Forget the iPhone. It’s a closed system.
So says Jim Greer, CEO of Kongregate, in a joint interview Shawn Freeman and Chris Petrovic of Gamestop, reported by VentureBeat. Greer’s firm was just purchased by game seller GameStop. The merger announcement was this Tuesday.
Greer explains the unsuitability of the Apple iOS platform as opposed to Android’s strengths:
We want to go beyond the desktop to mobile and other venues for gaming. What gamers want is to play games on different screens. We are not big on the iPhone. We make social games and monetize them through our own platform. Apple wants to control its own platform. We are betting heavily on Android because it is more open and they are working on providing a great experience. We are looking for other opportunities like that. We will continue to have great indie games with the fidelity of top games.
Kongregate provides over 30,000 Flash games on its desktop website, and launched a mobile version in May. This rollout was timed with Android 2.2 (Froyo) OS, which supports Adobe Flash 10.1. And Apple’s iPhone and iPad do not and will not run Flash.
GameStop sees Kongregate as a digital and mobile platform to supplement its 6000 store presence.