CryEngine company becomes the latest to embrace mobile games development
Independent tech and games firm Crytek is has a job opening for “designing and developing complex, integrated iPhone and iPad applications” – signalling the studio’s intention to join the mobile games business.
The company, which has studios across Europe and Asia, has hitherto dedicated its resources to games for PC and consoles. Now, however, the studio looks likely to be a new entrant in the smartphone games race.
A Develop Jobs posting revealed that Crytek is looking for someone who can manage development “of one or more iPhone and iPad applications, from specification through design, coding, debugging, and deployment.”
The company wants to hire is a developer who’s had experience building their own iPhone and iPad games, adding that experience on Android platforms is desirable.
The vacancy is part of Crytek’s latest transcontinental hiring spree, with forty positions open across studios in the UK, Germany, Hungary, South Korea and Ukraine.
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Last year Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli told Develop that “the social and mobile spaces are certainly something we’ve been looking at for a while now”, though he had qualms with the App Store price model.
“I think the App Store changes the perception of game prices, which I really don’t like,” he said.
“It’s pushing out games at such a low price that it distorts the perception of what a game should be priced at.
“iPad and iPhone are both doing a real disservice to game prices by allowing games at such low price points – it is an issue the industry has to address at some point.”
Crytek joins a growing number of tech-focused game studios allocating resources on mobile platforms.
Rival studio Epic Games has taken the market by storm with its debut iOS title, Infinity Blade, as have John Carmack’s id Software team with their Rage HD app.
Those two, and Crytek, all have a reputation for building bleeding-edge game engine technologies.
The mobile games space represents a new frontier for the studios in that regard; graphical standards in mobile games are soaring, and firms have a big opportunity to wow customers again.
“A lot of gaming is going mobile and I believe that console-style gaming is going there as well,” Epic Games vice president Mark Rein said in a recent interview with Develop.
“iPad and iPhone are both doing a real disservice to game prices by allowing games at such low price points – it is an issue the industry has to address at some point.”
Breaking news: prices are set by the developers themselves. Finding it hard to compete ? Tough luck, get into a different business.
If you don't like the app store eco-system, then focus your business resources elsewhere. Simple!
It's popular with consumers and indie developers alike. Like with most digital distribution channels, it’s a great leveller and to a huge extent a meritocracy.
Corporations and big developers don’t have it all to themselves, there’s no manufacturing and logics barrier, however there’s plenty of room for both AAA console one person productions.
In reality, you’re coming to the show very late in the day and like most traditional games companies, conservatism and lack of vision have impacted your ability to ability to execute in a timely manner. Don’t expect special treatment from the consumers or more agile competitors.
Heh, Epic and id aside, Crytek will really have to compete with Unity. Epic and id are very new to the platform and are lacking all the platform-specific optimizations that come with time and hard work.
Unity has been there for ages, knows all the tricks and there are hundreds of successful Unity games on the app store. Something that others are just starting to learn and releasing one demo co-developed by the engine devs like the Infity Blade or Rage HD - doesn't really change the big picture of engine's presence and maturity on the platform.
