One of mobile gaming's heavy hitters unequivocally expressed its preference for the iPhone over Android phones last week and believes that other developers will come to similar conclusions. Gameloft, whose library of releases includes "Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles," "Uno" and "Guitar Rock Tour," said that it has already begun cutting back on Android titles and expects to see such decisions trend throughout the industry.

"We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like ... many others," Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort announced at an investor conference, according to Reuters.

Rochefort stated that Gameloft is selling "400 times more games on iPhone than on Android," prompting a revised set of business priorities.

"It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone," Rochefort said. "Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue,."

The iPhone's early entry to the market undoubtedly gave it a head start on getting into consumers' hands and creating potential App Store customers, but Gameloft's confidence in Android's ability to grow its user base and turn its own app store into a money machine sounds nearly non-existent.

What do you think of the gaming experience on Android versus the iPhone? Do you think Android will become a competitive gaming platform? Share your predictions in the comment section below.

It's no secret that Apple's iPhone and iPod touch have courted a lot of major game developers. EA Sports now releases App Store titles for nearly all of its annual franchises, THQ has "Star Wars: Trench Run" hitting the platform this month and countless others from Disney Interactive to 2K and Ubisoft now have high-profile releases out. Apple may be ready to expand its own development capabilities, however, if a recent job posting is any indication.

The company wants a capable software engineer with "3-4 years of video game development experience" and who has "shipped at least one AAA title," according to the listing on Jobs.Apple.com.

Given recent industry layoffs, like the Pandemic Studios closure this week, there should be a wealth of qualified potential applicants floating around.

The one Apple Inc. game on my iPhone, "Texas Hold'em," is actually one my most played since I installed it just over a year ago. It's elegant, but when you see what games like SGN's "Skies of Glory" and Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter: Spells" games are learning to do with accelerometer controls, it's easy to see why Apple would want to pump some software dollars into research and development.

Are you surprised to hear Apple is recruiting new game development talent? Do you think they should release more games from in-house? Share your reactions in the comment section below.

Earlier this month, a class-action lawsuit in San Francisco accused iPhone game developer Storm8 of selling games with "malicious software code" and violating the App Store's privacy policies, which Apple articulated for us. Storm8 has now issued an official response to the accusations on its forums, where a company spokesperson argues they have done everything in their power to right the situation.

"We determined that these numbers were being collected as the result of legacy code (old, obsolete code) in the games," the representative posted on Storm8.com. "The legacy code had been included early in the software development process as a potential way for Storm8 to identify specific devices; however, we later determined it was more suitable to use the device’s Unique Device ID instead. Once Storm8 was alerted to this issue in August, we immediately took voluntary, proactive steps to satisfy our user community and we quickly made available updated versions of our games without that legacy code."

The response claims that all phone numbers obtained by the legacy code were destroyed after the situation was identified and that any information being gathered by un-updated games is not being stored. Furthermore, the statements asserts that Storm8 intends to defend itself in court.

"Going forward, we want you to know that Storm8 will ask the judge to dismiss the lawsuit in its entirety due to the lawsuit’s complete lack of merit," the Storm8 rep wrote. "We believe that we have always complied with all of the statutes referred to in the lawsuit and never took an action that harmed or impaired users or your devices in any way."

Predictably, some responses from users on the boards remain skeptical, but others show up praising Storm8's moves. At the end of the day, though, the judge's decision will probably be the one that matters.

Do you think the lawsuit being brought against Storm8 has merit? Do you think the company did everything it should have to address the problem? Share your reactions in the comment section below.

Britney Spears continued her quest for world domination today with the release of her new iPhone app: "It's Britney." The app basically acts as a multi-media source for fans, offering up pictures, news updates and "messages from Britney," which is one reason to leave on Push notifications, I suppose.

On top of her mutlimedia offerings, the app also announces "It's Britney, bitch!" whenever someone shakes the iPhone or iPod Touch, and comes with a digital sparkler for use during Britney concerts. If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you may consider picking up "Minigore" and "Skee-Ball," each a dollar, and each capable of suppressing the feelings you may be having right now.

For more on the "It's Britney" app, check out MTVNews.com.

Just when you thought the "Call of Duty" insanity had just about wrapped, it's back. Activision released a brand new "Call of Duty" game on the iPhone today, inspired by the Zombie mode of "Call of Duty: World at War." The full title may feature the most colons ever featured in a video game: "Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies."

Like the console version, "Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies" is a 3D FPS set during World War 2. Players are holed up in a house, forced to battle back a constant horde of undead, purchasing new weapons and defenses to stay alive for as long as possible. Thankfully the game features co-op play over Bluetooth and WiFi for up to 4 players, so the joys of killing zombies with friends are not lost on this portable version.

All that said, the game does run $9.99 on the App Store, which is kinda steep, considering there's only one map at the moment. Hopefully more content will be released and maybe Activision will consider a bit of a price drop in the near future.

There have been a number of shooters since the iPhone launched, but the control limitations of just having a touch pad have made them hit or miss affairs. Recently, though, we saw the release of three strong shooter entries which are definitely worth checking out.

"DOOM Classic" ($6.99)
I was particularly fond of the port of "Wolfenstein 3D" on the iPhone, and John Carmack has brought the same level of quality to "DOOM Classic." It's classic "DOOM," complete with the 4 classic episodes, all the weapons and even some multiplayer options (playable over the same WiFi network). As someone that didn't really play much of the original "DOOM" when it first launched, it's hard to blame my enjoyment with this game on nostalgia. Fact of the matter is, even after all these years "DOOM" still holds up, and Carmack has done a fantastic job bringing it to the platform.

"Big Buck Hunter Pro" ($2.99)
I've played my fair share of "Buck Hunter" in bars across the country (and even in the MTV newsroom!), so I was curious to see how it made the transition to the iPhone. From a gameplay and presentation perspective, the developers have done an excellent job, as the game looks spot-on with the full-sized counterpart. Unfortunately you'll have to trade in your orange shotgun for your finger when it comes to aiming and shooting, which definitely takes some of the enjoyment out of it, but not to a terrible degree. I will say, though, that there should've been a bit more content thrown our way, as the iPhone version only has one animal to hunt, versus the myriad that are in the arcade version. I'd guess there are plans for DLC in the future, but right now it's not quite the complete package. That said, if you're a fan of the arcade version, this is your best portable option.

"Eliminate" (Free)
If you haven't played this quasi-free, 3D first person shooter, you're definitely missing out on one of the more polished iPhone titles out there. "Eliminate" manages to cram a 3D multiplayer shooter, playable over 3G or Wifi, onto a device that was, at one time, inundated with "Bejeweled" clones. And considering the pricetag, it's hard to deny. Just keep in mind that if you feel the need to advance your character at a steady rate (i.e. more than once or twice a day) you'll have to pay for it.

Bonus Update: "Bejeweled 2"
In extra added news, if you are one of the millions that bought "Bejeweled 2" on the iPhone, make sure you hit the update button in the App Store. Games.com had the first-look preview of the newly added "Blitz" mode, which allows you to sync your best scores with your Facebook page and see how you rack up against your friends. Again, a free update if you already have the game, so there's no reason not to.

UPDATE: Storm8 has responded to the lawsuit's accusations and issued a statement on Storm8.com.

Original Story: A class-action lawsuit filed in San Francisco wants to take iPhone game developer Storm8 to task for what it calls "malicious software code." The suit accuses Storm8 of exploiting a backdoor method to retrieve users' phone numbers without their permission in games such as "iMobsters" and "Vampires Live." We reached out to Apple for a comment, and though the representative we spoke wasn't familiar with the case, he did articulate Apple's position on the practice Storm8 has been accused of.

"There is no violating privacy," Apple's VP of iPod and iPhone product marketing Greg Joswiak told MTV News. "That's one of the things we look for, so if that did happen I'm either unaware or unfamiliar."

The lawsuit, which can be read in full over on Boing Boing, does not point any fingers at Apple. It even corroborate's Apple's policy. "Apple does not provide to sellers the personal information of iPhone or iPod Touch users to App Store developers, such as Storm8," the suit reads.

Joswiak explained that any developers found engaging in such practices could face having their apps pulled from the App Store.

"That's one of the things that we're always looking for," Joswiak said. "That's part of the beauty of the way we have the App Store set up, because if you find something like that out we can deal with it. A) We can pull it down. B) We know who the developer is. Remember there's nothing anonymous."

Storm8 currently has dozens of apps downloadable through the App Store, which have not been taken down, and contends that number farming was a "bug" in their games' software. The lawsuit contends that coding capable of pulling numbers would have to be too complex to be an accident. Bug or not, if any of games are found doing such things again, there could have more than consumers to worry about, since Joswiak explicitly called such information farming without consent "verboten."

Have you downloaded or used any Storm8 games from the App Store? Do you think the number pulling could have been caused by a bug? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

In an interview with "DOOM" creator and id Software Technical Director John Carmack, he revealed that while he plans on releasing "Quake" for the iPhone, Apple's already done most of the work.

"Work will start on 'Quake Classic'...Apple has an internal version that they ported themselves for development and benchmark testing. So I'll probably get them to spit up what they actually did as a baseline for us. At one point somebody actually submitted it to the App Store, a version that they had made, and we had to have that pulled down."

In terms of development time on 'Quake Classic,' Carmack said he's "going to try and pass the work off to the other mobile developers...I'm just not going to be able to disappear for weeks at a time like I kinda did on ['Wolfenstein 3D Classic and 'DOOM Classic]."

He went on to say that he'd still be tapped in to the process:

"I'm hoping that I can get one of the newer, younger developers doing most of the work on there, and let me just work on optimization and user interface control scheme work. But that's not something that's gonna be happening in the next couple months. What I'm hoping for is something like an iPhone release per quarter."

John Carmack has finished work on the much-anticipated port of "DOOM" for the iPhone. Dubbed "DOOM Classic," it's available in the App Store for $7, and offers four full episodes from the classic FPS and local multiplayer support over the same WiFi network. I spoke to Carmack regarding the project, his follow-up to "Wolfenstein 3D Classic" on the iPhone.

The game was actually announced several months ago, but certain aspects forced its delay. Said Carmack: "In hindsight I kinda wished I had just rushed it out and been done with it. It would've been six weeks after "Wolfenstein Classic" had been released on there. But it was one of those business things where we're trying to be responsible and schedule it relative to the other product releases...it just took much much longer than I expected."

But the development time was also increased due to the complexity of "DOOM," which has a lot more going on than "Wolfenstein 3D."

"Probably was about 3 times as much total effort went into this as with 'Wolfenstein.' There was just a lot more to do, and including the multiplayer and all that, so it was a bigger project, but it was still something I basically just did all by myself. That was a lot of fun, that was one of the more rewarding aspects of the project. Instead of being in this team of dozens and dozens and dozens of people working on these working on these big projects that have multi-year goal posts, to just go in and cram really hard and blaze something out in a relatively short amount of time.

The controls are particularly innovative for "DOOM Classic." Having spent a fair amount of time with the game, I feel like it's the best solution for an FPS yet seen on the iPhone. But apparently some changes to the controls were made since the release of "Wolfenstein Classic," which has led to some disagreements among the community. Said Carmack, "There's tons and tons of people of people that played lots with ["Wolfenstein Classic"] that it's already tying my hands on how I can choose to try to innovate in control schemes...I should've had an exact compatibility mode, 'Wolf 3D Classic' mode."

The release "DOOM Classic" is hardly the end of iPhone development for id Software. Carmack mentioned that "DOOM 2 RPG" is in the works right now, and there's still an intention to bring the first 3 "Quake" games to the platform.

Carmack is also interested in putting out an iPhone title based on "Rage," id Software's upcoming FPS.

"It'd be some kind of an action/combat/racing sorta game. There's already certainly a lot of good racing games on the iPhone, but I think we could have something with 'Rage''s style that's not necessarily a time-based racer, but more of an action/combat thing. It all depends on coming up with something that works and plays well."

"Eliminate," from "Rolando" iPhone developer ng:moco, is definitely blazing some new ground on the platform, offering up a free-to-play 3D FPS in a market that's over-saturated with simple match-3 puzzle games.

To understand what's so experimental about the game, you have to understand how ng:moco plans on making money on a title that's free. Imagine an RPG where killing foes earns you experience with which you can upgrade your character. But, once you've played for a certain amount of time, you'll cease getting experience. You can still play for fun, but your character will not progress until your time meter fills up again.

That's how "Eliminate" works, but in FPS format. You'll earn cash from enemy kills, but only if your meter has juice in it. After about 3 games it'll be empty and you'll stop getting money for upgrades. That's where the profit model comes in. You can buy batteries for real-world money which will instantly refill your meter, letting you play and progress your character without having to wait for the meter to fill up (which takes about 12 hours).

For one dollar you'll get 20 batteries, but it takes 12 batteries to fill the meter, which means you're getting only about 6 rounds of character progression before you'll need more juice. You can buy bigger packs of batteries (280 for $10 and 975 for $30), but if you're stingy and patient you can play "Eliminate" for about 10 minutes once a day and get your fill. It's almost like turning on "Animal Crossing" to harvest fruit, but with more rocket launchers.

As a game, "Eliminate" is a pretty simple "Unreal Tournament" knock-off, with some character progression thrown into the back end. Its most impressive aspect is the fact that it's extremely playable over 3G (and even better over WiFi), so you really can hop in a multiplayer FPS while you're, say, on a bus.

There's really no reason not to give it a shot, if only to try a cool experiment on what's still a bit of a Wild West platform. Whether the gambit ends of paying of for ng:moco, time will certainly tell.