Day two of the Game Developers Conference in Austin, TX began with a talk by husband and wife duo Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova of Imangi Studios. Keith began the talk detailing the history of Imangi and how they approach making iPhone games.

Imangi Studios was founded in June 2008, based in Washington DC and neither Keith or Natalia had any kind of game industry background. The App Store created a market that would allow Imangi Studios to create low cost high quality casual games, and now have over half a million downloads across their five games on the App Store. Their most popular game Harbor Master [$0.99] reached a peak rank of #3 in Top Paid Apps with over 11,000 sales in one day.

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GDC Austin kicked off today with an information packed talk from Randy Smith and David Kalina from Tiger Style Games discussing the evolution of their first iPhone game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [App Store]. Much of their origin story was previously covered in our interview with the duo.

Randy and David discussed that prior to the App Store, there never was any good way for indie titles to reach a mass market. The iPhone brought together a great hardware platform and the possibility for an indie developer with no financial backing to publish their titles to a large audience. (And they don't deny trying to follow the App Store gold rush.)

The original vision of the game includes things like it being "unique and inspired" and "not about orcs." David and Randy then went on to explain the business side of Tiger Style, discussing an amazingly flexible and transparent development team. An interesting aspect of the talk was their conscious decision to price the game at $2.99. They looked at the market, the competition and decided to carve out a high quality niche:

While they've been thrilled with their initial success of nearly 100,000 sales of Spider, with 12 distributed team members and an 8 month long development cycle, they put an enormous amount of resources into the project. Still, they recommend that indie developers shoot for this "quality alternative" of high quality titles priced above $0.99 that exceed expectations and to engage the community (slide).

They also revealed that they are working on more levels, new features, a Lite version, as well as "Game 2".

A lot of news came out yesterday at the Apple media event launching the new iPods. Aside from the new hardware releases there were a number of software releases including iPhone OS 3.1 and iTunes 9. A couple of other interesting things to note.

Apple has discounted the iPhone 3.x upgrade for iPod Touch owners from $9.95 to $4.95. So, those holding out can now get the 3.x upgrade for cheaper. The 3.0 -> 3.1 upgrade is free. Of course, if you are already planning on buying one of the new iPod Touches, you can skip it altogether, since the new ones come with OS 3.1 already installed.

Another important thing to note if buying a new iPod Touch is that only the high end (32GB and 64GB) iPod Touches carry the new processor and 3d graphics hardware of the 3GS.

That means buying the cheaper 8GB ($199) will get you the same hardware as last year's iPod Touch. While few games area requiring the new hardware, over time we would expect there will be more.

While there are a bunch of sites out there providing live coverage, here's what's happened so far at the Apple event that is relevant to iPhone gamers:

• OS 3.1 is coming today, which will add genius functionality to the App Store. Genius for music can make some fairly intelligent suggestions on similar music to what you're listening to, so genius for apps should be able to hopefully provide some great game suggestions. Genius appears as its own tab in the App Store.
• OS 3.1 will be free for iPhone owners and iPod Touch users who have already upgraded to 3.0
• iPhone/iPod syncing has been greatly improved, not only with enhanced controls of what music and media syncs, but also what apps sync and what order they appear on your home screens.
• iTunes 9 features complete app organization. Deleting apps from the device within iTunes is as simple as clicking a little black X in the corner, just like if you were deleting them from your iPhone
• Entire pages of apps can be arranged right within iTunes, the whole system looks extremely useful and should come as a huge relief to those of you who have massive app libraries.
• iTunes "home sharing" has been added. Home sharing allows you to share music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks and applications across your home network. Buy an app once and sync it across 5 different computers/iPhones.
• All of these new iTunes features are coming today with iTunes 9.
• There have been 22 million iPods sold to date and growing, the current iPod market share is 73.8%
• Apple has sold 20 million iPod Touches and 30 million iPhones.

Photo courtesy of Engadget

• "And people are starting to see what a great gaming device this is. When you think about the companies that came before us… when you played those other systems, they seemed so cool, but now when you look at them, they don't stack up against the iPod touch." -Phil Schiller
• There are currently 21,178 entertainment titles for the iPhone versus the 607 available for the Sony PSP and 3,680 for the Nintendo DS.
• Ben Mattes, Asassin's Creed producer discusses Assassin's Creed 2, said to offer visceral brutal hand to hand combat. Will be available this holiday season. The game even allows you to use the iPhone's camera to put your own photos on wated posters in the game.

Photo courtesy of Engadget

• Bart Decrem from Tapulous discusses a new game called Riddim Ribbon, where you race down a track to music. It sounds a little like Audiosurf.

Photo courtesy of Engadget

• Gameloft's Mark Hickey announced their upcoming FPS entitle Nova, which looks very Halo-Like. He also explains that of their 35 titles on the App Store, they've had almost 20 million downloads.

Photo courtesy of Engadget

• And last of the new game announcements is Madden NFL 2010, which will be available today.

Photo courtesy of Engadget

• Of course new iPods are coming today, iPod Touches are getting new prices and new capacities. 8GB at $199, 32GB at $299 and finally, 64GB at $399.
• The new iPod Touch will also have OpenGL|ES version 2.0, presumably using the same graphics hardware of the iPhone 3GS.
• The iPod Classic got bumped to 160GB, and the iPod Shuffle got a price drop to $59 for 2GB and $79 for 4GB.

One more thing…

• Video cameras!
• There is going to be a video camera built in to the back of every iPod Nano. No mention of the iPod Touch getting a video camera.

…And that's it!

Apple is hosting their iPod Media event today. We will report on all the new products and changes they announce.

But one change has already started to appear… Apple seems to have listened to the complaints from developers and has finally created a top list based on Revenue, not just on Units sold. This should provide developers some reward for having a higher paid app that sells reasonably well.

The new list is live [iTunes Link] in the App Store. The list is still topped by I Am T-Pain but apps such as Uno ($4.99), TomTom U.S. & Canada ($99.99), and Golfshot : Golf GPS ($29.99) are in the Top 10 by Revenue.

We'll provide more updates as they come in.

A promising sounding report from market research firm Fade LLC claims to have compiled a list of the Top 10 iPhone games by units sold. They offer an enticing list of seemingly precise sales numbers as of July.

1. Tap Tap Revenge Classic – 4,036,348
2. Fieldrunners – 1,638,916
3. Flight Control – 1,381,320
4. Touchgrind – 990,086
5. Zombieville USA – 960,868
6. iShoot – 843,392
7. Super Monkey Ball – 748,063
8. Hero of Sparta – 747,716
9. Enigmo – 686,160
10 The Sims 3 – 669,280

The problem is that Apple doesn't provide these sales numbers, so the only real way to get accurate ones is from the developers themselves and Fade's numbers don't agree with both public and private sales numbers from the developers listed. For example, Pangea revealed their Enigmo sales numbers to be 810,000 as of January 2009 — far more than the 686,000 reported by Fade.

We contacted a number of the developers on the list, and so far, all of them report the numbers are well off target. Ethan Nicholas reports the sales of iShoot [$1.99] to be at 550,000 copies total so far — again well off the 843,000 listed above. Illusion Labs (TouchGrind [$4.99]) and MikaMobile (Zombieville [$1.99]) have also responded stating their internal numbers are also well off Fade's. Also absent from the list are Flick Fishing which has sold over 1 million copies and Crash Bandicoot which topped Apple's own list of all-time top app sales. In fact, the only figure that seems close is Flight Control which recently announced reaching 1.5 million in sales.

Due to pent up interest, we expect these numbers to get a lot of attention over the next few days, but they clearly are a very inaccurate representation of the top iPhone game sales.

Update: We've since been contacted by Fade who reveals their methodology. Their sales numbers are extrapolated based on user polls.

• iPhone sales numbers are based off of iPhone and iPod Touch user polls. Sales are then verified through official user reviews on products sold. We estimate that over 500,000 users participate in this system with verified sales.
• We then use the actual user base that participates in conversion-based metrics to extrapolate sales for titles available on the iPhone and/or iPod touch devices, based on a number of factors including price, reviews, release version, and ratings.

They go on to explain the discrepancy with some of the numbers are due to discounts which may cause sales to skyrocket for periods of time and later taper down. So, while there may be some value in their numbers looking into the future, we're don't think total sales estimates are going to be it.

As forum readers began to notice last night, Manomio's Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone, which finally landed in the App Store a few days back after a long and rocky road, has been pulled by Apple.

Before letting the emulator into the App Store, Apple required that Manomio remove the BASIC interpreter from the application.  Apparently the developer disabled BASIC rather than actually removing it.  Many iPhone users found a way to activate the interpreter and, after catching wind of this, Apple pulled the app from the store.

Manomio indicates it has since submitted an updated version of the emulator that addresses the issue at hand.  Let's hope this one gets the stamp of approval from Apple and lives a long life in the App Store.

If you spent Labor Day weekend disconnected from the Internet, you missed out on our full coverage of everything iPhone gaming related at the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington. Originally started in 2004 by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, authors of the Penny Arcade web comic, it has grown substantially over the years and PAX '09 was large enough to take up the entire Washington State Convention and Trade Center while completely selling out during pre-registration.

If you're a gamer of any kind, I recommend at least looking into attending next year's PAX. No matter if you were into card games, board games, tabletop RPG's, video games, and/or other types of games, PAX had something to offer everyone. If you couldn't find someone playing what you wanted to play, an extensive "Looking For Group" system got gamers together to play even the most obscure games imaginable.

Anyway, here is what you missed of Touch Arcade PAX '09 coverage:

Blades of Fury

Gameloft gave us hands-on time with everything they have in the pipeline that is due to be released soon, and each game was equally impressive. Each preview linked below includes in-game video:

• Blades of Fury – See this Soul Calibur-like fighting game in action.
• Dungeon Hunter – A hack and slash RPG.
• Earthworm Jim – A port of a Genesis classic platformer.
• Shrek Kart – Gameloft's entry in to the kart racing genre.
• Asphalt 5 – The Burnout-inspired sequel to Asphalt 4.

I ran into Subatomic Studios on the show floor and found out that the new Fieldrunners PSPGo levels are coming to the iPhone via DLC. Each additional map is going to be 99¢.

InstantAction showed me a very early preview of Flipt, a game very similar to the puzzle platformer Shift that came out a while ago.

Following Flipt, I met with Gamevil to get a new gameplay video of Hybrid: Eternal Whisper and check out the new Baseball Superstars. Both games we now have preview versions of and will post an in-depth first look soon.

Com2Us let me try out their new game, Sniper Vs Sniper, a shooter with multiplayer elements similar to their other game, Homerun Battle 3D [App Store] (previously known as Baseball Slugger). Also, during the "Touching a New Generation: How the iPhone has Changed Portable Gaming" panel, a new RPG was revealed by Com2Us: Chronicles of Inotia 2, a network enabled RPG in which users can join guilds and compete against other.

A few other notable news items over the weekend:

• Early Screenshots of FIFA '10
• LiveFire Now Known as Eliminate
• C64 Emulator Approved
• Taito's Arkanoid Available

What was even more exciting about PAX though were the previews that we can't talk about yet both from well-known iPhone developers and publishers as well as from companies with franchises you would never expect to appear on the App Store. We'll be talking about these new games as soon as we can, but in the meantime, just rest assured that late 2009 and early 2010 is going to be amazing for iPhone gamers.

I arrived in beautiful Seattle this morning, and after a somewhat expected rental car fiasco I've since spent my time wandering the floor, meeting with video game companies, and overall being completely immersed in PAX.

The really cool thing about PAX that seems significantly different from other events I've been to is that while there may be a lot of gaming conventions, PAX definitely feels like a gamer convention. The floor is flooded in people dressed in costumes playing soon to be released games. The hallways are packed with people playing various handhelds and I've spotted a silly amount of iDevices in use. Every table is littered with gamers surrounding board games, dice being tossed in Dungeons & Dragons games, and others playing card games like Magic: The Gathering.

We're not sure how much iPhone-specific content there will be, but the first flood of content coming soon is courtesy of Gameloft. If you're an iPhone developer at PAX, feel free to contact us. We will also be attending GDC Austin later this month.

Here are a few items of interest from the past week.

• Puzzle Bobble (International Link) has finally arrived for customers outside of the U.S. Known as Bust a Move in the U.S and is a solid port of the classic title.
• Modern Combat has been delayed a couple of weeks according to Gameloft. Modern Combat is a particularly impressive looking first person shooter that uses a brand new game engine.
• geoDefense Swarm was rejected and has been resubmitted. Swarm is the open-field followup to the popular geoDefense tower defense game. We took an early look at the game back in August.