Games guru slams complexity on iPod

 Chris Foster, a Harmonix developer from the company behind the original Guitar Hero and the more recently-introduced Rock Band, had some interesting insights on games development for the iPod today.

Speaking at the Paris Games Developers Conference, he talked about iPod users as gamers, characterising them as extremely casual gamers. He chatted about the game he worked on, called Phase, to outline the kind of lessons he learned in his work.

"The audience for iPod is different to that of the PSP and DS," he said. "The iPod user is not necessarily a gamer. Complexity is not welcome on the iPod."

As reported by Develop.Mag, he also warned: "Embrace your platform’s limitations and audience. Don’t try to cram in ideas that are not suitable."

Foster also described iPod users as the kind of gamers who will play a game for five or ten minutes, rather than for several hours, calling them "listeners first and players second".