Aug 22
Developing for your audience
Square Enix recently brought their iPhone and iPod Touch RPG title “Chaos Rings” to iPad. The game looks amazing, recalling the 3D graphics and beautiful design of Final Fantasy X for PS2. I wasn’t quite ready to put down the $16 on “Chaos Rings” for iPad so I decided to check out the game’s microsite. Strangely (or maybe not), I found a 100% Flash experience on the site: http://dlgames.square-enix.com/chaosrings/en/index.html. No failover images, no text, no nothing on my iPad. Why build a Flash experience for a game only available on platforms that don’t support Flash? That’s like releasing a Japanese language film and making an English language site to support it: you need to develop for your audience. Square Enix’s fail in this department smacks more of an old-school way of developing than a purposeful decision. Microsite = Flash-gasm. Maybe that’s fine for a film release (it really isn’t anymore) but for an iPhone/iPad game? No no no.
