What will gaming be like on an iPad?

This post is based on an interview we did with Kotaku. Head over there to read the article:
Game Developers See Potential, Not Gold Rush in Apple’s iPad

Apple has finally revealed the details of its long-awaited iPad, and iPhone gaming fans everywhere are wondering what it will be like to play games on it. Here’s what we think.

The beautiful large screen is the most obvious difference between the iPad, and the iPhone and iPod touch. It means games can be much more immersive, with more detailed art and bigger animations, and more user friendly because there is room for interface elements like buttons, status bars and messages. Games can be easier to learn and understand, as developers will have more room to communicate goals and feedback to players instead of squeezing the bare essentials into limited space.

But the really exciting thing from our perspective is how people might use a multi-touch surface that’s big enough to share with friends. The iPad’s instant start-up makes it a perfect lounge room gadget, great for enjoying visual content like movies, photos, web browsing – and games.

There’s something very satisfying about sitting in a circle with family and friends and sharing an exerience, whether it’s gathering around a camp fire, around the kitchen table or around an iPad. At the moment multiplayer games often physically separate people from each other. You might be in completely different places playing World of Warcraft over the Internet. You might be sitting on a sofa playing console games with friends, but facing a large screen instead of each other. iPad could be different, and once a family has gathered around it to play a board game, we think they are far more likely to try other kinds of games too.

iPad is not a pure gaming device so unlike consoles, non-gamers will buy them too. Then they will use iTunes to buy content. It’s a very small step from that to a non-gamer trying out their first game, and that’s very exciting. It’s happened before, we’ve heard from many people who got completely hooked on Flight Control but had literally never played a video game before. Games are spreading to wider and wider demographics through more approachable platforms.

It’s easy to forget that there are already two iPhone OS devices, the iPhone and the iPod touch. They usually get lumped together as one group, but we believe that iPhone and iPod touch owners buy their devices for different reasons and probably have different preferences in gaming. The iPad is a different device again so it’s going to add a whole new audience to the App Store, some of whom will be new to gaming. That’s good news for game studios everywhere, even those who don’t develop for the iPhone OS.

Some developers have expressed concerns about longer development times for iPad games compared to iPhone. For us, it won’t substantially change anything. Our background in pre-iPhone mobile phone games has given us plenty of experience in squeezing every last drop of performance out of hardware. We pushed the iPhone OS to its limits with Real Racing, which runs like a dream even on a first generation iPod touch. We’re going to keep pushing the limits of whatever hardware we develop for, and to do that we make substantial investments in our games and technology. Our strategy is to make fresh, fun, polished games and we’re not always “spreadsheet rational” about how much we invest in a title before we’re satisfied with it ;)

We’ve already started development on our “enhanced for iPad” optimised and re-imagined version of Flight Control and we’re excited about the possibilities. We want to do more than just up-size the art assets to the higher resolution. When we design a game we always think about the fundamental and unique qualities of the platform and how we can best work with those. Having said that, we’re going to make sure we look after our existing players! We have a great community of wonderful fans, with over 2 million people playing Flight Control and over 4 million playing Real Racing GTI. We wouldn’t be surprised if people line up at Apple stores around the world on the day iPad is released but even so, there’s a logistical limit to how quickly devices can be manufactured and sold. We intend that our games will be available on all three devices, and we’re going to make sure that no matter which one you’re using, you’ll have an awesome time!