Kotaku: iPhone games just aren’t any fun. Or: Why can’t gaming be like it used to be? *SOB*
Kotaku’s Mike Fahey has decided to copy and paste a commenter’s whine-fest and has entitled it:
iPhone Games Just Aren’t Any Fun
Maybe not, but this teardown is sure going to be.
I can’t count how many demos or $1 games I’ve bought since I got an iPod Touch back in 2008. Every day I was looking for new games to try out, be it on the poorly-organized App Store charts or on mobile gaming-dedicated websites. If it was free or cheap and looked half-way decent, I’d add it to my Touch and keep it around for a rainy day, or a slow day at work.
I downloaded lots of games, but only free or cheap ones, and, as everyone knows, every other system’s best games are the ones that are free or cheap!
Puzzle games, adventure games, RPG’s, Angry Birds. They all provided minutes of fun. And then I’d delete them.
I have the attention span of a — SQUIRREL!
Download a demo. Play it for a life/round/minute. Delete.
Also, I have zero staying power, because I’m not invested in the games. Tsk, eh?
Download a $1 game. Get the point. Delete. Actually have some increment of fun playing something. Never come back to it again. Delete.
Strangely, I never thought that maybe I was downloading the wrong games.
I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m sick of it. These ‘experiences,’
I like scare-quotes. They enable me to belittle iOS games really easily.
many based off similar ‘experiences’ from other companies selling similar Apps, are lifeless. Sure, Tiny Wings is beautiful to look at, but after getting to level 6 and having the sun set, I stop caring.
Also, those classic, highly focussed arcade games, such as Robotron, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Defender and Missile Command? All rubbish.
Sonic the Hedgehog? Sorry, touch-screen controls for platformers can disappear along with the US economy. Hero of Sparta made me both stop caring AND curse the controls at the same time.
For some reason, I thought games specifically designed for other systems would work well on the touchscreen. In other news, my microwave is rubbish for frying eggs.
To be blunt, iPhone games aren’t fun.
To be blunt, I AM TEH HARDCORE GAMER!
When I look at my iPod Touch as a gaming device, I throw up in my mouth a little bit. It’s not a gaming device.
I’m slightly obsessed about the ‘hardcore gamer’ thing. And a little weird.
It’s a music player.
If we ignore every other app than ‘iPod’ and ‘Spotify’.
If it was an iPhone, it would be a music player and a phone.
If we ignore every other app than ‘iPod’ and ‘Spotify’ and ‘Phone’.
I have used it for games, or rather, tried to use it for games, for over three years now, and not once have I experienced my ‘Tetris Moment’ (Gameboy) or my ‘Lumines Moment’ (PSP) or my ‘Advance Wars Moment’ (GB Advance). That moment when all that the system is and can be is absorbed into your brain. It’s a moment of brilliance which is rare, and after three years of trying to find it amidst the mass of pointless, moronic, copycat, or just plain impossible-to-control ‘games’ on the iPhone platform, I’m done looking for it.
There are no good games for the iPhone at all.
No more wasted time trying to find a diamond in the rough.
Every other system has 100 per cent great games. Phew!
It’s beyond a needle in a haystack now. The App Store is a wasteland that I no longer feel the need to trudge through. There’s so many things wrong with it that the occasional mildly-amusing cheap game that I may be missing won’t matter.
I hate the future.
I’m going to make a prediction: games on the App Store will suffer their own market collapse at some point in the next five years.
PAGING JOHN GRUBER AND HIS CLAIM-CHOWDER MACHINE! PAGING JOHN GRUBER AND HIS CLAIM-CHOWDER MACHINE!
Be it through lack of innovation or consumer indifference, the store will cease to be the money-printer it is right now.
PAGING JOHN GRUBER AND HIS CLAIM-CHOWDER MACHINE! PAGING JOHN GRUBER AND HIS CLAIM-CHOWDER MACHINE!
How many times can people pay $1 for a game they’ve already downloaded fifty times under a different title?
No other games company and system ever recycles IP.
How many in-game lives must be lost to horrible touch-controls that can only be rectified by actual buttons?
I don’t understand multitouch, nor how to avoid games with rubbish virtual controls.
How many minutes must be wasted downloading and installing the next mini-game, only to delete it minutes later because you’ve seen all there is to see?
The Civilisation series is rubbish—there’s just this guy, standing on a field, surrounded by inky blackness. I DELETED IT RIGHT AWAY.
My time is more valuable than that.
Yet not valuable enough that I can’t spend some time writing a poorly thought-out rant about iOS gaming.
I’m not against indie games, or even spirited re-imaginations of existing games
Unless they’re on the iPhone.
but I am against the devaluation of games as fun.
Because if you ignore the thousands of fun iOS games with plenty of depth, there are no fun iOS games with plenty of depth.
The iPhone is a great device (when people don’t drive with it), and kudos to Apple for innovating in a space that had become stagnant with boring cell handsets, but games shall no longer grace my iPod Touch, or my iPhone if I ever get one.
I’m a gamer. I play real games. On real systems.
REAL MEN USE BUTTONS! AND PLASTIC CARTRIDGES! AND PAY OVER THE ODDS FOR BOTH!
He does touch on the essence of a point in his article:
There are so many iOS games that you often don’t give them more than 30 seconds to a minute of your attention before you judge them.
I know I have been guilty of dismissing some games after this amount of time. It’s a real challenge for a game to hook players before this judgement occurs.
I agree that his article isn’t 100 per cent brainless, and there is an issue with app discoverability. But to dismiss the entire platform as worthless and suggest iOS games aren’t fun en masse is heading rapidly towards blithering idiot territory.
I love it when you are being sarcastic you know…
While I don’t share the exact same viewpoint, I don’t think of the iPhone (and any other touch-screen device, be it iPad, Android phone, Android tablet, Windows Phone, etc) to be a ‘proper’ gaming platform. To me, it’s a device which happens to play games as a bonus.
The iPhone’s success is largely down to the fact that it’s always in your pocket, and is therefore always at hand for portable entertainment. The low price of iPhone games also helps.
Of course, only a fool would dismiss a platform which has games such as Angry Birds, Canabalt, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc, but I think it’s valid to make a distinction between the iPhone and ‘proper’ games consoles.
However, the real issue here is that the general public doesn’t make that distinction, and that’s why Nintendo and Sony are shitting themselves right now. For most casual gamers, the lack of physical controls is a blessing, not a curse – see the dismal commercial performance of the Xperia Play for proof.
“it’s valid to make a distinction between the iPhone and ‘proper’ games consoles.”
Why? Remember the PSP was touted as a multimedia device (music, video, gaming, internet), and it was only Sony’s greed re: UMDs and ecosystem issues that really screwed that up.
I think there’s certainly a difference between a device that plays games and a dedicated games console, but I’d argue both can be ‘proper’ games systems.
iPhone and iPad are just as proper gaming platforms as anything else. The key games for the platform will be different from other platforms – because direct touch control is so essential to connecting with the player.
Good games will continue to provide deep and interesting experiences on all platforms.
Will you contribute your teardown for Kotaku’s next article? Saves them the bother of writing anything and lifts their average standards a notch.
I agree with SImeon. I’d add that if the iOS platform wasn’t incredibly successful and profitable, it wouldn’t be such a common target for all this criticism. I remember snide remarks towards the PlayStation for having a childish-sounding name, and most of us will remember the Nintendo DS being dismissed as not being hardcore enough.
@Nitpicker: Quite. The DS was, said the critics, a toy and a joke, with ‘pointless’ touchscreen controls and so on. Fairly rapidly, I considered it the best thing to happen to gaming since, at the very least, the Amiga. Only Nintendo’s usual lack of interest and churn gaming dampened my enthusiasm in the platform, which was then obliterated when something more interesting came along (my iPhone and the App Store).
Ironic, really, that Nintendo fan-boys tend to attack me with accusations that iOS is for ‘casual’ gaming, whereas the DS/3DS is for ‘hardcore’ gamers. The platform’s defenders are akin to its attackers a few years back. And it’s not like I hate Nintendo. First, I have a pile of Nintendo consoles; secondly, I *want* the company to succeed. I always considered it the closest thing to Apple in gaming—before Apple showed up itself.
My main objection to the iOS devices as a gaming platform is that they also let me read my books, and it is a rare game that has the pulling power of a good book. But I have dozens of really top quality games (casual and otherwise) on the platform that do get hours of play over time. My DS and PSP remain on the shelf.
About the only games I miss are Everybody’s Golf, Disgaea and Pokemon (and Final Fantasy Tactics, due on iPad soon). Everybody’s Golf is an interesting case study. The PSP versions were nigh-on perfect handheld golf games, with good controls, courses and unlockables. Gameloft have tried to clone it on iOS but fail to capture the essence (like most of their games, they are competent but lack soul). Yet numerous independent developers have put some superb iOS titles out, dripping with character and polish, while the DS in particular has nothing inspiring to speak of.
Isn’t this the same symptom as people downloading loads of pirated ROMs and not being interested in playing any of them? It’s not that the games are bad but does a wide choice and little personal investment/interest lead to just disregarding a game all together.
Also interesting that the good games you pointed out cost $2+. I’m not saying that high price equals good game, just that the “gamey” games the guy desires costs more than he was willing to pay. I’m not quite sure what the point of this last paragraph is, erm — SQUIRREL!
@CTD: Although I see what you mean, I actually like the range of iOS devices. If I get fed up gaming, I can do all sorts of other things (which, in my case, mostly revolves around NanoStudio). FFT is reportedly about the least work they could have possibly done to get the game on to iOS, but it apparently plays OK. My missing game: Rhythm Tengoku. I’d love the original on the iPad.
@Bluecup: I agree—as I said in the post—that investment (or a lack thereof) is a problem, and, yes, you’re right that it’s a bit like someone downloading 500 DS ROMs and arguing that they are _all_ rubbish. Their loss. Interesting that all the games I linked to were over tier-one—I didn’t even check. Then again, there are plenty of decent tier-one games, too, such as the furiously addictive Bit Pilot.
Heh – my point (badly made) was that although there are good games, i don’t get to play them as often as I could because I find myself reading books instead. I am not sure about FFT either, it annoys me that it appears to be a lazy port, but playable. Grrr.
I wonder if Disgaea will make it to iOS in any form?
As for Rhythm Tengoku, I am appallingly bad at that type of game. Groove Coaster seems to be getting good press at the moment. Have you tried that?
FFT: my advice would be to not bother unless you love it so much you can’t do without it on iOS. It strikes me that if you’ve already played it to death, you won’t get any value out of one of the most expensive and laziest iOS games around.
Groove Coaster: it’s nice, but I’m not yet understanding the OMG 10/10!!! reviews splattered all over the internet. Coming across as a solid 3/5 for me right now.
“If it was an iPhone, it would be a music player and a phone.”..
well it’s a better gaming device, than a phone, because tbh, i don’t think it such a good phone (in the trad. sense of the word, i like my SEk800i better for that)
If “the best camera is the one you have on you,” wouldn’t the best gaming system also be the one you always have on you?
If Nintendo created a phone with games that was as successful as the iPhone is right now, chances are he would be praising Nintendo to the heavens.
The fact that another company has worked it’s way into the gaming industry without ever really going after it until realising it’s bigger than they expected (Game Center) is probably what he is upset about.
I really don’t understand why he thinks ‘real’ games are games made for something that was created primarily as a gaming device. It doesn’t make any sense.