Apple game boss quits

Apple last week lost the experienced developer put in charge of its iPhone Game Technologies division, it has emerged.

Graeme Devine, who has some thirty years experience in game creation, has left Apple to work at his own game development studio.

Despite quitting just one year after being hired by Apple, he leaves the firm with parting kisses.

“Apple has the smartest and most talented group of people I have ever worked with," he said in an interview with Kotaku.

“Every day I would walk in and feel I was working alongside geniuses and I [was] the guy with crayons in the corner. I can’t comment on what’s next inside Apple, but I can tell you, they really do ‘get’ gaming”.

Devine joined Apple in 2009 after six years at the Age Of Empires studio Ensemble.

He’s worked on titles such as DOOM 3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the Dreamcast port of Quake III. Before joining Apple, he was the lead designer of Halo Wars; Ensemble’s final game before it was shut down by Microsoft.

At Apple his job was overseeing the iPhone and iPad’s technologies, and “ensuring the software played well with the hardware”, he said.

But, despite working on one of the most influential technology companies of the last ten years, the urge to develop games continued to bite at him.

“While I loved my time, the people, and the platform I worked on at Apple I am ultimately a game designer that wants to make games" he said.

Devine is thought to be working on a game for Mac ahead of the computer’s own Apple store launch. His new microstudio has yet to be named.