Jeffery, whose executive credits include stints at Sega and LucasArts, will assume the role of chief publishing officer at ngmoco, helming the company's new Plus+ Publishing group. According to the official announcement of ngmoco's new Plus+ endeavors, Plus+ Publishing will provide infrastructure to developers looking to capitalize on the company's publishing system.

That includes the Plus+ Network, which integrates social networking features and cross-promotional options into games. ngmoco touts the Plus+ Network's "persistent profile" letting "players of all skill levels to connect, compete and progress."

ngmoco's lineup of free-to-play and paid titles includes Rolando, Mazefinger, WordFu and the recently released Star Defense.

When Ngmoco founder Neil Young handed over a playable build of LiveFire to me during GDC, he was sure to point out that the game was in the very early stages of development.

Later, when I asked a developer if it was beta, or alpha, he told me it wasn't anything yet. Too early even to be slotted into a specific stage.

The game uses virtual, and invisible, controllers. Players hold the iPhone sideways and glide their left thumb around that side of the screen to move. The right thumb is used to aim or look. Flicking the phone toward you makes the player jump. Double tapping the left side of the screen zooms in and double tapping the right side fires your weapon.

Running around in an empty level, the movements were surprisingly fluid and I was able to hit just about everything I aimed at despite the lack of a targeting reticule. (Something that could be added at a later date.)

Because the game had no targeting reticule, the screen was relatively clutter free, with only the gun taking up screen space.

I was able to check out both the chaingun and rocket launcher, both were problem free and I even managed to try and blast myself into the air with the rocket launcher... I failed.

The only issue I ran into with the game was using the flick movement to jump, which seemed to work only some times and also mad it impossible to see what was going on for a half second or so.

The big test, though, will be when the game is playable against other players. The graphics are rather bland, and weapons not unique, so the only thing that can sell this game at this point is robust multiplayer support. Something it promises to deliver.

Will Wright, Brian Fargo, David Perry, Neil Young, Rob Pardo and Warren Spector gathered together around a table talking deeply about gaming and the things they would do, could do, if only.

Pardo even mentioned that he had spoken with Microsoft about the next Xbox.

As the event wrapped up a GDC staff photographer came in to capture the momentous occasion. She had everyone stand closer together. Asked everyone to smile. Asked Wright to remove his GDC pass. Then asked Young, former EA exec, founder of Ngmoco, if he wouldn't mind tucking in his shirt. She wasn't kidding.

"I didn't know my mother was taking the pictures," Young said, after the laughter died down.

The luminaries this year are Will Wright, Brian Fargo, David Perry, Neil Young, Rob Pardo and Warren Spector. The talk will be chaired by Gary White.

Follow along with the fly-on-the-wall observation of the chat in the live blog.

With 30 million iPhone and iPod Touch users around the world and 25,000 applications available in their online store, Apple's smartphone has suddenly become competition for the likes of gaming giants Nintendo and Sony.

While Sony's Playstation Portable has 50 million users and Nintendo's DS has 100 million, both systems have been on the market for more than four years. It took Apple only eight months to hit 30 million and that's drawn a lot of attention from game developers.

Last year, Neil Young left gaming publisher Electronic Arts after 11 years with the company to start a mobile game publisher that focuses on the iPhone.

Ngmoco has since launched five games, some free, some for sale, on the platform, Young said. As of this month, those games have been installed on about 7 million devices, he said.

"The market is super heated. The pace of adoption is going way faster than the DS," he said. "When I left Electronic Arts there were a good group of people who thought I had lost my mind, now they think I made the right decision.

"This year we are expanding our pipeline, we plan to release 15 games this year."

Most surprising to Young has been the discovery that so many hardcore gamers are drawn to the system.

"iPhone is being adopted as a handheld," he said. "It's different than the PSP and the DS. It terms of capacity, it is more powerful than the DS, and the second generation is as powerful as the PSP in terms of processing."

"It's got a multitouch screen, and can hold all of your media. It's always on, always with you, always connected to the network."

While Young says it would be easy to bring PSP and DS games over to the iPhone doing that would ultimately be a disservice to iPhone owners.

"The iPhone deserves people trying to create games for it in the way that Nintendo tries to create games for the Wii and DS," Young said.

Ngmoco's top selling paid game is Rolando, a quirky puzzle game that has you tilting the iPhone back and forth to move animated blobs through a course while trying to protect them from dangers.

The original game sold for $10 and recently received a handful of extra levels for free. Young said his company plans to release two more iterations of the game over the next year, one in late May or early June and another in November.

The quick turnaround is something that he never could have done with the DS or PSP, both because of development time and because gamers typically don't respond to sequels so quickly. But not so with the iPhone.

"I'm surprised at how quickly people are consuming software and how frequently," he said.

The end result, in this case, will be three games that total about $30 and deliver 150 levels stretched over 50 worlds. That's less expensive and bigger than a game for the DS or PSP, Young points out.

"You are getting way more value, dished out over a year," he said.

And Young says that a recently announced update for the iPhone will make the device an even better gaming platform.

The new update, announced in California earlier this month, would allow developers to sell new content for an existing game through a built-in store. It would also allow players to talk with one another while gaming and supports local multiplayer gaming through Bluetooth. Most importantly, it opens the door to let games notify a person when a friend wants to play.

Both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 have similar services.

"The new iPhone OS 3.0 is a major software release packed with incredible new features and innovations for iPhone customers and developers alike," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. " It will keep us years ahead of the competition,"

While the iPhone can stand on its own as a gaming device, Apple hasn't done much to market it as one. Aside from a few game-themed commercials, the iPhone is still touted as a phone first.

The next obvious step, it seems, would be for Apple to introduce an iPod Touch specifically aimed at gamers.

Well Played is a weekly opinion column about the big news of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Electronic Arts Los Angeles studio head Neil Young recently announced he'd be leaving EA to embark on a new project - we now know what it is he'll be doing. Young's new endeavor, ng: moco, will focus on publishing games for the iPhone, and Kotaku spoke to Young all about his big plans, and reflected on his 11-year career with EA.

And yes, we also asked him what it's like being named Neil Young - and he's heard all your jokes before.

Young joined EA in 1997, where he ran the Origin studio in Austin, Texas - launchpad of Ultima Online. After that, he created and executive-produced Majestic, groundbreaking as it was one of the first PC games to incorporate ARG elements, calling players on the phone and sending them emails.

In 2002, Young helped overlook the Sims birthplace in Maxis, and has been studio head at EALA since 2004.

"Each of those studios has their own sort of unique culture," Young said. "EA has gone through a lot of changes as a company over those 11 years and... Riccitiello [has taken it] from the place it was at to the place it needs to go to. I think that change is probably the only constant in the world, and EA has been through its fair share of it."

So after riding 11 years of change with EA, what achievement is Young proudest of? "Probably the thing I take the most personal satisfaction out of is helping people grow and develop inside the organization, and sort of step up when I moved on to the next adventure," he said.

"In terms of my personal learning, [I got] a great deal of satisfaction working with Maxis, and getting the opportunity to understand how Will Wright worked, and how Maxis thought about developing software. It was really that sort of period at Maxis that changed a lot of my views on what the future of gaming needed to be," Young said.

Part of that vision for gaming's future, said Young, rests on the iPhone as the next-gen mobile gaming platform. "I am going to create a next-gen mobile games publisher, specifically and initially focused on the iPhone," said Young. That company will be called ng: moco ('Next-Gen Mobile Company).

The iPhone, says Young, provides entirely new opportunities to advance mobile gaming. "My sense is that the mobile games business has kind of been stagnant for a while, on one side because of the limitations of the handsets, and on the other side because of the way in which the business is structured as far as the relationship between the publishers and the carriers," he said.

"One of the great things... iPhone is doing, is changing the relationship between the people making games and the people buying them. It's removing that carrier that limits the potential of the business."

And Young is enthusiastic about where things can go from here. "The device itself is, from a performance standpoint, somewhere between a DS and a PSP, but unlike the PSP, it's got touch, the accelerometer, the camera, the microphone... it's location-aware, and from a usage standpoint it's always on, always with you and always connected to the network," he said.

"My sense is, the types of experiences that we're going to be able to build on that device and the devices that follow... are going to be really interesting and blow the doors off the business."

Young has now transitioned the majority of his responsibilities at EA to some of the folks whose professional development he reflected on as one of the high points in his career. Mike Verdu, general manager at EALA, will take over Young's studio head role, while Spore business head Lucy Bradshaw will continue to handle Maxis, reporting directly to group manager Nick Earl. Young also said he'll continue to function as an advisor for the time being.

"The new business is starting now," he aid. "When there are developers out there who think, 'hey, I have an awesome idea for the iPhone and it can only be done on that device', I want them to know they should be thinking about us."

Of course, we had to ask him - does he get a lot of jokes about his name? "Pretty much every day," said Young.

"It's fine; literally somebody makes a Neil Young reference every day, and it's probably funny... for the posters. I also have to say, I'm not sure where you got the photo you used [for me], but I look really pissed in that photo, and I was reading some of the comments and one guy was like, 'dude, that guy looks really pissed,'" Young said.

"I'm actually completely the opposite; I can be pretty intense, but I like to have fun. It's hard to make fun if you don't have fun, and I try to have as much fun as the next person."

"In addition to his creative output, Neil distinguished himself as a team leader," said Brown of his colleague's career, which saw young overseeing titles like Majestic, The Sims 2 and Boom Blox. "In particular, he stepped in to rally the development teams and lead a turnaround at EA Los Angeles."

All of Neil's former teammates are looking forward to see what he accomplishes in his new endeavor, Brown said.

"Neil has all the tools he needs to be a successful entrepreneur: great creative instigator, great communicator, and great leadership skills."

We've contacted Young himself for comment and await reply.

Young was responsible for overseeing titles like Majestic, The Sims 2 and Boom Blox in his various roles at EA.

In announcing the departure to EA employees, Frank Gibeau, President of the EA Games Label, wrote that Young had "decided to leave EA to manage his own company" but did not mention what or where that might be. Westwood vet Louis Castle has been handed EA Blueprint reins and will oversee development of the next Steven Spielberg title, code-named "LMNO."

Longtime Electronic Arts Creator Neil Young Leaves Company [Level Up]

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In part two of my interview with EA LA studio head Neil Young we get into a discussion about narratives in video games and just how close Electronic Arts has come to evoking emotion through a game, the difficulties of developing for a beloved franchise like Command and Conquer and the chances of EA making another Generals game. II'll be posting part three a bit later tonight.

Make sure to check out part one here. —Brian Crecente

The head of Electronic Arts LA studio, Neil Young, was kind enough to take the time to sit down with me at E3 this year to talk about the future of EA and the industry. Forgive my voice, I had pretty much lost it at this point in the show. We uploaded our video interview in three parts. Part one deals with Electronic Arts take on the Wii's unique controller and if it will effect the way they develop games, EA's approach to movie to game adaptation and the developer's work with Steven Spielberg. I'll be posting parts two and three a bit later tonight. —Brian Crecente