6,200 Reasons To Buy iPhone/Touch Games

The iTunes App Store is jam packed with video games! There are 6,200 games in the App Store to take advantage of, with 23% of those games for our puzzle gaming friends with arcade following a distance second place with 13% App Store market share. In that bulk of games, 1,485 are free download games but we’re not sure how many are “lite” versions of pay-for-games in the store, with limited game play. If you too are looking for ways to optimize your phone, see here the plans available at Circles.Life mobile.

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Apple could cut down on that clutter if they let developers publish one game with a demo/shareware release and a full release, perhaps than we would be able to wade through a realistic amount of game titles. Of course, Apple isn’t exactly the most friendly of companies when it comes down to allowing us to share our thoughts and opinions of their closed box products.

Unfortunately for the new game developers, they’ve got a few games to compete against in the App Store space. While great games should rise to the top like cream in your coffee, it’s obvious that 6,200 items can clutter up an otherwise friendly space. iTunes tends to have a very unintuitive interface and isn’t really built for great online game shopping experiences, we’re sure they can exploit many of the great games in this archive of titles if they had a bit of a re-design.

You’ll find plenty of educational games in the 6,200 titles, matching if not exceeding that of the strategy genre.
(Thanks, kotaku)

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Why Doesn’t iTunes Have Game Trials?Why Doesn’t iTunes Have Game Trials?

Nothing is more annoying than going into iTunes to see what video games are available for the iPod Touch and iPhone to find it cluttered with hundreds of duplicate games. Developers seem to find it most useful to release two games instead of one single game: a full version and a “lite” version.

itunesDevelopers know gamers want to try before they buy, so many will create a game they’re hoping to sell, then a limited “lite” version with partial levels or stripped of features. They’re obviously trying to work around the fact that Apple released a half-assed game shopping experience. These pro and lite versions assist in cluttering the shopping space.

iTunes App Store should allow users to trial a game by allowing them to download a neutered version of the game title or using a time-trial like many other downloadable game services. Electronic game downloads are usually non-refundable because you can never give back a product which you can make infinite copies. The solution to getting users to buy into your product is to allow them to try before they buy.

Apple’s obviously enjoying the immense game sales from the application store but they may be able to increase their sales by allowing gamers to see what they’re buying before they walk away empty handed. This would also limit the total products found in the App Store because developers won’t have to post to revisions to their game title to allow gamers to try before they buy them.

There are some obvious downsides, Apple wouldn’t be able to boast the thousands of products in their store because many would be substituted for a real game download system. Okay, that’s really the only download I can think of… any others?

Developers may opt out of a trial system, forcing gamers to buy it before they try it based on the text and screenshots or utilize a time trial or limited featured version.

Thoughts?

Starcraft 2 Part Eins, Zwei and DreiStarcraft 2 Part Eins, Zwei and Drei

Nobody is perfect. When it comes to creating an epic story arc, awesome pre-rendered movies and a fully fleshed campaign Blizzard has done well. Now, Blizzard speaks of Starcraft 2 and the world shuts their mouth and listens to each and every word. What’s the word?

A Trilogy.

We’re not talking about the Lord of The Rings style trilogy, but three games with full stories which all end with the gamer being satisfied at the closure, not cliffhangers.

The three standalone games will be (says GameStooge):

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Gamers are probably thinking, “so, I can play multiplayer with only one race?” No! The campaign is split into three separete games, not the races and multiplayer features. Although, each title is sure to introduce something new to the game engine, Blizzard has said:

“Nothing changes for multiplayer or skirmish mode. All three races are fully implemented from the get go. Each campaign will feel like an epic story – not a cliffhanger into the next one. They will each have separate arcs that have a clear start, middle, end – and you will feel like you’ve really finished *something* at the end of each game. More content than we’d previously planned – many more Movies, Missions, etc.” (games.on.net)

From our perspective, it seems Blizzard is itching to release the multiplayer system to the world sooner than later, considering some countries use Starcraft as a professional league, but they don’t want to rush out fast to market campaigns just to satisfy this multiplayer desire.

Instead, they’re going to take their time, in usual Blizzard style, by releasing the game as they finish it… per races story. This should give us a less watered down storyline or having one or two races with a piss poor storyline while another has a kick ass storyline because it was done first.

End result? Multiplayer gamers will be happy in the end while those that play Starcraft for the story will need to wait for each game to be completed. We know Blizzards release schedule is “when it’s ready” so we can only imagine how long it will take to reach that third game in the trilogy.

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What the heck is a rune? Above your character profile you’ll have six little circles, called runes, these little guys work much like the rogues energy. The three styles of runes are: Blood, Frost and Unholy runes and they’re coordinated with your spells and sword strike abilities much like a paladin or warrior. Each rune “goes dark” when you expend its energy – this limits your access to use the Death Knights abilities much like expending all your rogues energy stops the rogue from using their neat features. However, once its energy is expended, it will grow your runic power a slight bit, “charging” it for later use.

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