“
Because what Apple has done here is nothing less than amazing: They have ignited a new Golden Age of indie game development.
While there I had the opportunity to tell the story of my close friend and brilliant programmer John Ratcliff who, when I first met him, was doing hit games for EA from his basement. This was 20 years ago, back when EA was not the megacorp it is today. They relied on small indie developers like him to build games and grow their business. He created such hits as 688 Attack Sub and Seawolf for them. Essentially alone. In his basement.
And he made great royalty money too… buying exotic cars, building a big house so so forth. He was (and still is) famous in the game development world.
Alas, times change. EA game projects today have credit lists a hundred names long it seems! Big gambles, big risks, big payoffs, big disasters. It’s a whole different industry but one thing is for sure: the age of the lone-wolf developer had ended.
And, 20 years later, Apple…. Steve Jobs…. and his team…. Brought. It. Back.
”David Whatley, the author of geoDefense, in a post about the 360IDev conference
