Industry Vet Graeme Devine Leaves Apple Game Tech Post

Graeme Devine has left a post at Apple's iPhone Game Technologies Division, where he oversaw the company's iOS gaming strategy, to pursue his passion for game development, according to an Internet report. Devine, who's held positions at Virgin Games, Trilobyte and id Software as part of a nearly 30-year career, told Kotaku that his position with Apple, which began last April, ended last Friday. "Apple didn't have an in-house game designer before me so I think it was pretty unique," Devine told Kotaku. "Game technologies touch everything from the graphics stack to touch latency to push notifications. No other app type covers so many technologies and having someone there to validate and help shape that was basically my day job. It was pretty kick ass." As reason for the departure, Devine cited a desire to get back to game development, specifically to explore the gaming possibilities of the iPhone and iPad's multi-touch displays. "I don't think a lot of people are really thinking yet what games mean on these touch platforms, the joystick is gone, there is no proxy in between you and the screen anymore," he said. Devine served as the chairperson of the IGDA from 1999 to 2001, working on the organization's educational curriculum working environment standards and credit issues. He also helped develop the initial curriculum for the game development program at The Guildhall at SMU.