Last night's announcement of the iPhone 3.0 software has been warmly welcomed by the mobile games industry, including Jill Braff, senior VP of global publishing at Glu Mobile.
"The combination of micro-billing, push notifications, in-game voice, and peer-to-peer capabilities open up a host of new possibilities in terms of more social gaming, higher engagement and in-game economies," she says.
Glu has so far released two of its own games for iPhone,
Bonsai Blast and
Space Monkey, as well as working on branded games for partners.
Braff says micro-payments will be particularly important to publishers. "The ability to have micro-transactions within games relieves a lot of the pricing pressure on the App Store," she says.
"By having transactions other than just the initial purchase, publishers can continue to innovate even if a game is already released and still have the opportunity for appropriate product monetization."
Expect to see Glu making the most of the 3.0 firmware in its upcoming iPhone games, with the company having already shifted its development resources to place more emphasis on the platform.
"The addition of these features offers game publishers a huge amount of creativity and freedom to take social gaming and personalisation to a whole new level," says Braff.
For more developer reactions, check our
iPhone 3.0 section throughout the day.
