.
With Crash we tried to channel Miyamoto's emphasis on simple game mechanics and fun for all ages. Nobody did more than Miyamoto to make games (industry-wide) fun. (As an aside, though, there are many largely unknown industry figures who have worked very hard in the same way, and have accomplished similar results; Mark Cerny, whom we worked with at Naughty Dog, and who designed or co-designed the gameplay for the Sonic, Crash, Jak & Daxter, and Ratchtet & Clank series certainly deserves a lot of credit as well.)
As a now-industry-outsider, it seems to me that Apple's resurgence has had the following effects on games:
1) casual gaming is again dominant; 2) it's no longer clear we need dedicated consoles in our living rooms; 3) one or two people can make a viable, salable game again
Naughty Dog has seen their budgets increase from around $1M for Crash 1 to many tens of millions of dollars these days. There will still be a big market for AAA titles with huge budgets. But what interests me most is that two coders in Laos (say) can now make a game that lots of people will buy. Sort of like in the Apple II era, when one or two people could create salable games (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_Gebelli for a great example); this is a welcome change for aspiring game developers.
And I confess I'm happy about the return to casual gaming and greater emphasis on pure gameplay.
But if I were Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft, I would be very concerned about #2.