Does Steve Jobs Just Not Get Game Development?

Steve Jobs thinks games made with middleware aren't so good. Unity CEO David Helgason, whose SDK is used in the creation of plenty of games used in the App Store, disagrees. And he was quite vocal about it yesterday.

Helgason's remarks came during his keynote presentation at Develop, where he was challenged with the assertion that Jobs thinks middleware makes for "crappy" games. The response:

"He doesn't understand the economics of game development fundamentally," says Helgason, saying that while pure native code development might suit simpler apps, it's simply not an option for many game developers.

He also said that the popularity of iPhone games developed using Unity shows that middleware isn't responsible for creating "crappy" games, as has been suggested.

This has been an ongoing spat between developers and Apple, and it's likely not one that will end anytime soon. Because while it's probable that Jobs isn't a gamer, it might be going too far to say he doesn't get game development economics. Fair or not, Apple's shown a distinct preference for—and had plenty of financial success with—this kind of closed system approach. And the only economics Steve Jobs is concerned about, rightly so, is Apple's.