To read Part 1 on the iPad as a device – start here.

Okay, now onto the fun part – the gaming. I don’t yet know how great the iPad will be for gaming as a device. I know there’s a lot more you can do with a bigger screen, and that the less we have to rely on the accelerometer because of crowded screens, probably the better it will be. But I do know that gaming has NEVER been more accessible to the general public than it has been with the App Store. As many of us know, the real marvel for gaming is not the device itself, which certainly has drawbacks, but the ease of content acquisition. As difficult as it is to market your iPad or iPhone title, I can assure you, it’s orders of magnitude more difficult to market it out in the wild.

But that’s all generalized – what is without a doubt exciting is the potential link between the iPad games being created and the browser gaming market. Quite simply, we’re a perfect match for eachother. No game released on the iPad using Unity should not be released in the browser as well. The performance requirements are an exact match, and the resolution difference between the iPod and the PC is no longer relevant with the iPad.

People are paying for browser content (trust us, we know!). Considering that the porting costs are near nill, why wouldnt you reap the marketing and exposure benefits, not to mention the additional sales? Why not port to Mac/PC standalone as well? It’s the same as a browser build! We’ve already started converting our games and our API to seamlessly handle the transition. And because MuseGames is (spoiler: marketing speak) the premiere destination for Unity gaming, we are the premiere platform on which to bring your iPad title to the web.

Which leads me to my final point: Our goal with MuseGames.com is to redefine the online gaming standard with a curated line-up of high quality indie titles. We desire to build & bring aboard games that command attention – at their very essence, games good enough people will pay to play them. That’s the best future we see for the online indie community, and we’re doing everything we can to make it happen – especially including all that painstaking development and marketing required to build a gaming destination. If you’re developing an iPad game that you think would work well in the browser – we want to know about it. In approximately one month you’ll get a first glimpse of the next round of comprehensive API services we’ll be debuting, along with the new MuseGames.com.

It’s definitely my hope that the iPad creates the same boon to browser & PC gaming that the iPhone created for Unity themselves. It remains to be seen, but if there’s any lesson to be learned in history, it’s to not bet against the ingenuity of the developer. Good luck to all in these new endeavors and we’ll see you in the development trenches.