iPhone 3.0

Part of the iPhone's unique appeal is the touch screen, which is the only form of input for the handheld. Perhaps surprisingly, some games developers miss a more traditional control scheme, and feel that peripheral support might be a feature that would add more to the gaming experience, particularly with established genres.

"The inclusion of peripheral support should open up a lot more control scheme opportunities which is one of the main things which we felt could improve gaming on the iPhone," offers McNicoll. "Hopefully we can now see things like joystick attachments to really give finer control over, for example sports and first-person shooter games."

It's a feature that Farley would also like to see. "Personally as a gamer that still enjoys more traditional gaming experiences I would really like to see a physical input device like a d-pad or analogue joystick. Given that this won't be something everyone would want, a hardware peripheral would be fine. It would appear support for external hardware is included in 3.0 so we might see this quite soon," he adds.

Despite the increase in content and competition, the business models on the iPhone are still a strong draw for small developers, with Hamilton pointing out that small projects can be profitable even when sold at the lowest prices.

"Before we moved into the iPhone market, we were in mobile for a couple of years and what a relief and improvement to have now stepped over to developing for the iPhone," he says. "The business model is fantastic and its great that you can get games to market without having to go through a big publisher, giving away a big chunk of your revenue. If you get the correct game then you can be very profitable with small price points."

"All of our iPhone games have quickly achieved profitability even the ones selling at the very lowest price points from launch," says Tag's Farley. "The key is to be realistic about revenue return and don't go crazy with the budget. It's also fair to say that our profit margins aren't going to excite the likes of EA or Gameloft, but with our smaller overheads we can achieve profitability with fairly low volume.

"It's a key competitive advantage we have over the bigger players in this market and one we fully intend to continue exploiting," he adds.

McNicoll is a little more cautious of the price points of games, in a market where GBP 3.49 is considered expensive and high-end. He believes there should more structure to pricing, and an area for premium content could help the iPhone business mature.

"I am sceptical about the different price points at the moment and feel there should definitely be a premium content area so that great games aren't lost because of their higher pricing. And lets face it these type of games cost a lot more money to make so should be priced in a higher price bracket," he says.

"If the platform is going to mature properly it cannot keep the current price points. It will not be viable for most games to make a profit with such a small price point as it is only the lucky few that really can break through at that price range and make a lot of money. People are willing to pay a fair amount of money for good content as has always been the case," he adds.

McNicoll would also like to see a redesigned App Store to help promote titles more clearly to consumers.

"We think a slight redesign to the iTunes store could go a long way to having an easier way of finding the type of App which you want and also sorting the wheat from the chaff," said. "Given the sheer amount of Apps available it is always going to be a problem getting noticed on the App Store."

Marketing and promotions – an area usually handled by publishers, not developers – is still vital to selling games, even on the App Store where the smallest of teams can release their product.

"I think for many game developers the biggest barrier is that they simply don't appreciate or understand the importance and role of marketing," says Farley. "In that sense the role of the publisher is still alive and well even on the App Store because, lets be honest, sales and marketing skills are not naturally an area of expertise for most developers."

He adds: "The fact that the competition is so strong and there is such a huge amount of content to choose from means that you must have both a great product and great marketing – get only one of the two right and your chances of success are much reduced."