What Nintendo and iPhone game developers understand
I love video games. I lived in video arcades as a kid. I grew up on Space Invaders, Tron, Battlezone, Centipede and Temptest. If it was a gaming system, I had it, or had access to it. Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, C64, Intelivision, Coleco, I played them all. My only reason for wanting a computer was to play games. However, something changed. I grew up, had kids, and wasting the little bit of extra time I have playing a game that takes 5 days to complete no longer appealed to me.
This is what Nintendo and iPhone developers understand. Why does the Wii and DS/DSi out sell everyone else? Because their games aren’t designed for gamers. They are designed for real people, who have things in their lives other than gaming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with gamers, more power to them. Yet, there is something really nice about being able to play a game for 10 minutes and be done with it. Why do you think Wii Play, Wii sports and the Wii Party games are so popular? They are social, and each game is only a few minutes long. DS/DSi games are the same way. You can complete a level or even finish a game in a short period of time.
iPhone games are similar, with one unique difference. They can remember exactly were your game play ended. There is no boot up time, no game cartridges or discs. I play probably 45 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes worth of games a day on my iPhone, maybe even more, but it’s never in one sitting. I don’t have time for that. But I do have time for 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there.
What developers for these three systems understand is what the PSP, Playstation and XBox have missed. Most people don’t care about graphics and sounds. I can’t even remember the last time I had the sound on in a game. More importantly, if your game turns off the iPod function on my iPhone, just to hear your shitty game music, I’m probably not going to play it again. When you see a kid in a store or restaurant playing a DS, do they usually have on head phones? No, they have the sound turned off. Nintendo games don’t need sound, even for storylines. The text is shown on the screen, for this very reason. And guess what, it also means they are being forced to read, what a novel idea. Right now, I’m playing Geometry wars pretty much none stop on the DS. I stopped playing it a while back, and picked it up again a couple of weeks ago. That’s right, it’s pretty much Tempest on fucking steroids, line art and flat as hell. But, I can play 4 levels while the girls take a bath, and I’m sitting there with them while they play and splash.
As more big name companies begin to develop for the iPhone, hopefully they will remember why all those $.99 games do so well. They’re short, addictive, and just plain fun.
