iGame Radio

Last week was Macworld, the annual pilgrimage for Mac geeks to travel to San Francisco and pay homage to the tech god that is Apple and its products. This year’s Macworld saw a decrease in numbers of attendees compared to past Macworlds in which Apple participated. But the almost 25,000 who walked the Expo floor, attended the over 100 educational sessions, and visited the over 250 exhibitors was still slightly more than last year’s Macworld, proving that Macworld isn’t going away any time soon.

From a gamer perspective, Macworld did not offer a huge amount for the Mac or iOS gamer. Gone are the days when row upon row of Macs were LAN’d together for daily game tournaments, circled by game developers and publishers, big and small. And to be fair those days began to decline before Apple stopped attending Macworld. It was a slow decline over the years, and difficult to determine really where the true source of it began.

But despite that, Mac and iOS developers and publishers were there, and I had the opportunity to see them and talk with them.

Some of them were brand new, such as Liv Games bringing Legendary Wars, a unique castle defense game, to the iPhone and iPad. Others, such as XMG Studio and Alawar Entertainment, have been publishing games for a year or longer.

The vast majority of exhibitors at Macworld 2011 focused on the iOS platform, and the gaming sector was no different. None of the game exhibitors there had developed solely for the Mac platform, and almost all of them had developed their game for iOS first, with some choosing to bring that game over to Mac later. A lot of them had made that choice because of the Mac App Store as well.

The success of Macworld 2011 from the point of view of the exhibitors also seemed to depend more on how much experience they had with previous Macworlds. Those who had attended in the past were mostly disappointed in the size of this year’s Macworld, feeling as though the foot traffic and Expo was smaller, and the excitement was more muted. For those who had attended Macworld 2011 for the first time, much excitement and energy was to be had. Many of these vendors felt that Macworld 2011 was thriving for them, allowing them access to a large number of consumers and potential sales.

I myself can’t say that Macworld 2011 was boring by any means. I spoke with every game company that was exhibiting there, and even some who weren’t. I attended an excellent dinner sponsored by Appency, an iOS marketing agency that handles a lot of games, and much networking was to be had. I started the initial steps in creating a Birds of a Feather event for Mac and iOS game developers/publishers for next year’s Macworld.

Oh, and I did a lot of dancing.

Highlights of Macworld 2011 included:

• Alawar showed off their newest iOS game, Hamlet. I was initially turned off to the game because of the trailer, but I’m grateful that I got a chance to see it in action at the convention. The game is an awesome point and click adventure game reminiscent of Myst. Definitely one I’m looking forward to reviewing soon.
• Ten One Design displayed Fling, a game controller for the iPad. I’m not usually impressed by most iOS game controllers, but this one really seemed to do the trick, providing that necessary physical feedback mechanism for D-stick controlled games.
• Trouble Brother’s Wizard Hex is a simple yet strategically complex tile game with beautiful graphics and a simple interface. A definite win for fans of Chess or tile-based strategy games.
• XMG Studio showed off Cows vs Aliens, still in development, a different type of herding game that uses a multi-touch interface to herd the cows, but not the aliens, into the barn. I found it surprisingly addictive and fun.
• I spoke on the panel “Parenting in the Age of the Internet” with several other Mac parents, hosted by MacVoices on the Macworld Live! stage as the gaming parent expert. We barely touched the surface in the one hour that we talked about the trials and tribulations of being parents in this day and age, and the panel was so popular that I’ve had calls for a repeat at 2 hours, an article in Wired Magazine, and even a book!

As I said earlier, Macworld isn’t going away any time soon, though I do expect to see further changes and evolutions of this singular convention for Mac users. Considering how many iOS exhibitors that attended this year, there might even be a name change that could happen…I’ve talked with more than a few who felt that this wasn’t a bad idea. Who knows, we might even see the rebirth of the gaming pavilion of old…in a new format.