[dojoboy]

Of all the games I've got on my iTouch, very few have brought me back consistently. Nanosaur 2 has come pretty close, having played it for a solid hour in one sitting. Puzzle Quest might, if I had not already beaten it on my DS. I do play SlotZ Racer regularly atm for quick plays. The same goes for Solebon card games.

So I'm wondering, is the definition for 'serious gaming' on the iPhone/touch defined differently than for the desktop/console?

[Frigidman]

Serious gaming would be a game I think you play often. That being, like solitaire card games or puzzle games that you can replay adequately.

Any game that has a progression of levels and you 'win' the game at the end, I doubt would be replayable that much at all.

When I buy games for my itouch, I look for something that I can replay during travel on planes or in busses etc. Something to waste time on and whatnot.

[Kaoro]

I'm wondering that myself. All the iPod Touch games I have have kept me occupied for maybe 30 min. I have all but stopped buying the apps after realizing I get insanely sick looking at any screen/reading while in a moving vehicle - the one place I would play them.

Right now the App Store (with respect to games) reminds me of the Wii - except that you pay $30+ for Wii casual crap and ~$5 for iPod games...

[Mr. Selvetarm]

I'm posting from my new itouch right now. In the last two days the only games I've really come back to are Brothers in arms and tetris. Most are simply far too gimmicky. And most of the "really good ones" are ~$10.

[Frigidman]

I do like the steel marble in the wooden maze one. The GOOD one, not the junky 3d hyped up garbage one that runs like snot and has no real phsyics to speak of.

Its fun, and I always use it to 'show off' the motion sensors in the itouch to friends. They get floored at how its like the ball is right there and moving as expected.

[XxtraLarGe]

I don't really think of my iPod Touch as a serious game device, though I've bought a few games for it. It has by and large replaced my DS as my casual gaming device on breaks at work or other times (like dr.'s office, wrestling meets). That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed many of the games I've gotten. I liked Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which kept me occupied for a couple of hours, and also Moto Chaser, but the game I find I play the most is Solebon Solitaire. Spore was technically impressive but boring. At $.99 a pop for most games, I can't really complain though, it's a pretty good deal.

[Greg Gant]

Right now the iPhone/Touch just needs full fledged titles to make it a serious gaming platform ask me. Most of the games are minigames, some are pretty novel. iDracula, while falling under novel and minigame, does show proof of concept that a full Diablo clone would be feasible and more than just playable.

What needs to happen is a $15+ game really needs to be successful to encourage more big games. Tiger Woods really could be the first full fledged game that offers equal experience to the other platforms if they don't cut corners and offer plenty of courses, unlockables, create-a-player and online mode. Simply, I don't know if there's a lot of room as of the moment for anything in the appstore micro economy unless Apple takes rumored steps to help promote more expensive titles. If Apple does, then there'll be room for inexpensive games and larger studios as I imagine as people get tired with shovelware.

[The Liberator]

…And people are getting tired with shovelware, at least down under. There is proof, well, at least that is how I read the article.

Also, each time I look at an iPhone/iPod Touch article on here, I keep thinking of this.

Liberator.

P.S. It might not be that people are getting tired with shovelware, but it does at least seem that if Apple support the bigger games, then people will buy them at keep playing them for more than just a few days.

[Greg Gant]

The free apps that suck, I delete. I think a lot of people just enjoy collecting Apps for the sake of having.

THere's a few apps like Slotz Racer that I bought just didn't play again because I found it boring and a few games like 7 Cities and Field Runners where I played heavily for a few days until I beat them and without much reply value, I haven't bothered playing much afterwards but that'd be the same of any game. A $4 game probably shouldn't offer the entertainment value of a $60 game on the Xbox 360 and I think most of us realize that. So I get about 5 hours of entertainment from a $5 purchase. Seems fair.

It surprises me but I think a bulk of people buy without researching. Before I plunked $25 on the VNC app which I only every so often (mostly to reset Simplify Media on my Mac Pro) I made sure I was buying the best VNC app. Like most people, I became app crazy when I got the iPhone but I still use FaceBook (more than I care to admit), Last.fm, Pandora, ABC news, Mobile News (AP), USA Today, Urbanspoon, Now Playing etc.

I'm probably out of the norm however as I've paid more in non game Apps having bought a Jaadu VNC ($25), Simplify Media, Beatmaker ($20), Brushes, and one or two other non-game apps.



If Civ4 comes out for the iPhone, that'll be the end of my productity.....

[The Liberator]

Greg Gant, on February 26th 2009, 06:58 AM, said:

If Civ4 comes out for the iPhone, that'll be the end of my productity.....

Ha ha ha.

It does sound quite amazing that people spend so much money on apps that will not be used after a few hours, maybe even after a few days.

Liberator.

[Greg Gant]

I've been on a streak of buying about three games a week, it sounds crazy until you realize all my gaming purchases for the iPhone still haven't equated the cost of a singular Xbox 360 game and I've bought about 17 games. I haven't bought any other games in months and I play my iPhone a bit because of my job as stashing a phone to look productive when someone walks into my office is pretty easy. Just leave whatever you're working on, on the screen and set iPhone face down. A bunch of the early purchases were because I had an iPhone.

For iPhone games, I have a lot less expectation out of the entertainment value to be had out of a $5 game let alone a $1 game. I don't buy a lot of games but like at $60, I played Mass Effect, a game I very much liked, and it took 28 hours of gameplay to beat. That's a long game for me, and I think that was reasonable. If you tally up the hours that a $3 purchase of Textropolis has brought me as I've been addicted to it, its a better deal. Of course you don't get the big gaming experience but hey, you get what you pay for.

[Eric5h5]

Greg Gant, on March 5th 2009, 04:19 AM, said:

I haven't bought any other games in months and I play my iPhone a bit because of my job as stashing a phone to look productive when someone walks into my office is pretty easy.

I'm telling your boss! Will nobody think of the economy?!

--Eric