iPhone Gaming Evangelist Graeme Devine Leaves Apple

Apple's iPhone Game Technologies guru has left the company to set up his own iOS game studio, leaving the company without its chief gaming advocate. Graeme Devine joined Apple in 2009, and his role was "basically to make gaming on the iOS devices fantastic" he told Kotaku. "That meant looking at the technologies involved and making sure the software played well with the hardware," Devine explained, "to look at upcoming hardware/API and say 'Yup, that is a good thing'."

Devine had previously worked at Atari and id Software, where he came to the attention of Apple fans after being instrumental in Mac ports of popular titles.

"I don't think a lot of people are really thinking yet what games mean on these touch platforms, the joystick is gone, there is no proxy in between you and the screen anymore. When I first saw the photos being rotated and pinch / zoomed on the iPhone I knew things had changed forever, and people are trying to insert something back in there when clearly the best applications are the ones where the screen is a window onto a world that you can touch. I am not a fan of virtual d-pads, pointers, or other crutches, we have an opportunity on these devices to let players hold, move, touch, and feel the game in front of them and I intend to focus on that." Graeme Devine

Apple is yet to confirm whether it will be replacing Devine or leaving the iPhone Game Technologies team as it is. The company made a deliberate decision to take on mobile gaming platforms like the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP with the iPod touch, a direction that paid off as games flooded the app store at prices well undercutting traditional titles.