As a follow-up to my last post, Game Career Guide just published an article on iPhone game development tips. there’s some good info there, particularly about the general immaturity of the market and some of challenges for designing control schemes for the iPhone. The accelerometer, in particular, is one of the phones most unique features and also, I’d guess, one of the trickiest things to use effectively.

The article also warns against using the touch screen to simulate directional pads or joysticks, since there’s no force feedback to tell you when you’ve slipped off the controls.

I’m still not sold on the idea of iPhone game development, but I have to say it’s looking more interesting every day.

Unity Technologies announced last week the details of their iPhone development license for Unity. I’ve been waiting for this since they first said it was coming, and the specifics are about what I expected:

• The iPhone development license is an add-on to an existing Unity license.
• There are two versions of the license — one that clearly targets indies and one for larger studios. The indie version is significantly less expensive, but it comes with some limitations, including a mandatory Unity splash screen as the game loads.
• There is no limit on the number of games you can create with a license (as opposed to the Wii development license for Unity, which has a per-title fee).

With iPhones selling like hotcakes and the complete distribution channel Apple has set up with the App Store, it’s quite tempting to get myself a basic license and start work porting SPUDZOOKA.

I can’t help but wonder, though, how much of a future the iPhone has as a gaming platform. Certainly it’s a great device. The accelerometer and multi-touch display make it perfect for simple, addictive games. But how much is just a novelty? Will every new iPhone owner buy a couple of games because they can and then play them for a grand total of five minutes? Everyone I know that owns an iPhone is constantly messing with it, sending texts or looking things up on YouTube. But when do they play games? During the morning commute? On planes? Though where does any adult play mobile games?

Still (can you tell I’m undecided?), the cost of entry is pretty low — just a few hundred dollars, which, if you consider it the cost of starting a small business, is unbelievably small with very little risk. And, considering that Unity is perfect for developing games quickly, you can’t really go wrong.

For a small team with limited resources, there are remarkably few reasons not to develop games for the iPhone. But the one that makes me hesitate is a big one: in another year, will anyone still be buying games for their phone? What do you think?