Game Theory: Q&A with Tom Page of Tactile Entertainment

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Notable apps: Pocket Creatures ($2.99), Crazy Test ($0.99), Front Runners

Platforms: iPad & iPhone

Specialty genres: Totally awesome gameplay 🙂

Company size: 12 people

Short description of company: Tactile Entertainment was founded in 2009, and has focused on iPhone and iPad games since its inception.

How did you and your firm get into the iPhone game development business?

Because iPhone and iPod touch redefined how gamers perceive games. It has been fun being part of this movement who are changing how we use and perceive games. As a company, we want to make cutting edge, innovative products and the iPhone platform has certainly been the place to be for this over the past 2-3 years.

In your opinion, how has the iPhone and Apple’s iTunes App Store changed the gaming industry?

Never have so many new IPs been available to this many people in such a short amount of time. The iPhone has truly given creative power back to the developers and created an ecosystem where gamers find play experiences that did just not exist only 2-3 years ago.

Describe the differences between developing games for the iPhone and the iPad.

We want to deliver high quality products on both platforms. Especially after the launch of iPhone 4, the processor power and resolution enables us to deliver almost the same experience on both platforms. However, thanks to a larger screen on the iPad, we could imagine future products utilizing the expanded interface to create more complex gesture-based concepts.

What factors go into how you ultimately price your games?

Honestly – pricing in the App Store is just one big crazy experiment. What we try to do is to make an offering that we feel is extremely adventurous compared to competing products. Ultimately, with the current App Store ecosystem, the only way to do this is to deliver superb quality, which really is our focus.

Describe what your dream game for the iPhone would look like.

Well,  we are making them :-). But our dreams keep on changing from month to month 🙂 There is so much happening on this platform right now, we get inspired to do new stuff all the time. This is one of the reasons why we love the iPhone platform so much – there is no standing still looking back over your shoulder. It is always full steam ahead.

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