Gaming was a massive part of BlackBerry DevCon 2011 last week, thanks not only to a range of high-grade developer tools becoming available to game makers, but also lots of releases. We got a sneak peak at big-name title, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, during the DevCon general keynote, and took some time at the show to try it out first-hand. There were a bunch of other games which launched during or around DevCon, like Backbreaker 2 (an upcoming football title), action game Spider-Man, Cut the Rope, and Spacelings (both casual puzzle games). Off-camera, I played a bit of ToFu, which was really, really fun, and worth checking out.
In the weeks leading up to the show, both EA and Gameloft had spat out a bunch of titles onto App World, like Dead Space, SimCity, Modern Combat, and N.O.V.A. Now that the native C++ software development kit is out in the open, I think we can expect a steady stream of rich 3D apps on the PlayBook – so long as RIM can capture some developer mindshare, that is. With all of these games flying around, I think consumers are going to be a little fuzzy on RIM’s marketing message, seeing as the PlayBook’s original pitch was to be the first enterprise-ready tablet. Don’t get me wrong, games are huge, and it’s great that the PlayBook can handle them, but when you try to please everybody, the message gets a bit watered down. Are businesspeople supposed to take the PlayBook seriously when there’s no BES manageability and RIM spends so much time showing off the games? Can consumers seriously consider the PlayBook if they can only get access to the native e-mail app if they own a BlackBerry smartphone, and it’s paired up over Bluetooth? Meanwhile, other 7-inch tablets are threatening to undercut the PlayBook’s pricetag by over 50%, which may be perfect for folks who just need a browser and video player in their tablet.
Even with these games and upcoming Android app support, it sounds to me that the versatility of the PlayBook still needs some work if RIM wants to honestly sell it to the mass market. But hey, yay games, right? Here are a few demos, plus a considerably flashier one made by RIM.