Whats the best major game developer/publisher to work with IOS? I would say Square enix, which has been making great games available, awesome quality and even many original games.
As much as I am a fan I say no. I believe the best is chillingo minus the et bs game but they have a wide variety of genres I love the space Tower attack game.
Orangepixel, Radian Games, Ravenous and Pikpok are among the best right now. Of course Square Enix has a special place in my heart... They have really good releases on the iOS, but being a huge company, they havent been the most interactive devs. So far, Mighty Rabbit(SMRpg), White Whale(God of Blades), PindiLab (Invader Hunter), Empty Flask Games (Infinite Warrior) and Gamesmold (Blood Roofs) are among my favorite devs too, but they each have 1 game released for us so far. Looking forward to what adventures these devs can take us into next!
Crescent Moon has a bit rockier record as a publisher (obviously not always their fault, but they did choose to publish the game) but the games they develop themselves, I would put them in the top tier as well. I'd also put Cave in there. That, of course, depends on how much you like shmups.
Well I hate Gameloft, but at the same time I just love them. They're really innovative with their multiplayer FPS games.
They get a bum rap and, in some cases, deservedly so. But they do put out some good stuff. Asphalt 7 is fantastic.
easily EA...say what you will about them as a company, but they've put out some real quality games on iOS.
Dont forget about fifa 12 , fifa 13 they are awesome !!! . ( And by ea).... and what about rovio for bad piggies ( best game for me )
My view of Gameloft has changed a lot lately. I actually like them a lot now because they have absolutely great games, and they often go on sale for 99 cents. So I am happy they are making games for ios. EA, their ports are kind of clunky, but they too have a lot of 99 cents, so their ports are still worth it. Asphalt 7 is one of the best values for the buck, and I think will be for the near term, until Asphalt 8 comes out, but FPSs they make some great ones like modern combat and nova series. I know they have a lot of iaps and all and hackers, but usually the iaps are optional, and the hacker problem really isn't all their fault, it's just the game attracts a lot of tech savy hardcore gamers who are good hackers too.
I know man! I started to hate them with their 2011 freemium phase, but man they've put out some quality stuff in 2012!
In no particular order, any one of the following have done splendid work (repeatedly!) on iOS: Agharta Studio, Illusion Labs, Mountain Sheep, Infinite Dreams, Subatomic Studios, True Axis, Critical Thought Games, Mika Mobile, Semi Secret Software, Tiger Style and of course Halfbrick I tip my hat to each and every one of the above, and to the ones I missed.
Yeah, I agree with you. I just wish all the major shops like EA, Capcom, and some others would take ios a little more serious and not just give us some computer emulator like clunkers. At least Gameloft is trying and pushing the boundries of ios gaming, and I will always be thankful for that along with their great sales which are a bargain! Without Gameloft, I really feel the other major competitors would not feel the heat and build better and cheaper games. I really think the Gameloft empire will grow, and nowadays whenever a major Gameloft sale goes on, I get very excited. Modern Combat, Nova, Asphalt, I know those are some of your favorite games. For me, didn't really like FPS games, but after some 99 cent sales, man, I realize I do like them, and can't believe I can play games like this on my new ipad with the touchscreen, and it plays well. I wish EA, Capcom, Sega, and others would be the same way in treating ios the say it deserves to be developed for. But I do appreciate the constant EA sales, got some cool games like FIFA 12 for ipad, tetris for ipad, deadspace for ipad, max and the marker, etc, for close to nothing. Ios is great nowadays, so much out there, don't think I will ever get bored of it. You can buy a 99 cent game every single day a year, that's 365 great games, you will never get bored. Just constantly having to figure out which games you will have to delete. One thing that makes life tough is all those 2gb games that Gameloft and EA come out with, but at least they are usually pretty good! Edit: I wonder how you will like Modern Combat 4, hope they fix the hacker problem for you!
I like spacetime studios, they listen to their fan base and continue to update their games regularly.
Can't speak too much of EA's sports games as I don't really have many of them (a few that I got for $.99 that are no longer on any of my devices), but Dead Space was easily their best effort and had hoped that was a sign to come of EA taking the iOS seriously. But nothing has come out from them since that was on par with it. Don't think their Need for Speed games were anywhere close to as good as the Asphalt games. Nor do I think the Shift games were anywhere close to the Real Racing games. I'll be anxious to see how Most Wanted turns out though. Agree with most of Frand's iOS developer's list as well, particularly Mountain Sheep, Mika Mobile and Halfbrick.
I hope sincerely that everyone would come to understand the difference between a publisher and a developer. - A developer may self-publish. That simply means they decided not to have a third party handle marketing and visibility, but prefer to do all the work themselves, and reap the full rewards of their possible success. - A developer may use a publisher to bring the game to the market, in which case the publisher's name usually tends to be quite prominent. The common agreement may involve the publisher paying some money in advance to the developer, or the parties just agree on a revenue split. Going this route may or may not help the developer. The best case is that the brand of the publisher helps the game get more visibility, and the worst case is that the game makes money on its own merits, and the developer loses a revenue share for nothing. - A traditional publisher pays developers to make games, then the publisher markets them and keeps most of the revenue. Think "rich publisher, poor developer" and you're not totally off, and traditional publishers prefer it that way, because it gives them the upper hand. - On mobile things have become somewhat hazy and a lot of different business models take place, but still in general a big publisher such as EA, Glu or Gameloft (you do know Chillingo is owned by EA, right?) will just have internal or external teams making games utilizing their brands. So what that means altogether is that the bigger the publisher, the less you know who the people are who actually do the work and care about the game. With small studios you can rely on the people themselves to deliver games based on their personal reputation, and with big publishers the "seal of quality" is the brand value of the publisher. This simplifies things a bit, because certainly there are publishers who own studios with brand recognition of their own, and probably business arrangements too that were not mentioned above, but ultimately everything boils down to making money from the recognition of brands, be it the name of the game, the name of the developer or the name of the publisher.
