Eat, Drink, Talk Android, and Be Merry!
That’s exactly what Tapjoy, Apsalar and our guests did during last week’s workshop held on opening night of Google I/O. We’d like to thank Charles Hudson of Bionic Panda, Brian Cho of Booyah, Michael Oiknine of Apsalar and Joony Koo of Com2uS for participating in the panel. They helped us all better understand the advantages of working on Android and the tremendous opportunities that exist for game developers on the platform.
Building games on Android at this stage is akin to laying the bricks and building a strong foundation for a house, according to Charles Hudson. He explained that the number of users on Android might not yet compare with those on iOS, but his company’s strategy was to start early so that by the time the market is there, as it is already proving to be, they’ll be ready.
Brian Cho agreed, encouraging developers to look for the blue ocean strategy instead of simply following what other developers are doing. That way, he explained, you’ll be ahead of the game once the market fully matures.
And the consensus among the panelists was that there’s little doubt the market will indeed mature and that users will inevitably flock to the platform.
In fact, a look at the recent numbers proves that they already are. More than 3 billion apps have been installed in the Android Market to date, with the latest billion coming in just the last 3 months alone, an average of 11 million apps per day. There are also nearly 400,000 activations of new Android devices per day, helping Android overtake iOS in March of this year for marketshare among mobile operating systems.
In other words, if you’re not building your games on Android yet, well, get with it already!
We’d also like to congratulate Jennifer Lu of TinyCo and Kevin Chiao of OpenFeint for winning our door prizes. A big thanks to everyone for making the event a success. Be on the lookout for another one soon!
Video by TheDroidGuy
