Traditional Shooters Have No Place on Touch Screens

One of the main developers of the Halo series has stated that shooters are not suited to touch screen devices like the iPad, that and developers should only create them for platforms that are designed to support them, like the PC and home consoles.

Alex Seropian, who is a former Bungie founder and now works at the studio Industrial Toys, stated, “To make a good shooter you have to feel like you have a lot of control, you need enough bandwidth in the skill curve so that you feel you can get good at it, that you can master it.”

He added, “The traditional shooter on the PC where you have a mouse and you can touch any pixel and shoot it – it’s all about that. Having a joystick where you have to push the cursor towards that pixel is so much more of a challenge.”

Where ports cannot make any headway the development team at Industrial Toys is ready to work to re-interpret the shooter mechanics and adapt them, making the touch controls the core of the experience.

Bungie is best known for the work that it has done on the Halo franchise over the years, delivering one of the most successful shooters on home consoles.

The company has since then parted ways with Microsoft and has a long-term exclusive deal with publisher Electronic Arts, which will probably result in a shooter-oriented MMO with a new game universe sometime during 2013.

The Halo series is now being handled by 343 Industries, a new company which Microsoft created using some Bungie developers, and they will deliver the fourth core game in the series during the fall, exclusively on the Xbox 360.

The game will allow players to once against control Master Chief as he explores a new Founder world and confronts its dangers.

Via: Traditional Shooters Have No Place on Touch Screens