Developers not really motivated to write game applications for BlackBerry
21st October, 2010 by adina
Tags: AdMob, Apple, BlackBerry, Google, iAd, News, RIM
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As an examination of the application community reveals, BlackBerry handsets are not even registering for developers of game applications. PopCap developer, author of Plants vs. Zombies, said that the BlackBerry was not supported in its present form as it was not suitable when compared to iOS and Android. The development environment has been difficult to use until recently and the platform does not show any performance emphasis, due to using a two-year old Marvell processor even for the Torch, says the developer.
The lead of mobile development at PopCap, Andrew Stein, declared to the Wall Street Journal that BlackBerry phones were not good gaming machines and developers really did not feel attracted to writing such applications for the platform.
However, gaming seems to have a brighter future on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, since Research in Motion promised to equip it with a dual-core 1GHz processor and improve significantly the graphics performance, enough to run modern games for mobiles. Nonetheless, the gap already created is considered as a major drawback in the expansion of BlackBerry App World which has just passed 10,000 applications, while rivals from Google have 100,000 and Apple has more than 250,000. Gaming is one of the largest categories in the App Store.
BlackBerry development has also fought other problems, resolved with the 2.0 update of the App World and the BlackBerry 6 development environment, but they had been implemented in iOS and Android about two years ago. Call logging developer Widality said that it had to make separate paid and free versions and charge a minimum fee of $3 payable through PayPal, until Research in Motion was unveiling its new application strategy. App World 2.0 asks companies to charge the same minimum of 99 cents as Google and Apple and allow payments with credit cards. This has been available with iPhones since the launch of the App Store in July 2008.
Research in Motion has gone on to build a formal environment for the creation of web-based applications and to cast a shadow on Google’s AdMob and Apple’s iAd to assist financing of free and low-cost applications.
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I don’t agree with PopCap’s assessment.
BlackBerry is inherently a communications device. What the industry is missing out on is how huge the social gaming opportunity is on BlackBerry.
Also KaGlom for BlackBerry has close to 10 million downloads and the Texas Holdem King brand which is a multiplayer game embedded on most BlackBerrys has beyond 30 million installs.
What’s missing is a lack of companies willing to speak about their success in the space.
I have a Torch and I am returning it. More than 90% of the apps on appworld do not work on the torch, so essentially, you have no apps.
I have had numerous other problems too – piece of junk in my opinion.