Many people who consider themselves gamers dislike iPhones or more specifically people who game on iPhones (and then call themselves gamers), but those same people should be thanking them. As much as it pains me to say it, smart phones but more specifically the iPhone have done wonders for the gaming industry. IPhones have introduced a whole new group of people to gaming that is the casual gamers of course. The people who play angry birds and other popular iOS and Android platform games like those produced by Adult Swim aren’t your every day gamer. They don’t necessarily have a console or pimped out PC at home and while many gamers don’t like this new market of little depth gaming, it has done a great deal for the industry as a whole.
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| Angry Birds |
By far the biggest thing it has done is spreading the popularity of gaming, with all these casual gamers we have a larger crowd that can more easily understand what console and PC gamers do making what we do more acceptable. Smart phone gaming has also helped producers in the industry, indie developers who don’t necessarily have the time or money to develop a full length PC or console game but still have the desire to create can make their games for phones. They don’t have to make 40-60 hours games; they can make a simple high replay value game like tower defense games that don’t take years to develop. Outside of helping indie developers it has also opened up opportunities for well established companies to create games for more platforms. One of the more popular transfers from one end of gaming to another is flash games to smart phone games. Several companies do it but the best and probably most successful would be Adult Swim, they’ve been making flash games on their website for years and now they make excellent games for your smart phone. EA is also taking advantage of smart phone gaming by starting to produce more games for the iOS and Android operating systems. With companies taking advantage of (and not in a bad way) this new market, there is more money in it as a whole, more games are being produced which means we have a wider variety to choose from.
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| Robot Unicorn Attack |
For all of this you can probably thank the iPhone because without it developers, gamers, and non-gamers alike would all be missing out on something that is gained from smart phone gaming. With that said the iPhone 5! Well not yet. Apple plans to unveil its iPhone 5 at a show on October 4th. Really it is only rumored but with all the hype I’m positive it is going to happen, if not, I apologize in advance. The big question isn’t whether or not they are going to unveil it, it is actually who is going to reveal it. Is it going to be the new CEO Tim Cook? And if it is, will he wear a turtle neck shirt? Those are the important questions that I look forward to having answered. It is also rumored that the release date for the iPhone 5 is October 15th which is just a short 11 days after its supposed unveiling. The rumor originated from a CEO of a telecommunication company in France but I’ve not heard official comment on the matter yet.
What do I think about the iPhone? I think Futurama got it right, we need the iEye already. It seems like Apple releases a new iPhone every year and every year it still can’t do anything useful (like play flash). I was anti smart phone for a long time; I liked my little indestructible flip phones that were good for calling and literally nothing else. I now use a smart phone (HTC Thunderbolt), and I, despite having consoles and a gaming pc, find myself gaming on it all the time. Picture a 5 year old on a toilet with a big grey Gameboy, that was me a decade and a half ago, now I have my smart phone to do the exact same thing. Rambling about my childhood aside I think this trend of increased visibility and ease of use is good for the industry and the more people introduced to gaming the better.
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